Also known as “creaky voice,” vocal fry refers to the low, guttural vibrations that sometimes occur in speech, often appearing at the end of sentences. (Here’s an example.) It’s the lowest of three so-called vocal registers, the other two being falsetto at the high end, and modal, which is the normal speaking register. As one linguist put it, vocal fry has been commonly identified in speech “since forever” (in some languages, it’s a legitimate part of the phonemic system), but now some studies hint that it’s particularly popular among young American women of a certain type.
Singers like Britney Spears slip into vocal fry when hitting low notes or for sultry effect, noted Science NOW’s Marissa Fessenden, characterizing the creak as a “language fad.” Kim Kardashian is guilty of it. So is Zooey Deschanel. And a small new study in the Journal of Voice suggests that it may be common in young female college students, or at least the ones the researchers studied. Read Here
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