Acoustic Analysis of Fundamental Frequency in Male and Female Turkish/Farsi Bilinguals

The present article investigates whether mean F0 of Turkish/Farsi male and female bilingual in each language is different and whether any difference can be found according to the gender parameter. To this end, mean F0 of eleven adult Turkish/Farsi bilinguals, six females and 5 males, were examined from samples of connected speech in each language. Mean F0 of each speaker is compared in each language. The results indicate that Turkish/Farsi bilinguals have significantly different mean F0 in each language. While male bilinguals consistently have a higher mean F0 in Turkish than in Farsi, half of female bilinguals have a higher mean F0 in Turkish than in Farsi and the rest have a higher mean F0 in Farsi than in Turkish. The differences between male and female bilinguals has been explained according to two factors: First, as von Heusinger (1999) noticed the pitch level may rise according to the level of excitement: the higher the pitch, the more the excitement; and second, according to Modarresi(1387), female speakers are more inclined toward prestigious variety/language. Regarding these two factors, it seems that since male Turkish/Farsi bilinguals are more inclined toward nonstandard variety/language -for it is less prestigious comparing to standard variety/language- they feel more excited in non-standard variety/language and therefore have a higher mean F0 in Turkish than in Farsi. But, female Turkish/ Farsi bilinguals are more inclined toward standard variety/ language, so half of them have a higher mean F0 in Farsi, as a more prestigious language, than in Turkish. Besides, no correlation between age and education on the one hand and a higher mean F0 in one language on the other hand has been observed.