The sound of gender: inferring the gender of names in a foreign language

Abstract

Much research on sound symbolism has shown that some aspects of word meaning are linked to phonology. For instance, people tend perceive a name as a female one if it is longer, has stress on a later syllable, or ends with a vowel rather than a consonant. It is yet unclear whether people also use sound-symbolic cues to infer name gender from phonology in a language they do not speak. In three experiments, native speakers of English and German listened to real personal names in Min, a south China language that our participants had not been exposed to, and rated to what extent a name sounded male/female. Compared to real female names, real male names were rated more male-sounding by both English and German speakers in a consistent way. Further exploratory analysis showed that male names in Min, compared to female names, are more likely to have consonant-ending syllables and English- and German-speaking participants happened to make use of this sound-symbolic cue in gender judgement. These results show that people are able to make use of sound-symbolic cues to infer the gender of personal names even in a language they do not speak.

Appendix

Real male and female names used in the experiments. The Romanised spelling is based on the Chinese Pinyin. As Min has voiced and voiceless consonant and a voiceless consonant can be either aspirated or unaspirated, we use lower a case letter to represent an unaspirated voiceless consonant, a lower case letter with a superscript h to represent an aspirated voiceless consonant and an upper case letter to represent a voiced consonant. For example, a /b/ represents an unaspirated voiceless bilabial (in line with Pinyin), a /B/ represents a voiced bilabial, and a /p/ represents an aspirated voiceless bilabial.

Chinese	Gender	Syllable1	Syllable2
碧霞	Female	pek	hia
赛慧	Female	sai	hui
丽梅	Female	li	Bue
佩莉	Female	pue	li
绮虹	Female	yi	hong
佳钰	Female	gia	Gek
晓佳	Female	hiao	gia
佳余	Female	gia	yi
晓爱	Female	hiao	aiŋ
惠婷	Female	hui	teng
佳琳	Female	gia	lim
少静	Female	siao	jeŋ
少云	Female	siao	hun
舒婷	Female	su	teng
小丽	Female	sio	li
晓婷	Female	hiao	teng
晓英	Female	hiao	eng
晓鋆	Female	hiao	hun
雪玲	Female	sek	leng
映婷	Female	yaŋ	teng
晓雯	Female	hiao	mun
可莉	Female	ko	li
梦真	Female	mang	jing
淑珍	Female	siok	ding
玉婷	Female	Gek	teng
志慧	Female	ji	hui
辉勤	Female	hui	king
丽娣	Female	li	di
美娟	Female	miŋ	giang
少晴	Female	siao	jeŋ
淑华	Female	siok	hua
淑敏	Female	siok	miang
少明	Male	siao	meng
钟松	Male	jeng	siong
槟浩	Male	eng	hao
国申	Male	gok	seng
建锋	Male	giang	hong
剑招	Male	giam	jiao
友智	Male	yiu	di
仕钊	Male	su	jiao
择幸	Male	jek	heng
伟源	Male	wi	Guang
柏煌	Male	bek	huang
维升	Male	Zui	seng
良兴	Male	liang	heng
锰秋	Male	mang	qiu
启明	Male	kei	meng
伟宏	Male	wi	keng
裕泽	Male	Zu	jek
泽贤	Male	jek	hiang
资森	Male	zu	som
泽豪	Male	jek	hao
勇锋	Male	yong	hong
冠合	Male	guang	he
重期	Male	diong	ki
泽隆	Male	jek	long
坚泉	Male	giang	juag
钦发	Male	kim	huak
宗岳	Male	zong	Gak
景祥	Male	gim	hiang
灿林	Male	cang	lim
志伟	Male	ji	wi
杭滨	Male	hang	beng
林桥	Male	lim	giao