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08-18-2010, 10:44 PM
OK, I don't know if it's been said or not, but in my experience the high pitched voice is directly linked to the level of politeness.
The higher the pitch, the more polite. Incidentally, this is also quite true for males. Although males aren't expected to go as high as women, which is a gender role thing as much as a physiological thing I'm sure. At any rate, if you go shopping in Japan, you will notice that the clerks will use a higher pitched voice than your Japanese friends (who you may be with when you're shopping). If you are in the office, you might notice someone picking up the phone raising the pitch of their voice like a whole fifth out of nowhere. I think it's just another layer of showing status. My wife, who sells makeup, said that to her using a high pitch is to basically brighten things up. Using a low pitched voice would be too dark, and might hurt sales (haha). She also said, which I'm suprised she was aware of, that when talking to customers it is common practice to raise the pitch of the end of your sentence even higher. I've raid about it in books... but I apologize as I don't quite remember which one I've raid it in. EDIT: my explination is to explain a high pitched voice in everyday speech. I'm not trying to explain why women on video game shows or anime speak with such a high pitched voice. In the comments of that Famitsu video, the one and only comment basically says "wow what a high voice". This would be a guess, but I imagine that they would use a high voice on shows like that to "brighten" them up, similar to what my wife was saying. 
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08-18-2010, 11:15 PM
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Oh, and you think her voice is the same pitch as this: YouTube - The Late Show With David Letterman - Paris Hilton Interview I asked two other people here: they disagree with you, as do I. And honestly, it really does seem like you're trying to argue that this phenomenon does not exist, or at least is exactly the same in the US. Every time I point out someone, you tell me someone in the US who does this, too. But it is absolutely not the case, and I say this as someone who has lived in Japan and the US, that this raising of the voice (or some sort of vocal calisthenics I don't have jargon for) is as widespread in the US. Maybe I'll stop using the word "pitch" here to end confusion. There is some additional pitch/nasal/something quality to these TV personalities' voices in Japan. I don't know a proper linguistic term for it, but it's there. When I try to imitate it, I think my soft palette raises up, my vocal cords tighten, I take on more of a head voice than chest voice, and my tongue lowers abnormally in my mouth. But this is just a guess, since I'm in a library and can't exactly attempt to imitate it right now. Quote:
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What are your qualifications? Are you a native speaker? Live in Japan for a while? I think there's some miscommunication going on here, because everyone else seems to be talking about the same thing as I, while you keep talking about something else. I am likely not adequately explaining the issue in a way that everyone can understand it.
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08-18-2010, 11:19 PM
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And I'm not talking about anime girls, so don't worry about that. Basically, I'm talking about the widespread phenomenon of タレント doing some weird thing with their voices. Maybe "pitch" is not the right word, but there's some pitch/nasal/something change that happens, and a lot more women do it on TV in Japan than in the US.
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08-19-2010, 12:17 AM
Here is my answer. I`ve lived in Japan for over 10 years, and went to an all girls high school here. Whether that is good enough for you, I have no idea.
I think that in order to answer this, you have to look at not just higher pitches but also lower. Let`s say we have 3 general pitches - normal, low, and high. Normal is neutral - the natural voice pitch. It carries no "meaning". People COULD use their normal pitch... However - Low is a "private" and often looked at as "seductive" voice. High is happy and energetic. Better to err on the side of caution and sound more happy and energetic than seductive, right? So the tone goes up. This is true for both women and men, but women are more critical of the lower tone. Among Japanese women, the higher pitch is a demonstration of innocence. You won`t see anyone actually saying that the pitch is representing that, but if you ask what a lower pitch voice in a woman means they will have no trouble telling you that it sounds "naughty" in a sexual way, or like a seductress. The thing is, no one thinks consciously about this. It isn`t as if girls go around thinking "I need to sound innocent!". It`s more that girls are supposed to be innocent - no one wants to seem the opposite - so it becomes a natural part of life. The raised pitch is normal - a natural or lowered pitch is NOT. Speaking in a high pitch to someone`s boyfriend or husband is normal - but if you were to drop your voice it becomes "private". Sort of a way of letting down your guard. With men, the lower voice is usually looked at as "sexy" - which doesn`t carry the negative connotations of "seductive". But still, in polite situations and the like it is better to err on the "happy" side, so men will raise their pitch. A lot of entertainers will overdo it because of the connotations of "happy" and "energetic" that come with a higher pitched voice. Pitch naturally rises when you are excited - as an entertainer it`s better to sound like you`re excited about what you`re doing than not.
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08-19-2010, 01:13 AM
I think Nyororin's explanation is good. It seems to match up with the gyst of what my wife was talking about. And actually, talking about 3 levels of pitch is something I think I've read about before. I never heard of the lower pitched voice being "seductive/sexy" for women, but thinking back on experience that sounds quite right. I've noticed that when I see women at a bar/izakaya/restaurant for like a girls night out, they always seem to have a lower pitched voice than usual (that's not to say it's like purposefully or uncomfortably low). So what Nyororin said about it being a sign of having let your guard down, that also seems right.
As far as "タレント" go, I don't watch TV too much so I really can't say. It's not something I'm completely unaware of, but it's not something I'm familiar enough with to talk about. I still think that there is a level of "politeness" about it, though... although that might be harder to explain and justify. In America, I'm sure it exists just like it does in Japan. It's just not on a comparable level in my opinion. To write it off entirely might be a mistake because there may very well be similar things about them although I haven't really thought about it before.
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08-19-2010, 03:19 AM
KyleGoets,
There are different factors to your question. I'll talk about sociological factors if need be, but first let's get this "pitch thing" straight. And oh, I'm a native Japanese speaker, born and bred in greater Tokyo area. Don't know if that qualifies me for anything though. I used the word "pitch" literally. The frequency with which the air vibrates. And while I don't deny ゆう sounds higher, the pitch of her voice is actually lower than Paris Hilton's, at least in these 2 videos. In the first 15 seconds of the ゆう's interview, the highest note, に in ２食, is a tone called B2, and the lowest point, く in ２食 is B1, both of them can easily be pronounced by any male. Paris is about 3 piano keys higher, for example "good" and "thank you" are around F#3 at the highest point and F#2 at the lower part. F#3 is kind of high for a guy. The reason ゆう "sounds" higher is because the texture of her voice is more falsetto, and Paris' more hardy. This is due to the nature of both languages. In Japanese, you need to constantly and continuously pronounce voiced phonemes, and your vocal cords aren't contracting very hard, resulting in clearer, but weaker voice. In English, you need to pronounce the stressed vowel, and only that vowel, very hard and clear, and this gives you a bit of "growl" to your voice, kind of like a rock singer. It also goes really low before a voiced sound dies out for a fraction of time, making it sound deeper. So first of all, Japanese girls "sound" higher if they speak at the same pitch as English speakers do. And secondly, Japanese is a pitch accented language, which means you can't arbitrary change the pitch like you can in English. American people actually do raise their pitch if they are, say, talking to a customer or being excited. But they only do so at the stressed vowel. Like if you say "Good morning", it's either "Goo" is high and the rest is low, or "mor" is high and the rest is low. But in Japanese, if you want to raise the pitch of "おはようございます" it HAS TO go up at "は" and it HAS TO stay at that exact pitch until you finish saying す. Try this yourself and say "Good morning!" cheerfully as if you are talking to a customer, and try saying "おはようございます" using the same lowest and highest pitch. It will sound strange in Japanese, and it'll be kind of like shouting. So you tend to rise the pitch of the whole sentence a bit in Japanese instead of going very high at the stressed vowel like you do in English. You are going higher in both languages but in different ways. Now, I'm not saying there isn't any social factors or gender factors or whatever, there are. But you and your friends perceive what is physically lower frequency voice as "high voice", so I just thought this is something you want to take note. And thank you Nyororin for divulging the girls' secret  That definitely is an important insight.
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08-19-2010, 03:38 AM
I think it should be noted that intonation varies depending on the region in Japan, but either way the intonation of words is pretty solid (as in extremely important for words and phrases to be understood). English is very much the same way though (with emphasis on stress as well as pitch).
Cranks, you make a good point. The tonal quality of the voice is a huge part of what we're talking about. The pitch definitely changes, but so does the quality of the voice. People are often fooled by this phenomenon. There are many types of singing voices and colors that can be added. You might've heard the terms, head, mixed, falsetto, chest, etc - voice. That's what we're talking about. Listen to someone like Michael Jackson. It's without a doubt that he was able to hit really high notes, but even when he hit notes that were low he had a very feminine and light quality to his voice. This is because he doesn't usually use his chest voice. He's using a lot of his nasal cavity for resonance and mixing his head and falsetto voice (from what I can tell anyways). Now contrast that with someone like Michael McDonald. They have the same first name, but they have completely different singing voices. When Michael McDonald sings lead, he has a very dark quality to his voice, even when he hits the high notes. This makes his singing voice sound lower than it is. I'm sure the beard helps, too. At any rate, if you hear him sing background vocals on Steely Dan records or Donald Fagen solo works, you will notice that he sometimes doesn't always have that dark quality. Particularly if you listen to the song Peg by Steely Dan, you will hear Michael McDonald hitting notes that women would struggle with... and the quality of his voice is distinctly him, but not quite his usual dark tone. He would probably be like a Baritone based on his voice quality alone... since he hits those high notes he's probably more like a Baritenor or somet hyrbrid thing like that. As a side note, I grew up basically tone deaf. I really started liking music, as in wanting to get involved in it, in my later days of high school... taking singing lessons during college was a revelation to my singing/pitch recognition as much as it was to my Japanese learning. For anyone trying to learn how to speak a second language or improve their speaking in their mother language, definitely consider joining a chorus or taking singing lessons.
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08-19-2010, 10:20 PM
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The elevation of the pitch happens in English too, I don't see many English speakers on TV who speak only with low voice, except may be Larry King :P Most of the people employ high voice here and there, but it immediately goes right back down so they don't sound like they are speaking with high voice. In Japanese though, even a lot of men do sound like they are speaking with high voice like these people. YouTube - ジャパネットたかた 夢のコラボ映像 二代目はこの人 しかいない！！ YouTube - 今田東野ナイナイの芸能界ダメならぬがねば!![1994] Now, there definitely some girls who want to look Kawaii too, but I also hear stories about girls who deliberately talk lower so they don't sound like they are affecting high voice. Anime voice is generally not an attraction even in Japan. アニメ声 悩み 女 - Google Search So, why do Japanese girls affect high voice? Probably the same reason American people speak more dynamically when they are on TV or in a formal setting. But the tonal quality of their voice makes it sound higher, and also the pitch accent nature of Japanese language dictates higher pitch to be held longer than English. Quote:
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08-20-2010, 07:47 PM
Much of what has been explained here is something I seemed to have understood instinctively, but it was not until the mention of singing "voices" or methods that another couple of aspects to this occurred to me.
When Japanese women speak they are not only raising the pitch, they very carefully controlling the force of their speech, or projection. They strive for softness even more than pitch modulation from what I have encountered (mostly formal exchanges). But a by product of pitch modulation is that same variance of force. One's loudness increases naturally as the pitch is lowered. I can't explain it, but since I sang soprano, alto and even baritone in college choir I had to fight that tendency. When you soften your projection, the tendency is for the range of pitch to rise, so it makes sense that native speakers of Japanese tend to have higher pitched speech. The other part was a memory that the discussion of higher pitch in speech is conveying innocence tirggered. Everyone is very aware that the male vocal register drops at puberty. So do female voices sometimes. When it does, it is usually less pronounced, but compare the normal voice of a 8 yr old girl with that of maybe an older sister of about 16. The range gap is often significant. I think an unconcious awareness of this may contribute to the perception of a higher voice being more innocent.  Only an open mind and open heart can be filled with life. ********************* Find your voice; silence will not protect you.
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