Episode 80 - Matthew Hunt on voice pitch

Episode 80 - Matthew Hunt on voice pitch

From Lexis by lexispodcast

February 12, 2026 · 46 min

About this episode

In this episode, Dan and Ben interview Dr Matthew Hunt about the significance of voice pitch in sociolinguistics and its implications in various contexts.

Welcome to episode 80 of Lexis in which Dan and guest interviewer Ben talk to Dr Matthew Hunt, Lecturer of Sociolinguistics, University of Southampton about voice pitch, including: What it is and how we measure it What it ‘means’, including its ‘social meaning potential’ The judgements that we make about pitch and why these matter Gendered perceptions of pitch His work on domestic violence cases and the role of pitch in perceptions of ‘victimhood’ Gender and football commentaries Advice to A Level students on exploring pitch and its role ⚠️ Content warning ⚠️ We discuss domestic violence and abuse in broad terms in part of this episode. Journal of Sociolinguistics paper on the effect of pitch variation on perceptions of domestic abuse victims: https://doi.org/10.1111/josl.12723 The second paper, ‘Gender Penalty? Linguistic Discrimination and Perceptions of Female Football Commentators’ is with Gender & Language and currently in press. We will update the link once it is published. Matthew’s website: https://matthewhuntlinguistics.home.blog/ Matthew’s University of Southampton page: https://www.southampton.ac.uk/people/626sz2/doctor-matthew-hunt Lexis is on Bluesky…

People in this episode

Host: Dan Clayton

Guests: Ben, Dr Matthew Hunt

Topics covered

  • voice pitch
  • sociolinguistics
  • gender perceptions
  • domestic violence
  • football commentaries
  • A Level advice

Keywords

  • voice pitch
  • sociolinguistics
  • gendered perceptions
  • domestic violence
  • football commentary
  • A Level students
  • social meaning

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: University of Southampton, Journal of Sociolinguistics, Gender & Language, Lexis

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