Gender differences in the prosody of German questions

Based on enacted dialogues of 60 native speakers, the present study shows that males and females differ in their prosodic realization of lexically and syntactically marked questions in German. Frequency counts of final rises and falls, as well as measurements of mean F0, speaking rate, and intensity levels suggest that males rather than females are more polite, open, and amenable – i.e. overall more hearer oriented – when asking questions. This applies most clearly to syntactically marked questions, i.e. when male speakers ask their dialogue partner to make decisions or confirm pieces of information. Female speakers show signs of hearer orientation in whquestions, i.e. when it comes to requesting explanations or justifications from the dialogue partner.