‘Aegyo’: how adults make their voices sound more childlike

"Aegyo": How adults make their voices sound more childlike Keystone-SDA

Anyone who wants to appear especially cute apparently also makes their voice sound smaller. A new study involving the University of Zurich shows how adults alter their voices when using aegyo, a speaking style that is widespread in South Korea.

Aegyo refers to a deliberately childlike, playful way of speaking that adults use, particularly in romantic situations, to come across as cuter and more endearing. K-pop stars, too, frequently adopt this style of speech at the request of their fans.

But what actually makes a voice “cute”? Phonetician Volker Dellwo from the University of Zurich and Ji-eun Kim from Duksung Women’s University in South Korea have investigated this question. “I’m fundamentally interested in how people adapt their voices to different social situations, conveying not only linguistic content but also something about themselves and their relationship with the person they’re speaking to,” Dellwo told the Swiss News Agency Keystone-SDA.

For the study, 12 Korean men and women aged 25-31 read the same text once with and once without aegyo. The researchers found a striking change, as they report in the journal JASA Express Letters: when using aegyo, the voice changes acoustically in such a way that it resembles a shorter vowel tract – a characteristic that contributes to more childlike voices. Adults may thus be able to acoustically mimic a smaller vocal tract.

‘Cute voices’ in Switzerland too

Although aegyo is particularly deeply rooted in Korean culture, the phenomenon is not limited to Korea. “People across cultures alter their voices when addressing their partners romantically,” says Dellwo.

According to the researcher, there is probably no direct Swiss equivalent of aegyo. However, functional similarities can be found in terms of terms of endearment or childlike speech between partners.

“In Swiss German, one might informally refer to a ‘Jöö voice’: the voice becomes softer, more melodic or higher-pitched, and diminutive forms ending in ‘-li’ are often added,” Dellwo explains. Unlike aegyo, however, this is not a clearly defined style of speech that is so strongly codified in social and situational terms.

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Translated from German, reviewed by an English Department journalist.