In my intro phonology course I'm doing a module on phonation creaky
voice, aka "vocal fry." My students this semester are all speech
pathology majors, and many of them have heard the claims that it can
damage the voice. In online discussions I asked them to talk about how
they envision it affecting their practice in the future, and they said
things like this:
"I see such an issue related to my future role as a speech
pathologist, in that the extensive use of creaky voice present in this
current generation may cause speech difficulties down the road because
of such extended use. I may have to treat a lot of these patients in the
future since creaky voice otherwise known as vocal fry, will/may have a
negative impact on the future speech of such individuals."
I've heard these claims of damage, and Sylvia Sierra pointed me to
an article by a speech pathologist that lays them out:
"This increase in force during vibration of the vocal folds can be
traumatic and cause injury to the vocal folds if it occurs a lot –
injuries such as laryngitis, vocal fold swelling, and vocal nodules, to
name just a few."
This article doesn't give any evidence of this injury, and I don't
know if there is any. I'm very skeptical, and I've heard similar
skepticism from linguists. Does anyone have a good article debunking
this claim?
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-Angus B. Grieve-Smith
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