UCLA

This thesis argues that a speech register, the Russian Male Macho Register (RMMR) is a socially salient set of linguistic features used to project authority. En route to supporting this argument, I evaluate several models of Russian intonation and describe a synthesis that best accounts for salient prosodic characteristics in my data. I show that analyzing intonation in the context of discourse structure (1) reveals how speakers use suprasegmental elements to create meaning and (2) challenges some aspects of intonational study that focus on short, lab-produced speech samples (such as the Strict-Layer Hypothesis). After outlining the characteristics of RMMR, I analyze how these features index particular social personae and demonstrate how evaluative stances towards these figures are adopted through parody. Comedy performances which incorporate RMMR reinforce and rework Soviet-era tropes of toughness to comment on gender, nation, and ethnicity post-socialism.