I’m taking some grad courses right now; it’s a program in which there are many young women. Well educated, late twenties to mid-thirties women.
Nearly all of them end their declarative sentences with a rising tone, as if they are asking a question. I think this is called “uptalking.”
It’s as if all of one’s sentences have question marks after them? It’s so annoying to hear them do this? It sounds as if they’re not sure of themselves? Like they’re constantly seeking agreement?
Man, that’s annoying.
Why is this happening? (<-- actual question; not uptalking).
I attribute it to a subculture but I am no social scientist. It seems to be an expansion of the Valley Girl syndrome. I have noticed this more in women of the age group you mention but have also heard it in young men, and more from west coast people than others.
Although it gives the impression that you mention (seeking agreement, etc.) I don’t think that’s actually the case, but rather just a habitual speech pattern.
Of course my answer doesn’t contain hard facts but I don’t know if there are many hard facts on this.
Essentially, language changes because it changes. You can’t do anything about it. There is no deep reason why language changes in the way it does. Here’s the Wikipedia article about this:
On Robert MacNeil’s “The Story of English” (1986), he mentioned it in connection with Oz, and interviewed an Australian girl who exhibited a really extreme form of the phenomenon.
Is this “language”? Because a transcription of this type of speech would not look any different than “TV newscaster” speech. It’s more like accent than language.
I encounter this all the time and it bugs the ever living shit out of me. I only learned the term “upspeak” a few years ago, most likely on this very board, but prior to that I kept thinking"why does everyone sound like a damned valley girl?", especially when I’m on the whole other side of the country. I grew up in SoCal and I worked hard to lose that annoying inflection. People, if you have this habit stop it NOW.
Accent is part of one’s language. There’s no distinction to be made here. There’s no way to create a dividing line between accent and language, and nobody working in the fields of linguistics or language study makes any such distinction.
Well, maybe, but I’d say that Minnesota Norwegian-inflected thing is distinctly different. It doesn’t sound like a question, I think because they drop before the rise. It’s like putting an intonational roller coaster on the end of your sentence, usually accompanied by stretching a vowel out. “Let’s speak Minnesooooooooootan”, with a drop on the “ooooooooooooo” and a rise on the final syllable. The Australian and Valley Girl things sound exactly like questions, and, yes, it’s annoying.
It may be catching on because I find myself increasingly having to say “I’m asking” to people when I rely on intonation to ask a question.
Its valley girl talk and its pretty much everywhere, especially in universities. I think its some kind of submissive role, like everything is a somewhat a question thus the person is being passive instead of being demanding. Im sure it ties in with mating somehow. Men might find the valley girl voice more attractive because the woman comes off as less demanding and bossy.
Being used for declarative sentences is what’s so annoying about it. That SHOULD turn it into a question, as in “There’s beer in the cooler?”, relying on intonation to indicate that I expect an answer. Instead, I find that resulting more and more in exchanges like:
“There’s beer in the cooler?”
“Oh, good. What kind?”
“No, I’m ASKING. Is there beer in cooler?”
I’ve been hearing this for a couple of decades now, and it’s no less annoying than it was then. When someone does it when speaking directly to me, I deliberately treat these sentences as questions. The person rarely catches on.
I think this part, from the Wikipedia article, is not inconsistent with insecurity “Its use is also suggestive of seeking assurance from the listener that he is aware of what the speaker is referring to.”
If I were to say “I was at that new bar, on Franklin street (?) and I saw this guy with the new iPod (?) and he was using it to Tweet about his new labradoodle (?)” it’s like I’m giving the speaker 3 opportunities to affirm that they understand and relate to the conversation.
As I young woman I worked really hard to eliminate that from my speech pattern. Eliminating it really improves how you are perceived in terms of credibility, but I think that speech pattern is sometimes helpful in terms of fitting in with other women. I’m not sure if it actually attracts men, but I do think it helps lubricate social interaction among women.
Making confident statements of fact to other women in a social setting tends to come across as a little pushy. Phrasing a statement like “The other day I was reading something by Nietzsche” as a question gives another woman the opening to respond with either “I like Nietzsche, too” or “I like reading, too” when her tastes run more to Danielle Steele. Stated declaratively, it comes across more like “You idiot who doesn’t know who Nietzsche is…” I would not be at all surprised to hear women tending toward this speech pattern in a classroom setting.
Are you friends with any women in this class? Can you get one to act as a confederate in a mini-experiment? See how people react if she makes statements of fact (or well-supported opinion) in a purely declarative tone. My guess - she will be seen as more knowledgeable but less likable.
That is a very interesting and astute observation, Harriet. I’ve never articulated it as such but I understand exactly what you mean and I tend to agree. Still freakin’ hate it though.