Gotcha. So we are talking about Australians, who (apart from one particular demographic) use a rising inflection to indicate a question, but according to you the fact that Australians who make statements using a rising inflection get perceived as sounding like they are asking a question isn’t because most Australians use a rising inflection to indicate they are asking a question. It’s because sexism and oldfartism.
And because Welsh. Who neither the OP nor myself were talking about.
Well, if that seems the most probable thing to you, whatever floats your boat, I guess.
You’re missing the next link. Just because I think you are talking in a way that reminds me of the way people ask questions (when I know very well you aren’t asking a question) doesn’t require me to think that you sound uncertain or lack confidence. That’s an extra step of interpretation that requires another leap, one influenced by social prejudices.
Do you think that the young Australians who are using uptalk with each other in their own social group are perceiving each other as weak and lacking confidence? After all, they are also familiar with the use of rising time with interrogatories.
It’s a valid question, but yes. Young Australian women present to each other as weak and lacking in confidence. It’s a deliberate and important part of the social interaction. I guess it’s more of an Australian thing than an American thing.
Going to the other exterme, the whole American self-confidence thing can be very jarring to Australian ears, and in a social context would be distinctly alien.
On the ‘uptalk’ thing … I’m willing to believe that there are things about the way young women speak that very clearly identify them as ‘young women ways of talking’. Not so much that it’s specifically the high rising terminal though.
Check out this pretty iconic movie from 1932 On Our Selection. Mr Maloney for instance (2:40 to 3:00 or so) - upward inflection on nearly every sentence. He’s clearly meant to be Irish - this may give a clue about how the speech pattern spread in Australian society, the Irish were a pretty significant immigrant group.
My country-bred father in law talks a bit like Mr Maloney actually, 'cept without the Irish accent.
And then the two women talking from 4:00 onwards - high rising terminals all over the place (and you could say ‘well, see, it’s a young woman’ - but it’s a young woman from the 1930’s.)
If anything, I think Australians go up less these days than in previous years, as we travel internationally more, and meet people who rather mock it.
No, he’s not. The leap is based entirely on the fact that it sounds like they are constantly questioning things. That makes you sound less confident. You’re the one bringing sexism into it.
You’ve got the causation backwards. Women started using uptalk because it was less confident sounding, as being female and confident was considered rude. You still hear women talk about how not using uptalk seems rude to them in certain situations.
There is no natural law of language that states that using a tone that sounds like a question makes you sound less confident. That is a cultural judgment.