It is well established that in some dialects, especially Australian and New Zealand ones, there exists a rising inflection at the end of a spoken phrase, which causes it to be reasonably consistently heard as a question in the ears of English speakers who don’t have it.
But what is it like the other way around? For speakers of dialects with the questioning inflection, is there any prevailing or common perception regarding the speech of those without it?
I mean, I don’t expect it to be “they sound like they’re not asking a question”, because the speakers with the question-sounding speech probably don’t perceive themselves as turning every statement into a question - but do they perceive something consistent and unusual about the speech of folks without the questioning inflection? (something a bit misdirecting, I mean)
It’s not a part of speech that carries meaning. It’s something people do without realising they’re doing it. It doesn’t alter the meaning of what’s being said, just the perception of the speaker.
People who do the rising inflection thing are a demographic that will not much co-incide with the demographic who self analyse about these sorts of issues.
I used to find it very weird watching american shows where the speaker had a dscending inflection - it sounded like they were stroking out at the end of each sentence.
Most notably, Robin Leach on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous (I was a tastless teen).
Got used to it. Not all Americans have that inflection so strongly and we grew us watching TV (and listening to accents) fromall over the world.
I thought I had recently read that the whole “uptalk” speech being correlated with low self-confidence or insecurity is just a bunch of BS. Any cites one way or another?
I’ll cite my own experience in support of what Blake says: I’m a 46 year old Australian and the only demographic I’ve ever heard use the “uptalk” inflection is teenagers. It’s far from universal even among them. Certainly no-one I personally know talks like that.
I’m guessing some Brit heard it on one of those godawful Australian soaps they love so much and decided that all Australians talk that way. We don’t.
Quite possibly this is the result of selective attention and confirmation bias. Uptalk is actually common, or at least not rare, among other speakers, including ones which you’ve almost certainly heard. George W. Bush, for example, uptalks; he’s neither a teenager nor insecure. It’s not hard to find other uptalking examples from other non-teenage, non-insecure politicians, businessmen, officials, and celebrities; many of them do it quite consistently.
Seriously - we probably don’t notice. So much of kiwi and aussie cultural influence (i.e. TV and music) is from overseas (UK, US, and Australia in the case of NZ) that everyone in NZ has a pretty egalitarian exposure to accents. I think we approach all of them pretty equally.
However, it seems that the increasing exposure to a broad range of accents has been driving a compensatory strengthening of the distinctive in both NZ and Australia - it certainly sounds that way to me after 10 years in the UK. The Flight Of The Conchords seems pretty illustrative - they have broader accents than any I would have generally heard when I was growing up in NZ. Of course, they are probably playing it up, but I have heard a number of general interviews of kiwis that sound pretty strong to me. However, I don’t notice this with people I know or heard growing up - it does seem to be a real effect not related to my absence from NZ.
I’m not saying you are right or wrong, but a “cite” that is actually just results of a google search is a poor effort. How about you come up with a link to an actual cite rather than make a bold (even if entirely correct) statement that your view is supported by cites to actual scientific research without providing a simple link to the same?
Having been out of New Zealand for some time, I was surprised to visit home and hear the high rise terminal from people I had grown up around. I simply didn’t notice it at the time. From that experience, it certainly isn’t limited to teenagers, although I would agree it is more common in that age group.
I have never spoken with a high rise terminal, if anything, my speech intonation is flatter than most.
Whilst New Zealand doesn’t have regional/class accents to the same degree as the UK, there are definitely regional/socio-economic differences in the way people speak.
Would you prefer that I copy and paste all the text and all the citations from each of the Language Log posts? What purpose would that serve, except to save you the trouble of having to click on a few links? It’s not as though I just did a full web search for “uptalk” and mindlessly posted the results page. I’ve read all those articles (or at least, all those on the first page), and can attest that each and every one of them is relevant to the distribution of uptalk speech, including why it isn’t restricted to insecure teenagers.
What part of that Google bomb of a US Blog site do you think indicates that i am completely an utterly wrong about the use of the rising inflection in Australia and NZ?
:rolleyes: It would be a Google bomb only if the articles there didn’t actually present information and citations to back up my assertion. But since you refuse to actually read them, I guess that means you haven’t been refuted?
No what would help would be if you chose a couple of key direct links in support of your position. Hell, go overboard and actually quote in your post something from a cite that supports what you are saying, if you want to really to get taken seriously.
Again, I’m not saying you are wrong but I started reading a few links off your google bomb and they seemed to be chatty blog entries full of anecdote. It wasn’t enormously impressive, really. Reading your post you’d think your link was to some sort of peer reviewed paper containing a thorough survey and analysis, which your link ain’t. At least insofar as I was prepared to read before I decided it wasn’t up to me to do your work for you. Again, such a paper may well exist.
I’m quite willing to accept that I am “completely and utterly wrong” on this issue. It was only anecdotal after all. But so far you have presented no evidence to that effect.
A US Blog cite doesn’t seem to be relevant in any way at all to the use of the rising inflection in Australia. But I’m willing to accept that there is something pertinent in there, if only you can point to where so we can all read it.
At this stage all we have is a Google bomb of a Blog site that uses the term “uptalk”. Nothing about what “uptalk” means, or whether “uptalk” occurs in Australia or, if it does, what that tells us about the users.
The mere existence of the Blog site certainly doesn’t demonstrate that I am completely an utterly wrong.
I’m from the Bay of Plenty, but with English and Christchurch roots - I’ve got flat intonation as well. None of my childhood friends had much of a terminal rising inflection, either. In the 70’s when I grew up, TVNZ/RNZ newsreaders had to have something approaching BBC style RP.
