What's the origin of the "Valley Girl" accent?

Factual Questions
21

I’d always understood this came from school girls congregating at Galleria Mall in San Bernardino, California, observed by Moon Unit Zappa and popularized in a song that was meant to be mocking but turned out (to Frank’s chagrin) to be the Zappa’s most popular song ever.

I thought the Wikipedia article on “Upspeak” described this and even included a photo of the mall entrance, but looking at the article now I see it’s much less specific.

22

One of my cousins lived a couple of blocks from the Galleria Mall back in the 1980s. I went out there to visit for a week and I can personally confirm that the Valley Girl accent is a real thing, or at least it was in the Galleria Mall in the 1980s.

The majority of the people in the mall did not have the accent, but it was definitely there in small groups.

23

I thought it was the Sherman Oaks Galleria, which is in “the Valley” (San Fernando Valley). San Bernardino is way east of there.

24

Absolutely Sherman Oaks, as noted in the Valley Girl wiki entry.

25

Hey, looks like you’re right! To quote wikipedia, " The teenage mall culture which formed around it and nearby malls formed the basis of the 1982 satirical song “Valley Girl” by Frank Zappa and daughter Moon Zappa, which mentions the Galleria by name (though misattributes its location as Encino, which it abuts). The mall has also been a shooting location for many films, most notably the seminal 1982 film Fast Times at Ridgemont High as well as the 1983 film Valley Girl , both of which focused on the early 1980s San Fernando Valley youth culture."

26

The idea that Californians don’t have distinctive speech is hella lame.

27

They do, or at least they did at one time. My dad was raised in CA in the 30s & 40s. Both Frank Cady (“Sam Drucker”) and Janet Leigh were native Californians, and I recognized some similarities in their pronunciation of the letter A in the middle of words. Slightly nasally and flatter.

28

What intrigues me is that is an accent that is gender specific.

29

Dopers, help me out with regard to high rising terminal. There is an aspect to this that I have never seen mentioned in any articles on the subject, but which seems very significant. And so obvious that I can’t believe nobody else has noticed.

So maybe I’m mistaken. 'Cause I can’t believe I’m the only one to see it.

In all the years I have noticed (and been annoyed by) upspeak, I have never heard high rising terminal at end-utterance position. Only when further speech is imminent and the speaker wishes to signal this.

Thus we have, “I was at the mall? And I got together with a friend? And we were going to the hair place? And I lost my wallet.” No rise on the final portion. Once a pause is reached, the absence of HRT signals that the other person may speak without interrupting. It’s an aid to conversational turn-taking.

Am I way off the mark? Have you been aware of people using this rising inflection in short declarative statements? Or only in segments of what the speaker intends to be a longer utterance?

As far as I can tell, the unvoiced question is merely, “are you following this?” with an equally unspoken, “there’s more to come.”

30

The people I work with in Canada do it for all of practically all of their statements.

“So, the regulatory result will be x? And, the reason is section 5.05 of the regulations?”

These aren’t stupid people, although that is my first impression (stupid or so worried about offending that they never make a declarative statement).

31

I too have noticed that the upspeak is often not used the “end utterance position”. Instead, the speaker often drops their voice into guttural, raspy, “vocal fry”. I find both upspeak and vocal fry very annoying.

I know no one who actually talks like this and seldom hear it on television, but it’s common on Public Radio.

32

Omigosh yes! The sheer amount of vocal fry on NPR is enough to make me turn off the radio.

33

You mean “Like, Oh-mi-GAWD-a!”?

34

A bad joke that I heard in the '80s:

Q: What does it sound like when a Valley Girl is meditating?
A: OmmmmmmiGAWD!!

35

I was there, in the Valley, when it all started. I was not a cool kid, but my not-cool friends and I witnessed this in real time. A few observations:

  1. It was (and to some degree, is) a real thing.
  2. It became much more common after the song came out. The song had imitated a style of speaking, then people imitated the song, then they forgot they were imitating anything and started talking Valspeak all the time. What started as an affectation became a real accent.
  3. There is absolutely a connection to surfer culture. I assume the surfer boys invented the style in their tiny Malibu niche culture, then it was popularized by actual Valley Girls. The word “tubular” speaks to the surf origins.
  4. In my experience, it was an accent of privilege and popularity. The nerdy kids like me and my friends talked that way to make fun. The drill team all talked that way for real.
  5. Other than the upvoice and the vocabulary, there’s a component of throatiness. Like, if you collect a lot of spit, like, in the back of your throat, and you just talk through it, you know?
36

The current multi-winning champion Mattea Roach has the upspeak style in her responses. She is from Toronto, fer-shure.

37

Wow! She definitely does.

38

Vocal fry, I think, is what you’re describing.

39

To be fair, she is answering in the form of a question.

40

SMH. Gotta admire that one. :expressionless: