Re: Pitch and tense)

Matt Pearson wrote:
>
> >On Sat, 26 Jun 1999 09:10:16 -0700 Matt Pearson <mpearson@...>
> >writes:
> >>Raising the voice at the end of statements is common among teenagers
> >>all over the US and Canada, and seems to have a very specific
> >>discourse
> >>function - namely to signal something like "it's still my turn to
> >>speak,
> >>I'm just pausing for a second".  I think this is a relatively recent
> >>innovation in American English, and I'd be very interested to know
> >>where it comes from.
>
> >I always thought of raising my voice at the end of statements as the same
> >thing as "like" and "right?" - a way to make it less sure of a statement,
> >less empirically objectively "true".  A bit like languages which mark
> >things like hearsay, observation, etc.
>
> Hmm.  I've been making an informal study of the final raising phenomenon
> (as evidenced at UCLA, anyway), and it seems to me to have more to do
> with discourse continuity than with an unwillingness to commit to the
> truth of what the speaker is saying.
Hmmm, this is interesting.  We call it "uptalk" out here, but it hasn't
been subjected yet to any rigorous analysis.  In my other post I noted
that it seems to come at the end of any declarative statement, but it
could very well mean "I'm not finished yet," rather than "I'm not sure
of what I'm saying."  Either way, it's criticized by some.

Sally