Dear Judy,
To Paul Warren's nearly exhaustive list of references and pointers, I
would add the search term "uptalk" if you are doing web searches. There
have been quite a lot of posts on this topic, complete with sound files
and acoustic analyses, on Language Log (http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/).
Bob Ladd
On Tue, 4 May 2010, Kuster, Judith A wrote:
> I am very interested in a trend I have seen of persons speaking the English
> language to habitually add a rising intonation/question inflection to
> sentences that are NOT questions. Can anyone lead me to research/information
> about this phenomenon. I have taught phonetics and it is a problem when
> teaching stress patterns for understanding appropriate prosody and for
> understanding when to use the unstressed schwa or schwar because the rising
> pitch adds stress. I ALWAYS have to tell many students when they respond to
> a question in class, "Don't ask me. Tell me." Some can't. I get up on my
> toes and say, "Tell me" as I lower myself. I've always attributed it to the
> uncertainty if the answer is correct or not - they are actually "asking" not
> "telling." I've also wondered if it is more common in female speech than in
> male speech?
>
> Thank you for any information you are able to share.
>
> Judy Kuster
>
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