Talk:High rising terminal

AQI

I think there should be a list under AQI ZellDenver (talk) 23:28, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Fry did what now?

"Stephen Fry successfully banished this manner of speech to Room 101 in the BBC TV series referring to it as Australian Question Intonation (AQI)." -- How did he do that? If he banished it to a device from a work of fiction then it no longer exists in reality right? The article is worded in the present tense, but one of the notes down the bottom says that it is no longer in use anywhere due to something that Stephen Fry did on a television program. I know for a fact 9anecdotally anyway) that the rising intonation and uptalk are going on all around me on a daily basis, so this confusing note I think could use a little more detail, a rewording or removal. Yes, I know I'm being pedantic. It rises from my not having a clue what exactly that little note is supposed to say; I'd love to know. 125.236.211.165 (talk) 03:25, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

He also mentioned it on an episode of QI ZellDenver (talk) 23:28, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

See: Room_101_(TV_series) 217.33.199.76 (talk) 16:58, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Terminology issue

The linguist Mark Liberman has pointed out that HRT and uptalk are in fact different phenomena, though they are equated on this page. [1]

My take

This is a really good point and I've found similar trends in the research I've done. I think the terminology issue here has to do with the way that HRT was defined in the early 90's, before there was a lot of interest from linguists (in America) on this subject. Ladd's fairly strict description has been shown to not apply to all of these cases of final rises, so the few few very few linguists who care have decided to separate the two main types of final rises (although I don't feel comfortable saying there are only two) so that what Ladd said remains true of one form, but this other form, termed 'uptalk' for the time being, becomes a different beast.

If this is the case, then I don't know what Ladd was talking about. I have plenty of examples of uptalk in my own experiments/data but then I am not quite sure what HRT is supposed to refer to. Maybe I ought to take a trip to New Zealand myself and record some folks and then I may learn the distinction there...

For the time being, I feel more comfortable politely disagreeing with Mark Liberman and claiming Ladd didn't do enough research when he made his original early claim. That all of these are HRTs but simply don't behave quite the same way and don't have the same grammatical and semantic function. It's probably best to loosen the definition of HRT than to seperate all of these things that are going on into different phenomena. Maybe when I become a full-fledged member of the field, I'll propose some better terminology, but at this moment in time this distinction seems arbitrary to me. --Alex DG 16:13, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Damn. I'm in NZ, have very cheap international calling, etc.... What a shame the data can't be used in Wikipedia (yes, for good reasons), I'd be keen. 125.236.211.165 (talk) 03:26, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Sound file

Where can we hear such talking exemplified? I know about Valspeak but I can't relate what I've read here with dialogues I have heard. Pictureuploader

Ditto that. But if there really is no recording ever ever, or it's all protected by the Ten Commandments or something stooopid, perhaps someone would be so kind as to EXPLAIN? Come on! It can't be that hard?? Jkjambsj (talk) 18:40, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Just listen to any YouTube video of Mark Zuckerberg speaking. I've never once heard him talking normally, instead he always uses HRT. --217.83.213.42 (talk) 13:56, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

It's simple? It's speaking in a way that makes statements sound like questions? Like the example I'm giving here? Basically it makes the speaker sound really unsure of themselves? 62.194.155.111 (talk) 19:20, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

A lot of young(ish) female NPR reporters use uptalking. Just listen to All Things Considered any day and you will hear it. Specifically, listen to NPR reporters Emily Feng and Shannon Bond, and you will hear them uptalking. It is interesting that these media outlets do not coach their reporters to stop uptalking. Perhaps it is a sign that uptalking is now considered mainstream. --Westwind273 (talk) 14:07, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

So many examples!

I have so many wav files in my collection! Unfortunately, they were all recorded as part of an experiment conducted at UCSD and thus protected under a signed waiver whose legal wording I can't claim to understand. Therefore, posting them, even anonymously, might cause a tempest of legal troubles for my department and the lab. I'll try to get one of my fellow students to record an example and post it somewhere though.

unsourced

I put this tag on. Though that Guardian article is good, it really does not corroborate the various points of this wikipedia article - claims it started in Sydney, is used by women, etc. I can't find any sources myself and really it is not my area at all. Any linguists know better? Asa01 03:00, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Old talk

"Some have attributed it to New Zealand, although it is not a characteristic of New Zealand English. "

Has the person who wrote this ever lived in New Zealand? From within NZ, the perception is that it is more common here than in Australia. It is regarded as an indicator of lower socio-economic status and is often used in an exaggerated fashion in comedy. In fact I've seen Australian comedy where it is used as an indicator of a character's New Zealand origin, which suggests that even Australians percieve it to be more of a New Zealand trait than an Australian one. dramatic 18:21, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

---

Has anyone noticed that using high rising terminal or AQI on everything you say means you can never be wrong?

The king of France is bald.

I am a babe magnet.

See. ZephyrAnycon 16:40, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

---

Being from Brisbane in Australia, I associate HRT with Ipswich... the place that has the dubious honour of giving Australia Pauline Hanson. Thinking about NZ though, I can see what you mean. A German friend of mine was in Ireland, and he said he kept getting confused because he was thinking "I've just been asked a question, but I don't know what it was".

And yeah, you can never be wrong... if someone corrects you, you can say "Well, that's why I was asking" (Just make sure do don't do it on that sentence, like "That's why I was asking?")

Has anyone seen Anchorman? "Good Evening! I'm Rod Burgundy?"

Ben | 12:49, 2 Oct 2004 (AEST)

---

I'm also puzzled by the "have come under the influence of the Norwegian language" bit, as no one (apart from the same rising trend in younger generations, unfortunately) uses this in Norway. However, I'm not a linguist, so there may be some less obvious reason why the HRT is Norway's fault.

I moved from Wellington NZ to Sydney Aus and I have noticed that Sydneysiders use HRTs a lot more than people back in Wellington. Typically the country-folk of New Zealand are the ones that may use HRTs (country-folk are also the kind that pronounce it "fush and chups"). Watching Australian TV and New Zealand TV definitely reveals a higher use of HRTs in Australia. I've noticed that women with considerably strong Australian accents (where vowels are overly voiced, i.e. the word "longer" becomes "longgaaah") are the kind that use HRTs more. Personal/anecdotal evidence but if NZ were the inventors of HRT in the southern hemisphere, Australians were —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.168.74.230 (talk) 13:50, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Incorrect capitalisation of the term

Is there any good reason for "High Rising Terminal" and "High Rising Intonation" having the initial letter of each word capitalised? The fact that the acronym is capitalised is not a good reason, by the way. Note also that the article name is not capitalised in this way.

"HRI" is not an acronym, it is an initialism. The term "acronym" is reserved for situations where words created from initials that are spoken as a unified word (think "NASA"). Since one would say each individual letter in "HRI", it is an initialism.BobTheMad (talk) 14:07, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

I don't believe that this term requires capitalisation. It is a common noun, not a proper noun, surely? — Paul G 15:25, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't seem to be entirely clear cut how it should be. Just flicking through a few linguistic textbooks on the shelf, there is variation in both whether it is capitalised, and what the exact name is (e.g., high-rise terminal contour, High Rising Terminal etc.). Of course, HRTs are commonly studied by sociolinguists, who tend to be less prescriptive and more descriptive... --Limegreen 22:25, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Australian soap operas

Since Neighbours has been screening in the UK for 21 years now, if were really true that people in the UK started to use HRT due to watching Neighbours then HRT must now be fully entrenched and in the generation of UK speakers who are now becomming parents, and their children would be UK HRT speakers from birth. Format 03:19, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Underlying reasons for rising intonation

I'm a young Australian who has been exposed to this type of rising intonation for many years without even realizing it - until today. I was watching a video of an interview on Youtube with an Australian beatboxer by the name of "Joel Turner."(the video is here:http://youtube.com/watch?v=dJQ9HIiT6dc) Several of the comments for the video discussed the fact that Joel has this rising intonation. To me he just sounds like an average Australian youth. I might be able to give some insight on this phenomena, especially given that I am so fresh to the concept and didn't known anything about it until today, and thus haven't been potentially "poisoned" by conventional interpretations of the behaviour.

I believe that the rising inflection at the end of sentences actually integrates, and reflects, by the method of intonation, what would be expressed in words as "Do you understand?" "Do you know what I mean?" In fact, there are many young Australians who habitually attach "Do you know what I mean?" to the end of many things they say.

I believe the purpose of this rising inflection, at least in many Australians, is to attempt to create stronger involvement, empathy and understanding in the listener.

First, a question can tend to demand more attention than a statement. A question requires more active and focused listening given that a relevant and considered response to the question is generally expected to follow.

Second, the intonation also acts as device to encourage deeper honesty, empathy and sharing in the conversation, it is essentially continually stating and then asking "This is what I'm saying. Are you on the same page as me?" and "I am sharing myself with you. Are you receiving what I'm giving?" This rising intonation style of speech almost engenders a feeling that as a listener one must be continually, albeit very subtly, nodding in understanding and appreciation.

At least so far as Australians are concerned, those who claim that the rising intonation is a sign of lack of confidence in what is being said, or a reflection of postmodern relativity affects on Western society, are wrong. Watching the video of Joel Turner, it quickly becomes apparent that the rising intonation is not articulating a feeling of doubt, or an inability to make solid statements. Joel speaks of personal experiences, his life, things that are absolutely not open to doubt - he is making what he considers to be absolutely factual and unquestionable declarative statements, yet the rising intonation peppers these statements. It is "Do you understand me?" not "I am unsure of these statements, is what I have said correct?" that the rising intonation intends.

So that's my interpretation of rising intonation in Australian speakers? I realize this might not be the right place to put such opinions but I didn't know a better place to put it, and I thought it worthy of sharing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.76.2.97 (talk) 10:17, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Some linguists think that the "Do you know what I mean?" interpretation is wrong. You may not have been contaminated by the debate about this. But you have been contaminated, like most people, by the meaning rising intonation holds for older generations, and continues to hold for younger ones in many communicative situations. So you may be incorrectly projecting what it comes closest to in your own language onto what they're saying.

That's not to say the linguists know what it means. Just that they're suspicious of the "Do you know what I mean?" interpretation that a lot of us have as our gut reaction. 82.124.103.148 (talk) 12:17, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

And, I'm generally suspicious of linguists. :) I'm around a lot of Australians in Hawaii (they love to visit here) and by far, their use of HRT is intended as a "Do you understand?" and a "Do you know what I mean?" and that's exactly how I interpret it. Viriditas (talk) 23:46, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

One thing doesn't necessarily invalidate the other. The "insecurity in what one is saying" is not only in regards to phrasing, but also to social acceptance. By turning an assertion into a question, you make it so you are not "pushing" your ideas, thus being able to go back in what you said later on if it's necessary. Which is a pretty coercive method in itself, since the listener, in order to disagree, will have to be way more assertive to say "No" to a question you've made than they'd have to be in order to disagree with/question a normal statement, "killing the mood". That's why it's used more by women, I believe: it's a way to stay on the defensive, cautious side of dialogue and transfer the responsibility (of either being complicit or disturbing harmony) to the other party. That is by no means conscious, but that's how I perceive it being used. When you're constantly forced to engage in the dialogue with a nod or a "I'm following" interjection, your reflexes turn into always agreeing with others (at least emotionally). It's a concept deeply ingrained in Japanese too, a culture with a very non-confrontational approach to discussion. From overusing question particles/intonation, to things like anazuchi.and unazuku. I won't add any of these because they are not objective studies or anything, but thought I'd share my two cents. 191.183.100.73 (talk) 09:00, 20 June 2017 (UTC)

The reason is because in the geographic areas where this is prominent the immigrants who speak multiple languages usually speak a first language, or in the case of the young, the first generation born in the area growing up listening to the parents whose native languages have an emphasis on the end syllable. That is why they emphasize it in the English and it sounds strange to the listener as the English language has a variable stress for primary and secondary and not on the end syllable.

Also females stress it more to increase pitch as that elicits help. Women's ears are more prone to giving attention to the high pitch, just as Mother's are alert to the cry of babies tone and pitch where men usually do not notice the higher pitch as much. Women use it to capture attention and to elicit help, and to stress a particular point. The end of the sentence, the clause or subordinate clause is in language faster speed in tempo and rhythm and higher in pitch in general and if you combine that with the fact their second language, the first language of the parents origins stresses the end syllable then the stress falls at the end. English speakers, listeners which are accustomed to the variable stress for primary and secondary syllables find that odd to the ears.

There are several places on Wikipedia about pitch, tempo, rhythm and tone and intonation as well as Wikipedia has pages for languages that explains why some place the syllable stress on the end of the word.

If someone is good at citation then feel free to add it to the main page. (I have trouble getting the citations right so the main page does not always allow me to edit, it usually reverts back for lack of the exact citation links. If someone understands how to place the citations then add the above explanation and the correct page citations! Please) :)

It would be nice if the actual explanation was added rather than peoples wrong hypothesis from prejudiced minds that it is simply socio-economic or status based as it is not, in fact some "valley-girls" are from wealthy families and not the lower classes as supposed.

It would also be interesting if links to where there is research for flirtations and the use of pitch etc. to elicit the male's attention span. That plays a large part in why it is used to intonate the syllables at the end to provoke reaction and response. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.241.103.88 (talk) 03:30, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

Can you at least provide a list of such sources? I like some of the reasoning, like the correlation to Spanish, although I'm a native at it and don't see the correlation - uptalk still gets on my nerves. 187.122.124.255 (talk) 07:24, 28 August 2017 (UTC)

Southern American English

My perception has always been that high rising terminal is a moderately common feature in the American South (probably more so among women), and I think I've seen this in linguistics articles. But to my surprise it's not mentioned at all in this article. Does anyone know about this? Duoduoduo (talk) 16:44, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

You're right, there is a subtle variation of it in the American South, but it's so different, I wonder if it could conceivably be called HRT. Viriditas (talk) 23:41, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Other languages

Why is only English covered here? Other languages also have this feature. It has been recorded in Finnish a language with low tonality. By including other languages o´rigins and dates of spread can be looked at. For it may be that it originated outside of native English spaekers, but was transferred to native use as som uch vocab is. The article gives no dates - when old recordings can show its use - it is believed it is a 20th century phenomenon. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.113.96.60 (talk) 20:28, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Presumably, because the article is about a phenomenon in American and Australian English and not in other languages. TechBear | Talk | Contributions 21:23, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Well, no. The article is not about "High rising terminal in English", but "High rising terminal" in general. So unless it were shown that this term is used exclusively to describe English intonation, other languages must be covered. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.204.102.111 (talk) 21:59, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

Ross O'Carroll-Kelly

I have just tidied (templated) the bibliography, and in the process removed the following entry (actually to three books):

• Howard, Paul., "The miseducation years" ISBN 0-86278-852-8, "P.S. I scored the bridesmaids ISBN 0-86278-890-0, The teenage dirtbag years ISBN 0-86278-849-8, Ross O'Carroll Kelly

The books are novels in the Ross O'Carroll-Kelly series by Paul Howard: I assume they were included because the characters use HRT. If so, they still don't really belong in the bibliography; but if anyone's familiar with them (I'm not), they might like to add an appropriate reference to the In popular culture section.

GrindtXX (talk) 19:16, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

BBC article

Good overview here which may prove useful, with a reference putting it back to 19th century Scotland (which would fit with it being exported to NZ and then coming back to the UK via Neighbours) and in turn suggesting it could be a Viking thing originally.... 86.31.70.71 (talk) 13:11, 22 August 2014 (UTC)

Article needs re-write?

..."Studies confirm that more women use HRT than men.[18] Linguist Thomas J. Linneman contends, "The more successful a man is, the less likely he is to use HRT; the more successful a woman is, the more likely she is to use uptalk".[18] Though women appear to use HRT more often than men, the differences in frequency are not significant enough to brand HRT as an exclusively female speech pattern. Susan Miller, a vocal coach in Washington, D.C., insists that she receives both male and female clients with equal frequency..."

Huh? Which is it? And where is the story or explanation?

It seems like everybody has tossed their opinions and factoids into the article, making it confusing or unfocused at best. This is amplified by each reader's personal and varied counter-experience. This might be remedied by writing separate sections according to region or other category(s). It reads like a blob now.
--2602:306:CFCE:1EE0:6534:206A:C3B5:1C9F (talk) 23:29, 8 October 2019 (UTC)Just Sayin

rising intonation / rising inflection redirects

Currently these two names redirect to this article. But this is just one context in which a rising intonation occurs. Other articles that are plausible targets for these redirect would be Rising declarative and Intonation (linguistics).

At the very least I think we should have a {{Redirect}} hatnote for these. But I'm also wondering if it would be more appropriate to have Intonation (linguistics) (or maybe a section thereof) be the target for these, with a hatnote link to this article. Alternatively, we could just have a disambiguation page, or even a broad concept article. Curious on others' thoughts. Colin M (talk) 19:07, 12 April 2021 (UTC)

Time for an edit war?

Obviously I’ve reinserted the edit I made and will continue to do so if they are removed. Instead of an edit war that will eventually lead to mediation I suggest that assume good faith is not forgotten.

The article’s lede does not describe it. Before my edit it said: “ This contour has attracted notice because of its similarity to that often triggered by polar questions.”

This is not suitable for a lede. What’s a contour? Attracted notice from who? Why is whoever that is important to the article? “Similarity to that” what is “that”? “Triggered by polar questions” What’s a “polar question”? How do they “trigger” something?

It’s a mess. No wonder if simple language like mine is reverted so often. The lede should simply give an example of what HRT actually is. To the lay person. The rest of the article can give more academic detail if wanted. But the lede is not the place.

HRT is simply a speech pattern that makes “statements sound like questions” like the BBC said.

This should be included in the article? Because it is simple language? So that everyone can understand it? These statements sound like questions?

This is exactly what HRT is? Making a statement? Sound like a question? 85.148.213.144 (talk) 22:40, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

First of all, stating that you'll continue to re-add contested material shows bad faith on your part. As for your edit, the wording is subtly telling the reader that HRT can cause confusion, especially the "in practice" part. To me, this is an instance of editorialization. This is why precise wording is encouraged in the type of writing that Wikipedia uses. News sources aren't the best for academic topics precisely because they lack this precision and accuracy. The newer line added by Botterweg14 isn't perfect, but it's more objective because it doesn't imply a kind of judgment that has no place on Wikipedia. I'd change it from "This contour has attracted notice because of its similarity to that often triggered by polar questions." to something like "HRT has attracted attention because of its similarity to that of questions." If we go down this route we'll need more news sources to actually corroborate the "has attracted attention" part, though.--Megaman en m (talk) 00:52, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

I've taken another stab at the wording. But the editorializing definitely doesn't belong. Botterweg14 (talk) 01:10, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

Origin

I have noticed that many Americans perceive uptalk as originating in Valley Girl Talk (i.e. the San Fernando Valley of SoCal), but other Americans perceive uptalk as coming from the tech world and thus originating in Silicon Valley (NorCal). As a corollary, beginning declarative sentences with "so" also seemed to start at the same time in Silicon Valley. Both uptalking and initial declarative "so" can be annoying to people. I think the upswing in the popularity of both of these began in the 90's. I would say that uptalking provides a feeling of innocence to the speaker, thus enabling them to more confidently go out on a limb in their declarations. On the other hand, using beginning declarative "so" indicates a speaker who wants to make themselves sound brainy by showing that they have a well-understood categorical response to the question. In any case, all of this seems to have originated in California (like many other things). As an aside, another linguistic innovation from the 90's with origins in the tech world is the use of the word "bandwidth" for time, as in "I don't have the bandwidth to do that". Somehow these linguistic variations seem to be part of a single trend in American English, originating in the 90's. On a final note, I think the connection between uptalk and Valley Girl talk may be tenuous. If you watch the 1983 film Valley Girl, the characters in the film are not really uptalking. --Westwind273 (talk) 05:23, 31 March 2022 (UTC)