Date: Fri, 20 Sep 1996 00:59:43 -0400
From: "Peter L. Patrick" PPATRICK[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]GUVAX.ACC.GEORGETOWN.EDU
Subject: "uptalk"
David Britain's refs were a very helpful resource. However he left off
the work of Cindie McLemore, whose diss. at U.Texas-Austin was about
1990 I think-- I can send a fuller ref. A lot of the work on HRTs (Hi
Rising Tones) has claimed them as new and distinctive for whatever
dialect the discoverer was studying. In the US it's known for young
white female speech, esp. Calif. Valley Girl-- like much else that is
neither new nor specific to this apparently highly disparagable group.
One of the things Cindie has pointed out is how widespread it is, and
how malleable to social function-- she studied a Texas sorority where
it obviously couldn't "mean" the identity "young white female" since
every single member was obviously that. Btw, it was her on NPR a
couple years ago; last I knew you could reach her via email at UPenn.
--peter patrick
georgetown u.