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.