An Introduction to Applied Linguistics

3.1 High-rise intonation
In recent years, attention has been drawn to the increasing use of a particular type
of rising statement intonation in what are traditionally known to be falling-tone
accents. This is the use of the ‘high rising’ contour … this usage … has certainly
been a very noticeable feature of Australian and New Zealand English, at least
since the 1960s, and its greater frequency in the latter country suggests that it may
well have originated there.
(Crystal 1995: 249)
Why is it used? Why should a statement end with an intonation pattern which would
normally be associated with the function of a question? Any explanation needs to
take into account the descriptive findings of several recent linguistic studies. One
such study found that women used it twice as much as men (but teenagers, the
working class and ethnic minorities also used it frequently). The tone appears to be
preferred by the less powerful members of society.
It acts as an (unconscious) expression of uncertainty and lack of confidence,
perhaps even of subservience and deference … Explanations for its use vary but
one influential view is that women have come to use the tone because of their
subservience to men: other non-powerful groups have then followed on.
(ibid)
3.2 Leading change
Women in the lead of language change is exactly what Labov (1966, 1994) claimed
in his sociolinguistic results. It is what Chambers and Hardwick (1986, in Crystal
1995: 342) found in their study of changes affecting the diphthong /au/ in
Vancouver and Toronto. The phonetic quality of the Canadian production of this
diphthong (known as ‘Canadian raising’) has long been well known as a major
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distinction between Canadian and American spoken English. This distinction,
according to Chambers and Hardwick, is now disappearing. They found that the
distinctive feature of the vowel was often replaced by one whose quality was either
further forward in the mouth or more open (non-raising) or both. The effect was to
make the production of words such as (‘house’, ‘about’) more like versions of the
diphthong used in the USA. But what is relevant for our purposes is that ‘fronting
correlates with sex in both cities, with women the leading innovators’ (Crystal 1995:
342).