Lately I saw someone posting about how too many women do "upspeak" which evidently is ending your sentences as questions? And how we're not supposed to do that? Because it means we don't think we're important or something?
Forget for a moment regional differences, as a teacher (and sometime public speaker) I've learned that my sentences cannot ALL be didactic declaritive statements or I'll not only sound like a pompous ass, but bore my students (or any other audience) to death as well. Framing statements in a quasi-question-ish way (haha! break THAT one down!) invites listeners to engage and keeps their interest. In my opinion, of course; I'm not a scientist and haven't done any clinical studies.
But I can look things up on the internet like everyone else? And evidently, the debate over "High Rising Terminals" - which I thought at first was some kind of architectural term - conveys anything but "insecurities" about what someone is saying. See what the Free Online Dictionary says:
"...more recent evidence (McLemore, 1991; Cheng et al., 2005; Warren, 2005) shows that assertive speakers, leaders of the peer group are more likely to use HRT in their declaratives than the junior members of the particular peer group."
Well, la-di-da!
So there's my apologia for my "manner of speaking", and with that I give you this, my latest spoken Intro for one of my dance offerings:
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I invite your comments?!
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