Since starting high school my kiddo has begun to use uptalk, raising intonation at the end of nearly every sentence and sprinkling sentences with like, like, like. I find this extremely annoying. It not only makes it difficult to listen, it also makes my kiddo sound very unintelligent. My kiddo has excellent grades and amazing test scores. Also, one of my kiddos strengths has always been being a very confident and strong speaker. I feel as though this will be a real impediment in class in the years ahead.
Has anyone else dealt with this? How did you break your kid from this annoying habit? S/he gets really mad and shuts down when I mention this. I have noticed some family members ( mostly girls but one boy also) who use upspeak and it makes me think they won’t do well in the corporate world. I find this type of speech pattern to be very show offy— in the sense that someone doesn’t have much confidence and tries to hold the floor with their intonation rather than just speaking normally.
Help!!! I think I am going to lose my mind. Any advice as to how to stop this from progressing and turn it back?
Mine did that in middle school and one of them was especially annoying about it. I would point it out to no avail. She finally stopped around 10th-11th grade when she started doing summer internships and also debate and she wanted to be taken seriously. It still slips in when she’s just around her friends and they are all joking around and casual.
You already saw what talking about it did - shut her down.
She is a long way off from the corporate world if she is still in high school. She is probably just fitting in!
I can understand how annoying it can be - perhaps pick and choose the times you need her check her speech - like if she is trying to tell you an important story ask her "can you slow down and just use "mom talk" for this story? It sounds important and I want to hear every word".
You really can't turn it back. :) She will like, more on, when, like, she is onto something else new. :)
I’m not sure there’s anything you can do to turn this back - also not sure it will necessarily progress. You’ve presumably modeled good speech for your kids all these years. That’s going to have more of an impact in the long run than criticizing their speech patterns at this point, when they’re realizing that their identity belongs to them. I think it’s almost a developmental stage that some late adolescents pass through. They adopt the speech patterns of their peer group on their way to choosing a more adult way to express themselves once they’re in college or beyond.
Sure, some people in the professional world are stuck in that very annoying speech mode, but I’ve seen very few.
Been there. They do tend to outgrow it, as their lives and perspectives expand. (And writing strengths.). They’re also more receptive to the correction when more mature. And there’s a big difference between casual “teen speak” and more appropriate speaking skills when needed. See if she’s got the latter, when it matters.
D1 complained about a hs classmate whose “you knows” they counted. Then her sister pointed out how often D1 used that and “like.” She’s well past that now.
Mine grew out of it too. The worst was between 7th - 10th grade. School presentations actually helped because the kids got docked for “like” and posing definitive statements as questions.
Been there - I would keep mentioning it and it’s perfectly okay if your kids find you annoying. They do hear you whether they want to or not, and by bringing it up, you’re making her aware of her vocal patterns which will help her grow out of it. Some never do.
We had a teacher once that would say “you know” and “um” so much that we’d count them on paper. A check for each time. He improved greatly when he realized we were doing that as a game.
Maybe your D really doesn’t have a clue as to how many times she actually says it. I agree that it’s very irritating.
Very common, especially among young girls. Google to find many articles on the subject. Right now, they think it makes them sound cool and that they fit in. In my observation, as soon as the girls realize upspeak makes them sound juvenile, they try to curtail it. (For a fun take on girl-speak, find Valley Girl by Frank Zappa and his 13 year old daughter.)
It’s probably like using the terms “kiddos” & “DS = dear son” & “DD = dear daughter”. While I find them irritating, others do not.
So long as your student understands that such words & speech patterns are inappropriate in certain situations–such as interviews for jobs & school–then it might be best to treat it as a phase that will pass with time.
We used to pay a game that a middle school English teacher introduced in her classes. Take turns speaking for one minute with no “filler” words (and “like” is a filler word!). And an added rule after D2 recited the Gettysburg Address for her turn once is that you can’t use some memorized piece! It is pretty hard. I might bring it up at Xmas — D2 has lapsed into using “like” a lot.
My friends daughter wrote a masters dissertation on “good slang” which was fascinating. It talked about the difference between using “like” as a vocal tic and using it for meaning.
For example it talked about how “She has, like, 10 brothers” means something very different than “She has 10 brothers” and carries more “impactful messaging” than “She has many brothers”.
She talked about slang that carries more weight than existing words because they connote more meaning in a single word than any others. One example of long existing slang was “cool”. Another was Bae (meaning someone or something that is “before anyone else” but often not in a literal sense ) which she found to be useful and meaningful but unlikely to last and another first letter abbreviation word which she believed would last, GOAT. Meaning Greatest of All Time.
It also had a really interesting section on “squad” and “fam” and the “millennial/post millennial desire for connection”
Interesting, @maya54 . I have a PhD friend whose focus is how language can be used to make respect conditional, especially toward women. And a pro consultant friend whose concern is how women self limit via qualifying words. I’ve learned from both.
The up-talk can continue into adulthood but you can expect someone along the way to mention it to your daughter. Debate and speech classes are great for this.
I have a bright peer and friend who used up-talk with her support staff. I think she was using it to sound friendly and non-confrontational. I took her aside, pointed out her speech pattern and let her know that everything sounded like a question rather than an instruction to act. It made her look weak and uncertain. I seriously think is was her only flaw. Well, she stopped doing it and received a series of big promotions over the years.
I began doing this in HS 25 years ago. My dad constantly interrupted me with “Are you asking me or telling me?” Until I dropped the ends of my sentences. To this day I hear him when I listed to someone speak the way you describe!
Uptalking is also used to covey “Are you following what I’m saying?” Researchers say it can be a more effective method of explaining things to people in training excercises than declarative statements which tend to dissuade listeners from asking questions they may need to really understand fully.