Uptalk in northern Irish English

This paper presents work in progress on the phonetic realization of uptalk rises in Northern Irish English, a variety which is well-known for another type of rising intonation, the rise-plateau(-slump) (Cruttenden 1997; Grabe 2002; Ladd 2008). However, a recent pilot study has shown that the steeper and more steadily rising uptalk rise, which is mainly associated with American and Antipodean Englishes, is now found not only in Southern British English (cf. Arvaniti and Atkins 2016), but also in Northern Ireland. For this study, 6 female speakers were recorded while taking part in a Map Task and approximately 3 minutes of speech was examined. Intonational rises were labeled using the IViE guidelines (see Grabe et al. 2000; Grabe 2002) and f0 measurements were taken at 10 intervals between the low starting points and peaks of each rise. Rises were then assigned to either the rise-plateau or uptalk categories according to the phonological label assigned and the steepness, height and steadiness of the rise. This study thus provides confirmation that Northern Irish English speakers really use uptalk rises, and acoustic evidence of how these differ from the variety’s traditional rise-plateaux.