Intonation in American Accents

An introduction to the primary intonation patterns in most American accents, especially focused on dropping off at the end of phrases, how pitches tend to follow a "stair step" speech pattern, and a little bit on vocal fry and uptalk.

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American Intonation Patterns

The American Clunk

As it's commonly done, most Americans drop off at the ends of phrases. It's really common to just drop off. And it's commonly done at line endings, where you get this complete finish. But you'll also commonly have that happen on every single phrase, so I'm going to go on, but I'm going to indicate, like I'm done. So there tends to be this drop off that happens a lot for American speakers. That's a generalization of American speech.

American Stair Step Intonation

Another intonation element is the fact that a lot of Americans speak in sort of a stairstep format. So Americans tend to speak like we are going up or down stairs. Sometimes we'll shift steps in the middle of a word. Now on occasion we'll take two steps because we have something really important to emphasize. Right now. So you'll end up with that kind of a stairstep effect.

Most of the time, Americans take one or two steps and that's about it. And they tend to operate within a fairly small range, unless they're getting really excited about something. Then they may blast off somewhere else. But most Americans operate in this small range of intonation there.

Running Words Together - Linking

Now there are some other American intonation patterns or elements to intonation that are not uncommon. There can be a little bit of linking together especially dropping of some sounds in some accents. That's commonly thought of for a lot of urban accents, a lot of cities that there's sort of a lot of blending some things together like that, where things the words sort of lose elements because they're blending together. You'll also think of that perhaps with African-American vernacular, New York it's a strong stereotype, most urban centers it will be a stereotype. It's also a stereotype of many Southern Accents in general too. That the Southern Accents you'll end up with some folks who are going to get some sounds kind of run and things together where you feel like some things are dropping away. You'll especially hear that when someone is speaking to someone else from the same place, when they know they understand them.

American Uptalk

So one other intonation that I want to make mention of is a tendency for some Americans, and it tends to be associated with Southern California, to be up talk at the end, where you move up. It almost sounds like everything's a question. If you totally think about that kind of happening, right? That's a strong American stereotype and theoretically it's actually becoming stronger and moving through much of the US. Many studies these days are suggesting that young females view it in other young females as a sign of success. The Kardashian sound. It's that uptalk that can happen.

Vocal Fry

It's also vocal fry, when the voice drops down and goes into this irregular meeting of the vocal folds, where you end up with vocal fry. It's that sort of creaky croaky voice. 

The thing that you might associate with Henry Kissinger, if you have any idea who Henry Kissinger is. There you go. Otherwise listen to young females these days and you'll hear quite a bit of it all over the place, dropping into vocal fry. It's making its way into men, as well. There you go. The females have set the trend. We got to follow.

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