I hope that the uncertainty, lack of authority, and amateurism that I ascribe to up-speaking is rightly placed. I hope that it's just a matter of cultural norms that young women are the most likely to speak this way.
But what if there's nothing intrinsically grating about up-speaking, and instead it only reminds us of young women?
I've convinced myself that it's the former, but it wouldn't blow my mind if I were wrong.
No beginner speaker is in complete conscious control over every detail. Nor are they expected to be, really.
> It is a subconscious defense mechanism.
Clearly they mean the "choice" is subconscious. Perhaps poor wording but only if you ignore the rest of the comment is it unclear what they mean.
Both of our ideas are speculative at best, and to attempt to discredit the GP's point via speculative refutes does nothing but polarize the conversation further.
I appreciate your counter anecdata, and I recognize that it offers a counter argument to my assertions.
I don't think that means we should take my post down. Do you truly believe that? Do you believe in such limiting of speech? Have I committed a thought crime by thinking that using up speak during a presentation is a defense mechanism? Is it possible I am sometimes right?
I hold that it's possible that I am sometimes wrong. Do you allow that perhaps I am sometimes right?
Do you think this post should be taken down too?
Are you able to introspect on your social groups usage of upspeak and ponder a reason as to it's origin? Perhaps it's advertising a set of values?
I don't want to dump on your idea too much. It's very possible there's a kernel of truth to it—I know I have noticed sometimes that people use higher voices (as a whole, rather than a cadence) when they don't want to offend. But I think we would all be better served if we learned to start with questions and calls for discussion, than trying to claim universal truth and quickly being refuted.
One of my autistic-traits is that some vocal sounds, tics, and things like that are incredibly irritating to me - it's nothing to do with any mental-associations like that, it's just something my brain/body does.
...but if I were in the same position I'd probably just grin-and-bear it: it's not something worth raising a (potential) fuss over, especially the optics of being seen as being sexist or "man-splaining" to a woman how they should speak (a huge obvious no-no right there).
Whyso? At work you're expected to function as a team, and part of being a team necessarily means needing to make personal compromises for the team's sake.
In this situation, non-native English speakers are going through the monumental effort of both learning English and having to put their skills to the test every day instead of them working and communicating in their fluent language. While people with accents such that they're harder for non-native speakers to understand are being asked to have clearer enunciation - for the sake of the team.
You're not being asked to change your accent, just to have clearer enunciation (if your org's DEI team said "accent" instead of "enunciation" then their wording is unhelpfully vague or demonstrably open to misinterpretation) - and not for the benefit of people who aren't themselves doing anything for their own situation (it's not like the non-native English speakers in your workplace are insisting everyone speak their language, after all). Everyone is making a compromise for everyone's sake. There's nothing ironic about it at all - just unfortunate messaging from the DEI people.
The irony is the reduction in diversity of speaking is requested to improve the equity and inclusivity of comprehension.
I am more inclined to charitably view it as a minor inconsiderate overstep, an internal matter not for public consumption. Perhaps if it was phrased as 'enunciation' it would not have garnered any reaction.
There is no way to do what you suggest without risking a mob.
You should risk the mob. It's not ok for a DEI team to ask people to tailor their regional accents for foreigners who don't speak english well. You can also release this anonymously (it's hard for people to deny written exchanges because the results are in many inboxes).
Also on a point of misunderstanding it's not an Americans vs. Foreigners situation.
I'm not saying to take advantage of mob justice, just shine a larger light on the facts.
> Lindsay is a critic of woke culture
Riiiight.
> Lindsay announced his intention to vote for Trump in the 2020 election, citing illiberalism on the left as the reason
I'm not interested in polemics from people who voted for Trump because they feel the opposition is "illiberal".
"Hey khazhoux, maybe you /are/ sexist for thinking that a vocal trait sometimes associated with young women is a sign of amateurism."
The tricky thing about unconscious bias is of course that it's hard to know when you're carrying it. Nonetheless, I'm fairly confident that that speaking style would be considered un-authoritative by most people, and as a manager I see my job as how to help the individual whose career could be impacted by cultural norms both fair and unfair.
I like how you describe it below, as just another nervous habit in public speaking. A very annoying one.
I hear a lot of bullshit from people who focus on how they sound. Can't authority be established through work history? TBH, the more polished and confident a presenter sounds, the more likely they are to be actively bullshitting, and it's really annoying to see people fall for it "because he sounded so confident."
If you are ignoring someone's point because of the sound of voice, rather than quality of content... Yikes. I guess certain silicon valley-isms (e.g. Theranos) start to make sense if people really do that in a corporate setting.
No. We're still (relatively primitive) animals: we have plenty of well-documented "vulns" and internal biases that affect our decision-making and opinion-forming abilities - and these come from both actual-instinctive habits (like how we're generally predisposed to be biased towards selecting tall people as leaders or for promotion) and learned biases from our cultural upbringing (e.g. racism in the southern US).
The vocal uptilt --at least in common native-English dialects-- turns statements into questions, and/or indicates that the speaker seeks agreement or approval from the listener. Do it here and there and it's no problem. Do it for every sentence and it's very off-putting, and distracts from the content itself.
It's not radically different advice from not saying Umm every two words, not mumbling/eating half your sentence, not talking to a room in a whisper, etc.