By John Worne, CIOL CEO.

In my spare time there’s nothing I enjoy more than a bit of linguistics. Having done a couple of online courses with the University of Leiden and listened through one of John McWhorter’s comprehensive and fascinating courses, I’ve been bitten by the linguistics bug.

So as a father to two young adults, I was delighted to come across this piece on rising intonation on the end of statements. New research from Johannes Heim at the University of Aberdeen shows that these "rising declaratives" should change how we think about English conversation. It turns out that when someone says, "It’s raining?" with a rising tone instead of the usual falling tone, they are in fact doing something complex in language – and I thought it was just ‘uptalk’ the tendency for younger speakers to use rising intonation in statements…

Beyond simple questions and statements

Language experts have historically thought that English conversation is mainly about deciding what is true. Normal statements set out facts:"It is raining." Questions ask for information: "Is it raining?" Rising declaratives – statements that sound like questions – have been seen as showing that speakers are not sure about the truth.

But Heim's research shows this view is too simple. He studied real conversations where Canadian English speakers gave each other directions on maps and the research demonstrates that speakers do much more than just decide what is true. They also decide what is important for the ongoing conversation.

Four types of rising statements

The study found four different uses of rising statements, each with different purposes:

• Asking for confirmation - happens when speakers have some information but need someone else to confirm it.
• Showing surprise - occurs when speakers hear something that goes against what they already believe.
• Checking relevance - happens when speakers are sure about facts but not sure if those facts matter to the conversation.
• Continuing the story - works like a signal that more information is coming.

Steep vs. Shallow Rises

One of the most interesting findings concerns the acoustic properties of these different types. Rising declaratives that negotiate truth (inquisitive and incredulous) feature steeper pitch rises than those negotiating relevance (speculative and narrative), i.e.

• Steep rises: "Help me resolve whether this is true."
• Shallow rises: "Help me establish how this relates to our conversation."

This isn't random variation – it represents a systematic grammatical encoding where the steepness of the rise corresponds to what type of conversational work is being done.

Implications for understanding English

This research has implications for how we understand contemporary English usage. The traditional view is that rising declaratives simply express uncertainty or seek confirmation. This oversimplifies their role in conversation.

Instead, they represent a sophisticated system for managing the social and cognitive demands of collaborative dialogue.

Face-Saving and Social Navigation: All rising declaratives share one crucial feature – they protect speakers from losing face. By avoiding full commitment to a statement, speakers reduce their social risk.

Questions and Conversations: The research demonstrates that conversations are structured around implicit questions that participants are collectively trying to answer. Rising declaratives help speakers navigate not just factual uncertainty, but uncertainty about how their contributions fit into the broader conversation.

Turn-Taking and Relevance: The model shows these aren't separate phenomena but interconnected aspects of managing a conversation.

‘Keeping it real’

These patterns may perhaps in part explain ‘uptalk’. Rather than dismissing this as about uncertainty or insecurity or just copying peers, the research suggests it may represent more sophisticated negotiation of truth and relevance.

The research also has implications for cross-cultural communication, language teaching, and even Artificial Intelligence processing of natural language.

Understanding that rising intonation encodes both the functions of seeking the truth and checking for relevance could improve how we (and AI) interpret and respond to these conversational moves.

The Bigger Picture

Heim's work shows that today’s English speakers operate with a more complex conversational toolkit than previously acknowledged. Speakers are not just exchanging information or seeking confirmation with rising intonation, they’re continuously negotiating both the truth of propositions and their relevance to shared goals.

For linguistics, this research demonstrates the importance of nuanced models of conversation which account for the full complexity of what speakers accomplish when they talk. For the broader community of language professionals, it offers insights into the remarkable sophistication underlying even apparently simple conversational moves – don’t knock the kids for an apparently endlessly questioning tone...

The rise of rising intonation, or ‘uptalk’, reflects what conversation really involves: not just the negotiation of knowledge and truth, but the collaborative construction of relevance and meaning between speakers in a complex world.  

John Worne is CEO of the Chartered Institute of Linguists. John has lived and worked in different countries all around the world and spent eight years promoting languages and culture as Director of Strategy at the British Council.

Prior to this he spent more than a decade working internationally, including five years living and working in Paris. A graduate of the University of Oxford, John studies linguistics in his spare time.

Views expressed on CIOL Voices are those of the writer and may not represent those of the wider membership or CIOL.