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I understand that resentment. I hope that the uncertainty, lack of authority, and amateurism that I ascribe to up-speaking is rightly placed. I hope that it's
by MathMonkeyMan 5y ago
I understand that resentment.
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.
- nightowl_games 5y agoUpspeaking is subconsciously used as a defense mechanism. It is advertising a lack of confidence, which is intended to draw a cooperative rather than combative response. It is signalling that "I am unsure of what I am saying". It is based off of the vocal intention of inquisition. It is a subconscious defense mechanism. The bias you speak of is omnipresent. It is also within the speaker. Think about that. The speaker chooses to deploy a style that will bias the listener to view the speaker in a certain way. The bias being present in the speaker is the key factor to understanding this phenomenon. The experiment that I propose is: if the bias was gone, would the speaker still use this speaking technique?
- watwut 5y agoYou know, the speaker is quite often NOT choosing this "technique". The speaker simply speaks focusing on content and that is what voice does, whether innately or because brain mimics other people speaking. No beginner speaker is in complete conscious control over every detail. Nor are they expected to be, really.
- junon 5y agoGP never said this was a conscious decision. Most of the time the speaker doesn't realize they're doing it. It's similar to body language.
- watwut 5y ago> The speaker chooses to deploy a style [...] The bias being present in the speaker is the key factor to understanding this phenomenon. The experiment that I propose is: if the bias was gone, would the speaker still use this speaking technique?
- junon 5y ago> . . . subconsciously used as a defense mechanism > 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.
- nightowl_games 5y agoI appreciate your statements here. You are correct. It's an unconscious choice. Remember: the bias exists in the speaker.
- op00to 5y agoMaybe the speaker is defensive because others in the workplace don’t allow the speaker space to share their ideas.
- junon 5y agoMaybe the speaker is actually a head of broccoli. 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.
- stefan_ 5y agoThis is some wild ass projection. Stop trying to read anything into learned speaking manners.
- WorkLobster 5y agoI'm surprised an assertion this strong with zero attestation and the hint of pseudoscientificism is still alive on HN. Anyone living through the 00s (and perhaps even still today) will recognise rising intonation as a social affectation, much the same as vocal fry. Use of it was regular in friendship groups I was in; including when dunking on each other, which is rather the opposite of wanting a cooperative response.
- nightowl_games 5y agoI feel as though your appeal to censorship is emboldened by your sense that I have enfringed on some social code regarding sexism. 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?
- WorkLobster 5y agoApologies if my earlier post came off as peevish. I would not want your comment to be removed, and to my mind there is nothing sexist about it. I am just constantly surprised that, in a community that seems to pride itself on putative rationality, we often end up swimming in reductive "just-so" stories that co-incidentally agree with the cynical take du jour. I did pick on yours, which is partially bad luck, but also the idea that the voodoo you mention is so comprehensive and airtight that it can diagnose me and everyone I know over the internet with approval-seeking seems particularly ludicrous. 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.
- n8cpdx 5y agoWhy do people need to sound authoritative? 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.
- DaiPlusPlus 5y ago> Can't authority be established through work history? 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).
- khazhoux 5y agoI'm not talking about bullshitty Power Speaker polish. 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.
- DaiPlusPlus 5y ago> But what if there's nothing intrinsically grating about up-speaking, and instead it only reminds us of young women? 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).
- jmeister 5y agoIronically, neurodiversity — the kind of diversity that matters most for intellectual work — gets choked in the current DEI rush.
- eliasmacpherson 5y agoMy and other's regional accents have been the source of consternation at work. Speakers with regional accents have been encouraged to modify them for the benefit of non native English speakers by the DEI group. I find that ironic.
- DaiPlusPlus 5y ago> I find that ironic. 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.
- khazhoux 5y agoThere's maybe a more direct way of saying that: "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.
- MathMonkeyMan 5y agoSeemed less rude to make it about me ;) I like how you describe it below, as just another nervous habit in public speaking. A very annoying one.
- op00to 5y agoIt’s totally the latter. Men are allowed whatever speech patterns they like, but women have to have perfect pitch throughout an entire sentence? Is that reasonable?
- hopelessattic 5y agoI would—and have—provide the same feedback to a man. I'd consider it sexist not to offer the same level of guidance just because of gender.