Vocal Fry and Upspeak

These are both manufactured speech patterns used by certain groups. Although they often run together, vocal fry and upspeak should not be confused. Think Valley girls and the Kardashians. Fry is like the low, croaky voice you have when you are sick and drop to your lowest register. The easiest way to understand is to have an example, so there are links for each below. Personally, they both drive me crazy. Like, totally!

Upspeak or uptalk or Valleyspeak is a rising inflection, interrogative, or high rising intonation of some variants of English where declarative sentences or clauses end with a rising-pitch intonation. It is usually accompanied with heavy doses of the word 'like'. It is like when you like end a like declarative sentence like in a raised tone. It makes a statement “We are going to the mall for fun” sound like a question “… for fun?”. LINK 


Vocal fry is making croaky, graveled vocal styling emissions while speaking. Women tend to use this much more than men. Here is an example of vocal fry. LINK