Help identifying an accent?

[zmgmeister.livejournal.com]

Has anybody heard a particular accent where the speaker seems to go breathless and their voice cracks at the end of the word, especially certain consonants? It seems to be mainly women in their 20s and early 30s, and seems to be an affected, "trendy" accent. A few years back it seemed to be everywhere; every TV commercial trying to sell to this demographic was using it.

If you've seen the movie Fever Pitch, you know what i'm talking about. Drew Barrymore's character had this accent, and Jimmy Fallon commented that she was talking out the side of her mouth.

PS. Why ask this in Davis? There are people here who speak this way, and it tends to stick out like a sore thumb. Perhaps some resident linguist can explain. Why not ask this in B0st0n? Dont want to scroll through a snarkfest.

Comments

[zmgmeister.livejournal.com]

Hmm well there's still something to explain. If it's a trendy accent, who started the trend?

It didn't come from Fever Pitch, it seemed to be everywhere about five years before that.

Now, how would i describe it by typing? I'd say the word "Year" is pronounced something like "Yiihr" with maybe an umlaut over one of those i's, and a purred r.

I don't know if IPA has symbols for this. Its been discussed online before, ive seen discussions about "throat creak" in the linguistics newsgroups. And in those discussions, it seemed to be that the phenomenon was either glaringly obvious or oblivious to the posters, with no in-between.

Most people who ive described this to think i'm talking about Valley Girl-isms, "like, kewl?" but its not the same. It could be a Northern CA thing though.