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Outliers, impact, and rationalization in linguistic change
Abstract
Quotative be like is a rapid global innovation, yet no evidence pinpoints when it arose, under what circumstances, or the consequences of its emergence. Using a data set spanning four cities and two hemispheres, we document systemic regularity across time and space. The results force us to confront three
issues: the uniformitarian principle, the criterion of face-to-face contact in the diffusion of language change, and the nature of language as a complex adaptive system. Be like is an outlier, it has had a major impact on the linguistic system, and it can only be rationalized by hindsight, demonstrating the possibility of significant random events outside the predictable structures and processes in language. We conclude by suggesting that be like is a (linguistic) black swan event (Taleb 2010).
... In fact, D'Arcy (2020) has argued that the very reason be like became so widespread in settler colonial Englishes is that the entire quotative system was already in flux before be like's emergence. Globalization may have helped be like diffuse across settler colonial communities (Buchstaller & D'Arcy, 2009;Tagliamonte et al., 2016), but storytelling in those communities already favored thought and attitude reporting in narrative. Be like arrived to fill an existing functional niche and subsequently spread to other kinds of constructed dialogue reporting (see Gardner, Denis, Brook, & Tagliamonte, 2021). ...
... Although quotative system changes have operated since at least the mid-eighteenth century (D'Arcy, 2017), the overall distribution of quotative frames in settler colonial Englishes has changed significantly since the 1970s, characterized by the rapid uptake of quotative be like, which allows the speaker to suggest that the quoted content is merely "a kind of thing" the person was saying or thinking (Tannen, 1986:321). Synchronic research on this change is prolific (Ferrara & Bell, 1995;Gardner et al., 2021;Rodríguez Louro, 2013;Tagliamonte et al., 2016;Tagliamonte & Hudson, 1999;Winter, 2002). Studies have also focused on how constructed dialogue patterns across discourse types or genres (Rodríguez Louro, Richard, & Bharadwaj, 2020) and on diachronic trends in settler colonial Englishes (Buchstaller, 2011;D'Arcy, 2012D'Arcy, , 2018. ...
... To ensure comparability with the extant literature, our data extraction and coding protocols draw on existing practice. For example, in line with variationist studies of English quotation (e.g., Buchstaller & D'Arcy, 2009;Gardner et al., 2021;Rodríguez Louro, 2013;Tagliamonte et al., 2016), the envelope of variation was functionally circumscribed to include all uses of direct quotation, internal thought and nonlexicalized sounds and gestures by self or others. All instances aligning with this criterion were extracted, including those introduced by an overt verb of quotation (e.g., say, think, go, be like), and those prefaced by "zero." ...
We examine constructed dialogue in a longitudinal corpus of Australian Aboriginal English (AE) spoken in Perth, Australia. We conduct a variationist analysis of naturalistic data from forty-six L1 speakers of AE born 1907–2005. We ask, regarding the use of quotative frames, whether AE has changed in line with settler colonial Englishes. We examine whether a division of labor exists in the use of quotative frames, and whether the rise of first-person-marked internal thought reporting attested in settler colonial Englishes is present in AE.
Our statistical modeling shows functional partitioning in how quotative frames are used, with AE speakers strongly encoding direct speech across time. We find that the rise of first-person-marked internal thought reporting has not been systemic in AE. Despite be like 's incursion after 1983, the underlying system of AE has not changed. The cultural prerogative to encode speech remains strong despite sustained contact with non-First Nations Australia.
... Although quotative marking has been described as a highly dynamic domain of L1 English vernaculars, the use of like in its function as direct speech and thought introducer (4) has attracted most attention from sociolinguists, while also having been described as one of the most striking developments of the newest history of English (Tagliamonte & D'Arcy, 2004: 493). The first academic acknowledgment of the existence of the variant can be traced back to the 1980s (Butters, 1982) and since then the study of variable quotative marking with special emphasis on be like has become a "veritable cottage industry" (Tagliamonte, D'Arcy, & Rodríguez Louro, 2016) for sociolinguists exploring variation in L1 English vernaculars (see Buchstaller, 2014: 97-111 and more recently Davydova, 2019: 17-31 for comprehensive overviews of research). One fundamental insight emerging from these studies is that native speakers do not produce quotative be like randomly in their speech. ...
... The variable use of quotative markers is furthermore contingent on grammatical subject of the clause containing the quotative marker and be like has been shown to be preferred with first over third person grammatical subject (see, for instance, Tagliamonte, D'Arcy, & Rodríguez Louro, 2016) and to be overwhelmingly favored with neuter pronoun it (Buchstaller, 2014). These contexts are illustrated in (7) through (9): ...
... English vernaculars and reported to be sufficiently robust (see, for instance, Tagliamonte, D'Arcy, & Rodríguez Louro, 2016). The language-internal predictors for occurrence of be like summarized here have been attested for all major varieties of native speaker English and their patterning has been described as highly analogous across the board (Tagliamonte, D'Arcy, & Rodríguez Louro, 2016). ...
The study reported here explores the role of various social factors in the L2 acquisition of vernacular variation. In so doing, it investigates acquisition of probabilistic constraints on the use of a globally available innovation, quotative be like , as a diagnostic linguistic variable. Drawing on data obtained from 37 individuals from three age cohorts all living in Mannheim, Germany, and applying the variationist method of evaluation, I show that German learners managed to acquire the variable grammar of quotative be like . I also test for a diverse set of sociolinguistic and sociopsychological variables by way of exploring their relative contribution to the process of acquiring structured variation by adult learners. The results of mixed‐effects modeling (Johnson 2009) show that acquisition of quotative be like is mediated by age, gender, and learners’ linguistic identity. I conclude that EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners’ (implicit) knowledge about structured variation is an inherent component of their sociolinguistic competence, while drawing English teachers’ attention to the general importance of the issue concerning learners’ knowledge about structured variability.
... The use of quotative be like was initially thought of as a new phenomenon witnessed among a specific group of native English speakers (i.e., teenage girls in southern California (Butters 1982)). However, various studies conducted over time on Canadian, British, Irish, and Australian English (see Tagliamonte and Hudson 1999;Tagliamonte and D'Arcy 2004;Tagliamonte et al. 2016;Diskin and Levey 2019) have shown that, in fact, the use of be like is not limited to a certain social group or geographic location, as shown in Table 1, and its usage frequency has been on the rise to rival (or even surpass) that of more traditional quotatives, such as say. Buchstaller and Van Alphen (2012) note that this sudden rise of be like may be caused by the fact that new quotative variants such as be like are mostly "lexical items that denote comparison, similarity or approximation" (p. ...
... The professor opened his mouth and I was like, "This is bad news for me". Blythe et al. (1990), Tagliamonte and Hudson (1999), Tagliamonte and D'Arcy (2004), Buchstaller and D'Arcy (2009), Tagliamonte et al. (2016), Diskin and Levey (2019) Non-lexicalized sounds (mimesis) It was like, "Whooosh" ...
... Older Blythe et al. (1990), Ferrara and Bell (1995) Younger Be like generally associated with youth Speaker sex Female Tagliamonte and Hudson (1999), Barbieri (2005), Tagliamonte et al. (2016) Male Conflicting findings on which sex prefers be like For internal constraints, previous research on grammatical person has found that be like favors first-person subjects (Tagliamonte and Hudson 1999) across various Englishes, while say and go are strongly linked to third-person subjects (Blythe et al. 1990; Romaine and Lange 1991;Tagliamonte and Hudson 1999). For content of the quote, more recent studies (Buchstaller and D'Arcy 2009;Tagliamonte et al. 2016;Diskin and Levey 2019) have stated that across global varieties of English, be like has generally been associated with the expression of internal dialogue or inner thoughts, rather than the reporting of direct speech, or beyond that to include non-lexicalized sounds (mimesis). Mimesis is defined by Diskin and Levey (2019) as a speaker's "manipulation of suprasegmental phonology (e.g., loudness pitch, syllable length) and/or sound symbolism to deliberately imitate or produce highly stylized renditions of human verbal behavior" (p. ...
This study explores the acquisition of the English quotative system and the innovative quotative variant be like among Chinese L2 speakers of English residing in Melbourne, Australia. The L2 speakers’ use of quotatives such as say, go, be like, and quotative zero is compared with quotatives used by native speakers of Australian English (AusE) in Perth and Sydney, as well as with a group of Polish L2 speakers in Ireland. A quantitative analysis of the Chinese L2 speakers’ sociolinguistic interviews shows that their distribution of quotatives is dramatically different from native AusE speakers, primarily because of their overall low proportion of be like and their high proportion of quotative say and zero. The L2 speakers also show neutralization (no preference) for language-internal constraints, which have traditionally shown be like to be preferred in first person contexts and for reporting inner thoughts, differing from patterns for AusE observed in Perth and in a recent study of second generation Chinese Australians in Sydney.
... Although an individual's use of be like has been shown to peak during their midteens, use remains relatively high into young adulthood (Cukor-Avila 2002; Tagliamonte and D'Arcy 2007). Key to the possible homeschooler experience, however, is the fact that all of the parents of the college students analyzed here either entered adolescence before be like became dominant in the 1990s or were among the first generation of be like users (see Buchstaller 2015;Tagliamonte, D'Arcy, and Louro 2016). In either case, this parental generation is unlikely to use be like as much as the young adults who comprise our participant sample. ...
... In terms of linguistic factors, the present data also show agreement with previous work. As in other studies (e.g., Tagliamonte and D'Arcy 2004;Buchstaller and D'Arcy 2009;Tagliamonte, D'Arcy, and Louro 2016;but see Cukor-Avila 2002), be like is favored with first-person subjects more than third-person ones (though be like is certainly still common with third-person subjects; see Blyth, Recktenwald, and Wang 1990). As for verb tense, we found no difference between historical present and simple past, which contrasts with previous research that found be like to be significantly more likely with historical present than past tense (e.g., Blyth, Recktenwald, and Wang 1990;Singler 2001;Buchstaller and D'Arcy 2009;Tagliamonte, D'Arcy, and Louro 2016). ...
... As in other studies (e.g., Tagliamonte and D'Arcy 2004;Buchstaller and D'Arcy 2009;Tagliamonte, D'Arcy, and Louro 2016;but see Cukor-Avila 2002), be like is favored with first-person subjects more than third-person ones (though be like is certainly still common with third-person subjects; see Blyth, Recktenwald, and Wang 1990). As for verb tense, we found no difference between historical present and simple past, which contrasts with previous research that found be like to be significantly more likely with historical present than past tense (e.g., Blyth, Recktenwald, and Wang 1990;Singler 2001;Buchstaller and D'Arcy 2009;Tagliamonte, D'Arcy, and Louro 2016). This result may provide evidence that the be like is becoming grammaticalized to some extent in that its use may be extending into other tenses (cf. ...
Despite an emphasis on the high school environment in explaining the linguistic choices of young people, little is known about the sociolinguistic effects of nontraditional schooling, such as homeschooling. This study examines the use of quotative be like in interviews with undergraduates from different high school backgrounds (homeschool, private, public). Because of possibly having reduced experience with the social orders that structure conventional school communities, homeschooled students could show a distinct sociolinguistic profile. This study also considers other potential predictors of quotative use, including the speaker's use of a “nerd” persona style. Overall, the results indicate that homeschooled students developed a quotative system very similar to that of their peers. Schooling type did not strongly predict be like use, although it appears to be related to persona style, which was a significant predictor. Qualitative evidence also points to peer-group differences among homeschooled students as a possible predictor. These findings call for more attention to school experience when studying the development and use of socially marked variables. The results also highlight the relevance of persona-based factors in a thorough account of linguistic variation, and they provide evidence that quotative be like, while pervasive in the speech of young adults, still carries social meaning.
... (5) One hour later, we were all (making a dramatic pause), 'Tears and heaven on earth!' I explore this feature for five major reasons. First and foremost, quotation is a highly variable domain of L1 English vernacular that has been reported to have been undergoing proliferation and expansion as well as robust and large-scale change (D'Arcy 2012; Tagliamonte 2012; Tagliamonte, D'Arcy, and Rodríguez Louro 2016). It has furthermore been argued to "be a good place to look for, and 'catch', the burgeoning global 'mega trends' of language change" (Tagliamonte and Hudson 1999: 168). ...
... The channels through which be like spread from one speaker community to the next is a contentious issue in current sociolinguistic research. Two widely discussed conduits of linguistic innovations comprise face-to-face interactions on the one hand (Labov 2007;Tagliamonte, D'Arcy, and Rodríguez Louro 2016;Trudgill 1986) and the global reach of mass media on the other (Androutsopoulos 2014a;Bell and Sharma 2014). Variationist sociolinguists have maintained that the propagation of linguistic variability pertaining to the hardcore levels of linguistic structure (such as morphosyntax but also phonology) requires prolonged interpersonal contact. ...
... Other authors who have tackled the study of the global linguistic innovation seem to vacillategiven current status-quo within sociolinguistics between face-to-face contact and mass media as two possible diffusion channels, acknowledging (but not over-emphasising) the role of television and the media as an additional contributory factor in the propagation of quotative be like (see, for instance, Buchstaller 2004Buchstaller , 2008Buchstaller and D'Arcy 2009;Meyerhoff and Niedzielski 2003). More recently, Tagliamonte, D'Arcy, and Rodríguez Louro (2016) have vigorously argued that be like was dispersed to far-distant locales through the global personal connections resulting from worldwide economic expansion and social restructuring that took place from 1945 to the early 1970s. The former was made possible by the introduction of the jet plane in 1958, which subsequently popularised international travel. ...
The volume considers global and local innovations in the domain of variable quotative marking by extending its scope to the newly emerging forms of language. In so doing, it explores two academic communities in order to tap into the distinctive non-native speaker ecologies underpinning the evolution of English worldwide. The author tackles the geographical scale that reaches from the southwest of Germany all the way to northern India, while keeping an eye on the sociolinguistic realities of North America and the British Isles. It provides a detailed account of variable quotation strategies as well as language-internal and sociopsychological mechanisms underlying their realisation in non-native speakers’ grammar. The book engages the reader in the discussion of the social and psycholinguistic mechanisms that are at work in the creation of innovative quotative constructions, while highlighting the relevance of the mass media consumption patterns and learners’ local attitudes for the spread of innovative features on a global scale. In so doing, it consolidates findings from (acquisitional variationist) sociolinguistics and World Englishes, as well as usage-based and cognitively oriented approaches to second language acquisition. The approach is motivated by the search for the new synergy effects stemming from the different subfields of the study of language in society and the science of the human mind more generally.
... Furthermore, the vocabulary is more versatile, more instantaneous, and more evolutive depending on the direct and indirect relations. Lexical practices are typically one of the parts of the language that can be influenced by networks containing weak ties (Dodsworth & Benton, 2020;Tagliamonte et al., 2016;von Hipple, 1994). In this sense, lexical practices show the influence of the present network, more than that of the past one. ...
... The lexical practices allow distinguishing subgroups within groups. The vocabulary highlights a certain heterogeneity within heterogeneous homogeneity (Dodsworth & Benton, 2020;Tagliamonte et al., 2016;von Hipple, 1994). Thus, by studying lexical practices, it is possible to reach a higher level of precision and to outline substructures. ...
Variationist studies have shown the implication of tie properties in the emergence and preservation of linguistic norms. This contribution deepens the understanding of this mechanism at the dyadic level. It explores relational subjectivity and relativity among individuals of a community and their implications in the distribution of lexical variants. The aim is to understand how the reciprocity of a relation influences the share of lexical practices. To do so, we analyze the network of discussions of bachelor's degree students of the University of Geneva and their lexical practices. Using the modern methods used in social network analysis to study relational properties and by running multiple regression quadratic assignment procedure (MRQAP), reciprocal interactions are found to lead to a higher lexical share and similarity.
... This has at times been in direct, or at least indirect, responses to views that like is 'ungrammatical' (Underhill, 1988, p. 234). Rigorous studies have pointed to the importance of like in relaying new information, exemplifying, and expressing approximate quantities (Jucker & Smith, 1998), in countering objections and false assumptions on the part of the hearer (Miller & Weinert, 1995) and, more recently, its capacity to introduce reported speech, functioning as the quotative complementizer be like (see Tagliamonte et al., 2016 for an overview). The intersection of quantitative analysis of discourse-pragmatic markers, and Second Language Acquisition (SLA), remains an understudied area of research, with the majority of analyses of discourse-pragmatic markers focusing on L1 speakers (Müller, 2005, p. 1). ...
... The discourse-pragmatic marker you know was selected for analysis due to its high frequency in the everyday speech of L1 speakers of English (Buysse, 2017, p. 40;Erman, 2001;Östman, 1981) and its reported presence and comparatively lower frequency in the speech of L2 speakers of English (Aijmer, 2002;Buysse, 2017;Fung & Carter, 2007;Hellermann & Vergun, 2007;House, 2009;Müller, 2005). The discourse-pragmatic marker like was selected due to its high frequency and the fact that its clausal positioning has been shown to vary across different communities of L1 English speakers around the world (Tagliamonte et al., 2016). This variability has been linked to its grammaticalization pathways, which presents interesting questions from the point of view of L2 acquisition -how likely are L2 speakers to replicate variable patterning of a discourse-pragmatic marker in speech? ...
This study investigates the use and adoption of the discourse‐pragmatic markers you know and like among L2 speakers of the Expanding Circle (Poland and China) who move to Inner Circle countries (Ireland and Australia) as migrants. Adopting a quantitative analysis, findings show that rates of use of you know are commensurate between both L1 (Inner Circle) groups, despite speaking different varieties of English. No significant differences in the rates of use of you know and like are found between L1 and L2 speakers, although when broken down by nationality, Polish L1 speakers use more you know than any other group. Having an all‐Chinese social network is not found to be an inhibiting factor towards the use of you know among the migrants in Australia. In Ireland, migrants with a length of residence of more than six years approach, but do not attain, L1 speaker levels of use of clause‐final like in particular.
... However, the large decline of say and the large increase of like on the A-curve for each place shows us that modern transportation and communication can indeed allow changes in the language to occur on a broad basis across the world, not just in local places. We can make one A-curve to cover the variants in all four of the cities (Figure 12, where five "misc" categories have been represented to replace the single "misc" category shown by Tagliamonte, D'Arcy, and Rodriguez Louro 2016, in order to make the long tail of the curve). Figure 12. ...
... Quotative like in four cities(Tagliamonte, D'Arcy, and Rodriguez Louro 2016). ...
In the history of linguistics there have been crucial moments when those of us interested in language have essentially changed the way we study our subject. We stand now at such a moment. In this presentation I will review the history of linguistics in order to highlight some past important changes in the field, and then turn to where we stand now. Some things that we thought we knew have turned out not to be true, like the systematic, logical nature of languages. Other things that we had not suspected, like a universal underlying emergent pattern for all the features of a language, are now evident. This emergent pattern is fractal, that is, we can observe the same distributional pattern in frequency profiles for linguistic variants at every level of scale in our analysis. We also have hints that time, as the persistence of a preference for particular variants of features, is a much more important part of our language than we had previously believed. We need to explore the new realities of language as we now understand them, chief among them the idea that patterned variation, not logical system, is the central factor in human speech. In order to account for what we now understand, we need to get used to new methods of study and presentation, and place new emphasis on different communities and groups of speakers. Because the underlying pattern of language is fractal, we need to examine the habits of every group of speakers at every location for themselves, as opposed to our previous emphasis on overall grammars. We need to make our studies much more local, as opposed to global. We do still want to make grammars and to understand language in global terms, but such generalizations need to follow from what we can now see as the pattern of language as it is actually used.
... Much of the burgeoning literature on this variable is preoccupied with addressing the infiltration of be like into the local quotative systems of L1 varieties of English (Buchstaller and D'Arcy 2009), as well as the elusive mechanisms implicated in its transnational spread (see e.g. Tagliamonte, D'Arcy, and Rodríguez Louro 2016). ...
... As in previous studies, we distinguish tokens according to whether they introduce reported speech (Example 8), or internal dialogue/inner states (Example 9; see Ferrara and Bell 1995: 283). The association of be like with internal dialogue/inner states is reported to be a canonical constraint on the selection of this variant in global varieties of English (Buchstaller and D'Arcy 2009;Tagliamonte, D'Arcy, and Rodríguez Louro 2016). If be like is similarly constrained in the data under consideration, the coding protocol will detect the relevant conditioning, as well as any attenuation or reversal of this constraint, as reported, for example, in D'Arcy (2004: 504, 2007: 207). ...
We chart the incursion of quotative be like into Dublin English, drawing comparisons with similar developments in urban Canadian English as well as with diachronic benchmarks representing vernacular Irish English. Quantitative analysis reveals that be like is the lead variant in the quotative system used by young Dubliners and is advancing along a similar, though not identical, cline of grammaticalization to that found in urban Canadian English. We use the resultant information about the Dublin English quotative system as a baseline to assess the extent to which this system has been acquired by Polish-born L2 speakers of English differentiated in terms of target language proficiency. Comparison of the L2 quotative system with the L1 Dublin English benchmark reveals that not all L1 usage constraints are faithfully replicated by L2 speakers, indicating that the acquisition of the relevant constraints is incomplete, even in the case of advanced learners.
... To understand this process, we have to know more about the people who transfer and communicate the new forms to their community: where they are located; what makes them eligible for such a role; and how the older system changes with their input. The change from above to be examined here is the adoption of the new quotative be like as the dominant form for reporting speech acts, a change that began in the late 1970s and has developed in Philadelphia in a pattern very similar to that found in the rest of the English-speaking world (Blyth, Recktenwald, & Wang, 1990;Charity & Sanchez, 1999;Cukor-Avila, 2002;D'Arcy, 2012;Ferrara & Bell, 1995;Rickford, Buchstaller, Wasow, & Zwicky, 2007;Romaine & Lange, 1991;Singler, 2001;Tagliamonte & D'Arcy, 2007Tagliamonte, D'Arcy, & Rodríguez Louro, 2016;Tagliamonte & Hudson, 1999). ...
... It is generally agreed that the new quotative must have originated in some part of the United States, as yet unknown. 2 Many of the published reports address the question of the mechanism of diffusion by which the new verb of quotation has spread from one city to another. Tagliamonte et al. (2016) considered an explanation based on the emergence of the youth culture and travel tourism in the 1960s, but ultimately rejected such an accounting. They concluded that the new verb of quotation is a linguistic "Black Swan" (Taleb, 2010): "Its simultaneous, instantaneous, parallel development, in multiple urban locations, at the same time, from a novel collocation within a coherent system, could not have been predicted" (Tagliamonte et al., 2016:842). ...
The spread of the new quotative be like throughout the English-speaking world is a change from above for each community that receives it. Diffusion of this form into Philadelphia is traced through the yearly interviews of the Philadelphia Neighborhood Corpus, beginning with young adults in 1979 and spreading to adolescents in 1990, a generation later. The first users of be like form the Avant Garde, young adults with extensive awareness of linguistic patterns within and without the city. The use of this quotative in Philadelphia is favored by constraints that are found elsewhere, particularly to introduce inner speech that is not intended to be heard by others and to cite exemplars of a range of utterances. Not previously reported is a strong tendency to be favored for quotations with initial exclamations, prototypically expressions of surprise and alarm such as “Oh” and “Oh my god!”.
... The newest form, need to, appears to have been incorporated into the system of modals of obligation very rapidly, within one generation in Australia, as a communal change adopted uniformly (Labov, 1994:84). Thus, while it is possible that the rise of need to is a language-internal change, it could also be a change from above, originating outside of the community, as with widely discussed changes in English quotatives and intensifiers (Lee, 2020;Plehwe & Travis, 2020;Tagliamonte, D' Arcy, & Rodríguez Louro, 2016). Determining the mechanism and source of the change, whether internal or diffusion from one community into another or both (Arnaud, 1998:144), calls for real-and apparent-time studies and identification of the leaders of change within the community (Labov, 2018). ...
Shifts in the frequencies of English modals of obligation have been linked to shifts in modal function and changing interpersonal authority. Interpretation of over 2,000 tokens in spontaneous speech data recorded in Sydney, Australia, in the 1970s and 2010s establishes a replicable classification of obligation meanings, based on source of obligation, with a three-way distinction between Hierarchical authority, General circumstances, and Personal choice. Competing expressions for these obligation types, besides have to , have got to , and older must , include should and, recently, need to . Two sets of regression analyses provide evidence of covariation of form and function: first, the linguistic and social conditioning of forms, with meaning as one of the predictors; and second, the conditioning of function, with modal form as a predictor. Need to rises in real time and so does talk of personal obligation. However, the change in modal function is concomitant with, but independent of, shifting modal forms.
... The study of the global diffusion of vernacular variation is part and parcel of the sociolinguistic enterprise (Meyerhoff & Niedzielski, 2003). To cite one notable example, the transmission of quotative be like, one of the most spectacular innovations of modern English, has been explored in meticulous detail across the Inner Circle by Buchstaller (2008), Buchstaller and D'Arcy (2009) and Tagliamonte et al. (2016). Davydova (2019Davydova ( , 2021 explore the adoption of this feature of vernacular speech in two speech communities of the Outer and Expanding Circle. 1 Such investigations are of interest to sociolinguists not only for descriptive purposes. ...
Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions
The empirical goal of the paper is to document the linguistic distribution and patterning as well as the sociolinguistic conditioning of intensifiers in English spoken by educated young adults from Germany. Here, I also seek to understand how the empirical data presented here informs our understanding of the mechanisms underlying language change in those forms of English that emerge through the combined impact of naturalistic L2 acquisition and instructed foreign language learning (henceforth, EFL or Learner English).
Design/methodology/approach
The study reports intensification data from 53 advanced learners of English from Germany and compares it with that reported for L1 English vernaculars. The data were elicited with the help of sociolinguistic interviews tapping into learners’ natural linguistic behaviour. The processes of language change are explored against the backdrop of grammaticalisation theory, as espoused by variationist sociolinguists.
Data and analysis
The study employs two methods of analysis: distributional percentages and fixed-effects logistic regression analyses. These allow pinpoint rates and patterns of intensification as well as its language-internal and language-external conditioning.
Findings/conclusions
Systematic comparisons of language-internal conditioning underlying the occurrence of linguistic variants pinpoint ‘functional specialisation’ (also ‘entrenchment’) as a driving mechanism of and a potent constraint on language change.
Originality
While demonstrating how functional specialisation is operative in the system of German Learner English intensification, the present study highlights the relevance of EFL data to empirical testing and advancement of (socio-)linguistic theory. The study also highlights the relevance of learners’ linguistic identity and the sociopsychological construct of ‘relatedness’ in the adoption of the globally available features of the English language.
Significance/implications
The study pleads for more research at the intersection of historical/general linguistics and SLA as such an approach adds to knowledge about language acquisition, language variation and, ultimately, language change.
... Quotative markers are verbal strategies that speakers use in order to construct dialogue throughout narration. It is another highly versatile domain that has also been reported to have been undergoing robust and large-scale change (Tagliamonte, D' Arcy, and Rodríguez Louro 2016). Whereas older speakers often rely on the traditional elements, notably say (2a), think (2b) and zero quotative markers (2c), younger speakers recruit innovative forms such as go (2d) and be like (2e). ...
This study explores the role of linguistic structure in speakers’ perceptions of vernacular English, i.e. speech used in informal interactions. In so doing, it tests the assumptions of the Interface Principle ( Labov 1993 ) and its major claim that semantic and discourse-pragmatic features will elicit a greater degree of social awareness than morphosyntactic variants ( Levon and Buchstaller 2015 ). Relying on data obtained from 372 respondents, we explore the social perceptions of two discourse-pragmatic and two morphosyntactic variables. We show that the morphosyntactic features investigated here are generally available to the sociolinguistic monitor of L1 speakers as well as highly advanced learners of English as a Foreign Language. However, these morphosyntactic features are less salient than the semantic/discourse pragmatic variants, and their social indexation is, for this reason, more pliable. We argue for the weaker version of the Interface Principle and propose that the differences in the recognisability of vernacular features is gradient. We additionally propose that juxtaposing different types of speaker data is instrumental in discerning those differences.
... The choice of verb for introducing a direct quotation has undergone rapid change in the second-half of the 20th century. Speakers categorized as 'young' in 1990, when the Switchboard Corpus was collected, are considered the first generation of robust users of the innovative be like form [130,131], etc. Other verbs include say, think, go, ask, tell, and a collection of other semantically rich, yet infrequent, forms like whisper, yell, and retort. ...
The following paper explores the link between production difficulty and grammatical variability. Using a sub-sample of the Switchboard Corpus of American English (285 transcripts, 34 speakers), this paper shows that the presence of variable contexts does not positively correlate with two metrics of production difficulty, namely filled pauses (um and uh) and unfilled pauses (speech planning time). When 20 morphosyntactic variables are considered collectively (N= 6,268), there is no positive effect. In other words, variable contexts do not correlate with measurable production difficulties. These results challenge the view that grammatical variability is somehow sub-optimal for speakers, with additional burdensome cognitive planning.
... VADIS builds on methods developed in comparative sociolinguistics (see e.g., Tagliamonte, 2001Tagliamonte, , 2012Tagliamonte et al., 2016), which is a sub-discipline in variationist sociolinguistics that evaluates the relatedness between varieties and dialects based on how similar the conditioning of variation is in these varieties. Comparative sociolinguists rely on three what they call "lines of evidence" to determine relatedness: ...
Inspired by work in comparative sociolinguistics and quantitative dialectometry, we sketch a corpus-based method (Variation-Based Distance & Similarity Modeling—VADIS for short) to rigorously quantify the similarity between varieties and dialects as a function of the correspondence of the ways in which language users choose between different ways of saying the same thing. To showcase the potential of the method, we present a case study that investigates three syntactic alternations in some nine international varieties of English. Key findings include that (a) probabilistic grammars are remarkably similar and stable across the varieties under study; (b) in many cases we see a cluster of “native” (a.k.a. Inner Circle) varieties, such as British English, whereas “non-native” (a.k.a. Outer Circle) varieties, such as Indian English, are a more heterogeneous group; and (c) coherence across alternations is less than perfect.
... The channels through which be like has spread from one speaker community to the next has provoked many lively disputes (Buchstaller, 2008;Buchstaller & D'Arcy, 2009;D'Arcy, 2013;Sayers, 2014;Tagliamonte et al., 2016;Trudgill, 2014) and their discussion underpins a substantial part of current sociolinguistic theorising concerning the conduits through which linguistic innovations are propagated on a global scale (Androutsopoulos, 2014;Bell & Sharma, 2014). ...
The study aims at revising the major dichotomy between the Outer and Expanding Circles respectively. Taking the traditional sociolinguistic model of world Englishes as a starting point of discussion, I discuss the argument that classical macrosociolinguistic descriptions of linguistic varieties are helpful accounts that have also proven to be useful heuristic devices in the study of global variation as it is attested in English. Taking the linguistic variable ‘quotatives’ for illustration, I show that the patterns of use of innovative be like are uniform in the speech of young adults with elevated levels of exposure to mass media products and apply across the Outer and Expanding Circle English board. I conclude that the careful study of users’ individual profiles in a given sociolinguistic environment also holds the key to a nuanced understanding of the major sociolinguistic and sociocognitive determinants underlying the emergence of the new forms of English.
... One particularly difficult question to answer is the rate at which this might happen. Sometimes, a change is so gradual that it takes centuries to complete, while others spread quickly and simultaneously across many speech communities (Tagliamonte, D'Arcy, and Louro 2016). It appears then that the rate of change is specific to the community and the linguistic feature. ...
Sometimes, an external or catastrophic event causes a very sudden change in a speech community, often resulting in the loss traditional linguistic features and the spread of innovative speech patterns. This paper shows that changes in the timber industry in the late 1970s in Cowlitz County, Washington triggered the sudden loss of pre-velar raising, an innovative feature elsewhere in Washington State. Data was collected primarily through reading tasks with 42 natives of Cowlitz County, and by comparing a large set of piecewise regression models, it was found that those born after 1973 were much less likely to have the raised variant. In addition to a clear a shift around this time in census data, the older generation was generally nostalgic and had strong, positive feelings towards the area while the opposite was true of the younger cohort. These patterns, together with an examination of those who were exceptional within their generations, suggest that the raised variant is a marker of identity, signaling positive feelings towards Cowlitz County and the Pacific Northwest. This paper shows that the speech of Cowlitz County is more like that of Oregon than rest of Washington and that catastrophic events may in fact trigger the loss of an innovative feature when strong local identity is associated with the traditional variant.
... That WWII marks an important transition period in Victoria is likely the result of multiple factors. First, as outlined in Tagliamonte, D'Arcy, and Louro (2016), the end of the war heralded a new period of expanded international relations, affecting business, travel, and education. This era was quickly followed by major technological advances, including the introduction of the jet engine. ...
The literature on Canadian English provides evidence of distinct dialect regions. Within this landscape, the province of British Columbia is set apart as a sub-region in the west, yet information concerning “local” English is notably skewed toward a single urban setting, Vancouver. To assess and extend the generalizability of prior observations, this paper targets the city of Victoria and situates the results from a large-scale sociolinguistic investigation within the model of the typical (western) Canadian city presented in Boberg (2008, 2010). We consider vocalic features characterized as either General Canadian or distinctively Western Canadian. We also consider “yod” (i.e., the presence of an onglide in student, tune, and the like), a conservative feature that is obsolescing across the nation. Our results support Boberg’s (2008, 2010) observations while positioning Victoria as both innovative—participating in national changes—and conservative—joining certain changes relatively recently and retaining older dialect features. Such results enable us to trace leveling to national and more local dialect patterns, while also reminding us of sociohistorical forces in the formation of dialects.
This entry describes the research that has been undertaken, primarily within the variationist sociolinguistic framework, that examines linguistic variation in varieties of Canadian English. The sociohistorical and sociopolitical context of settler colonialism and migration is described to provide necessary background to understand the geographically vast homogeneity of Normative Canadian English. Phonological, grammatical, and discourse‐pragmatic variables of Normative Canadian English and the main patterns of variation are described. Several regional and ethnic varieties and their unique features are then discussed and the entry concludes with a discussion of gaps in the literature.
Britain and Ireland are home to a rich array of spoken and signed languages and dialects. Language is ever evolving, in its diversity, and in the number and the backgrounds of its speakers, and so, too, are the tools and methods used for researching language. Now in its third edition, this book brings together a team of experts to provide cutting-edge linguistic and sociolinguistic information about all the major varieties of language used across Britain and Ireland today. Fully updated, this edition covers topics including the history of English, the relationship between standard and nonstandard Englishes, multilingualism in Britain and Ireland, and the educational and policy planning implications of this linguistic diversity. Chapters are also dedicated to specific language varieties, including comprehensive descriptions of the Celtic languages, nonstandard regional varieties, sign languages, and urban contact varieties. It is essential reading for academic researchers and students of sociolinguistics and education.
The following paper examines the use of the stable sociolinguistic variable (-ing) across two different interview modalities: “classic” in-person sociolinguistic interviews and identical interviews conducted remotely over online video chat. The goal of this research was to test whether a change in modality results in style-shifting, as quantified by different rates of formal/standard [-ɪŋ] versus informal/non-standard [-ɪn]. Results show that when the internal linguistic constraints governing (-ing) variation are taken into account, there is not a significant difference between modalities, suggesting both modalities are equally formal (or informal). This suggests that remote online video chats are a viable method for collecting sociolinguistic data.
This article traces the history of the minor complementisers as if , as though , and like (when they follow evidential verbs such as seem and look ) in Canadian English. By the 21st century, both as if and as though were rare in Canada, while like appeared to have become popular ( López-Couso and Méndez-Naya 2012b ). The Victoria English Archive ( D’Arcy 2011–2014 , 2015 ; Roeder, Onosson, and D’Arcy 2018 ) is used to map out the change in a combination of synchronic and diachronic spoken data. Results show that as if and as though are unusual even in the earliest speakers, which puts spoken Canadian English at odds with contemporaneous writing ( Brook 2014 ). However, this unexpected register difference may explain why the complementiser like caught on in North American dialects of English sooner and more readily than in the United Kingdom – where a robust as if and as though in speech would have remained barriers.
This Element uses data from the Springville Project to explore how the functions of the inherited forms invariant be (from English sources) and zero (from creolization) have transformed during the twentieth century. Originally just alternative present tense copula/auxiliary forms, both features developed into aspectual markers – invariant be to mark durativity/habituality and zero to mark nonstativity. The motivation for these innovations were both socio-cultural and linguistic. The Great Migration and its consequences provided a demographic and socio-cultural context within which linguistic innovations could develop and spread. The mismatch between form and function within the present tense copula/auxiliary system and the grammatical ambiguities that affected both invariant be and zero provided linguistic triggers for this reanalysis. When taken together, the evolution of these forms illustrates how restructured linguistic subsystems (and eventually new varieties) emerge out of the interplay between inheritance and innovation.
The present study sets out to explore the mandative subjunctive in Canadian English (CanE), vs. its potential epicenter American English (AmE), and its historical input variety British English (BrE) based on a quantitative variationist analysis of the Strathy Corpus of Canadian English (Strathy), the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), and the British National Corpus (BNC). The relevance of this contribution primarily stems from the fact that no previous research has yet focused on a contrastive comparison between CanE and its alleged epicenters, namely ‘a model of English for (neighbouring?) countries’ (Hundt, 2013, p. 185), and that the new method of Variation‐Based Distance and Similarity Modeling (VADIS) has so far never been applied to research in this field. Key findings show that VADIS is indeed a valuable method in detecting epicentral constellations, and pinpoint fruitful suggestions regarding AmE's alleged transnational influence on its neighbor, as well as cross‐border and transoceanic dis/similarities concerning the subject under analysis.
Increasingly globalized communication networks in the modern world may influence traditional patterns of linguistic change: in contrast to an orderly sequential pathway of change, more recently a number of “mega trends” have been identified, which accelerate simultaneously in time and space. The rise of obviously within the cohort of adverbs of evidentiality— naturally, evidently, clearly, and of course —may be one such trend. To examine this possibility, we conduct a large-scale sociolinguistic analysis of c12,000 adverbs of evidentiality across over thirty communities in the UK and Canada. The results reveal parallel development across time and space: obviously advances rapidly among individuals born in the 1960s in both countries. The rise of obviously illustrates key attributes that are beginning to emerge from other rapidly innovating features: “off the shelf” changes that (1) are easily borrowed, (2) receptive to global trends, but (3) exhibit parallel patterns as the change progresses.
Age is one of the key variables in the field of language variation and change (LVC). The vast majority of experimental work generally views a speaker's date of birth—chronological age—as a good reflection of both their social age, for example, which generation they identify with and how strongly and their biological age, that is, the physiological age of their body. This paper aims to provide the reader with tools to tease apart these three ways of conceptualising the variable of age. It reviews qualitative and quantitative methods from fields adjacent to LVC that will enable linguists of different theoretical interests to tap into biological and social aspects of ageing. In doing so, it provides a practical manual for linguists wishing to work from a more multifaceted understanding of one of the key variables in many linguistic subfields.
How do women and men from around the world really speak English? Using examples from World Englishes in Africa, America, Asia, Britain and the Caribbean, this book explores the degree of variation based on gender, in native-, second- and foreign-language varieties. Each chapter is rooted in a particular set of linguistic corpora, and combines authentic records of speakers with state-of-the-art statistical modelling. It gives empirically reliable evaluations of the impact of gender on linguistic choices in the context of other (socio-)linguistic factors, such as age or speaker status, under consideration of local social realities. It analyses linguistic phenomena traditionally associated with genderlectal research, such as hedges, intensifiers or quotatives, as well as those associated with World Englishes, like the dative or genitive alternation. A truly innovative approach to the subject, this book is essential reading for researchers and advanced students with an interest in language, gender and World Englishes.
Quotative be like has been described as “one of the most striking developments [in English]” ( Tagliamonte and D’Arcy 2004 : 493). Despite the vast research on quotatives and the upsurge of be like , the potential impact of discourse type on the grammar of quotation has rarely been assessed. Yet, discourse type has proved a relevant factor in linguistic variation (see Travis 2007 ; Buchstaller 2011 ; Travis and Lindstrom 2016 ). Drawing on vernacular spoken data from our multigenerational corpus of Australian English, we include discourse type as a predictor in our recursive partitioning and logistic regression models. Our results show that similar linguistic constraints operate on be like across discourse types. However, significant differences emerge regarding its social conditioning in narrative as opposed to non-narrative discourse, pointing to a strong association between be like and female storytelling.
Research on English variable adverb placement is largely focused on written evidence, with only rare insights from the vernacular. Moreover, no research has investigated adverb placement in longitudinal spoken data, meaning that little is understood about more historical stages in the operation of this system or how they relate to contemporary patterns. Drawing on a large multistage corpus, we pursue the question of what more distal stages of spoken language reveal with respect to patterns of adverb placement in vernacular English. Multivariate regression reveals not only that linguistic constraints condition variation in parallel to what is reported elsewhere, but that social factors are implicated as well. We also uncover diachronic evidence that the overall frequency of pre-auxiliary adverbs decreased between the mid-nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with one notable exception. Specifically, for modal + HAVE constructions, the pre-auxiliary position has historically been a particularly favorable one, and this order has increased significantly over time. Exploration of a possible explanation leads us to suggest that the increase in pre-auxiliary adverbs in modal + HAVE constructions is linked to the decrease in pre-auxiliary adverbs elsewhere, deriving from a parallel increase of HAVE reduction in vernacular speech. The results thus suggest an interaction between apparently independent processes in the verbal syntax of English.
The be like quotative emerged rapidly around the English-speaking world and has quickly saturated the quotative systems of young speakers in multiple countries. We study be like (and its covariants) in two communities – Toronto, Canada, and York, United Kingdom – in apparent time and at two separate points in real time. We trace the apparent-time trajectory of be like and its covariants from inception to saturation. We take advantage of the prodigious size of our dataset to examine understudied aspects of the linguistic factors that condition quotative variation. Building on earlier suggestions (Cukor-Avila 2002; Durham et al. 2012) that be like might show patterning over time consistent with the C onstant R ate E ffect (or CRE, Kroch 1989), we argue that the CRE does indeed apply to the rise of be like , but needs to be handled with care. Logistic modelling assumes that the top of the S -curve is located at 100 per cent of a given variable context. In the case of be like , the saturation point is nearer 75–85 per cent, with minor variants retaining small semantic footholds in the system. In conjunction with our analysis, we suggest how to adapt the predictions of the CRE to changes likely to lead to saturation but not categorical use.
Quotative be like is a much discussed variable linguistic feature recruited in this investigation in order to revisit the hypothesis of linguistic diffusion (Labov 2007) predicting re-ordering of original patterns by L2 populations. As a sociocognitively salient variant spreading above the level of conscious awareness, be like has been appropriated by adult speakers from two distinctive L2 English ecologies with a high degree of precision, a finding previously not reported in studies exploring the acquisition of structured variation. In this article, I explain how, supported by frequency and constraint complexity, sociocognitive salience may have contributed to the generally accurate replication of the variable grammar for be like and, by this token, how it can inform existing models of language change. (Sociocognitive salience, linguistic diffusion, L2 acquisition of structured variation, variationist sociolinguistics, World Englishes, be like )
The Republic of Ireland (ROI) and Northern Ireland (NI) have recently become attractive migrant destinations. Two main dialectal varieties are recognised on the island, but little is known about their adoption by new speakers. Focusing on a panlectal feature, discourse like , we conducted a quantitative sociolinguistic investigation of its adoption by seventeen young Polish and Lithuanian migrants in Armagh (NI), and thirty-six Polish and Chinese adult migrants in Dublin (ROI), with comparator samples drawn from native speakers. Findings show that like rates in both cities diverge, but that migrants mirror local frequencies. Clause-final like is restricted primarily to native speakers, but is twice as frequent in Armagh than in Dublin. English proficiency has a significant effect on the likelihood of young migrants in Armagh adopting the clause-final variant. The article's significance also stems from the original contribution it makes to our understanding of how sociolinguistic competence is acquired in ‘superdiverse’ settings. (Discourse like , identity, migration, Northern Irish-English, Hiberno-English, Ulster English, Southern Irish-English)*
Cambridge Core - Historical Linguistics - The Emergence and Development of English - by William A. Kretzschmar, Jr
This paper investigates the use of ‘like’ as a discourse-pragmatic marker by recently-arrived Polish and Chinese migrants in Dublin, Ireland. The data comprises 14 hours of audio-recorded sociolinguistic interviews with 42 participants, including a control sample of six native Irish English speakers. The frequency of ‘like’ is investigated, along with its variable positioning within the clause, and its discourse-pragmatic function. In total 926 tokens are examined, and statistical tests, including fixed and mixed effects regression models, are used to determine the significance of the results. The results show that the frequency of ‘like’ among the non-native speakers reaches the levels of the native speakers after approximately three years of residence in Ireland. Proficiency in English is not found to be significant, suggesting that it is exposure to native speaker input that drives this acquisition. The results also show that ‘like’ in clause-final position, considered to be an emblematic feature of Irish English (and a ‘non-standard’ feature of world Englishes more generally), was employed significantly more often by the native Dubliners, with no effect in this instance for length of residence among the migrants. As regards the function of ‘like’, it was found to be used predominantly to illustrate, explain or introduce information. ‘Like’ in clause-final position was also found to be used as a mitigator or hedge, predominantly by the Irish, and particularly in short statements of personal opinion that could be perceived as face-threatening or opposing the interlocutor's views.
Do the people who lead in one linguistic change, lead in others? Previous work has suggested that they do not, but the topic has not been addressed extensively with nonphonological, spoken data. This article answers this question through an examination of lexical, morphosyntactic, and discourse-pragmatic changes in progress in Canadian English as spoken in the largest urban center of the country, Toronto. Close scrutiny of the behavior of individuals across multiple linguistic variables (i.e., covariation) and using the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient tests the use of incoming variants both by the community of speakers as a whole and by those who are leading change. The innovative variants of quotatives (be like), intensifiers (really, so), deontic modality (have to), stative possession (have), and general extenders (and stuff ) demonstrate that the leaders of these multiple linguistic changes have common social characteristics (e.g., women lead more than one change), but it is not the case that any one individual in a community will be at the forefront of more than one change.
At first glance, the syntax of quotation appears to be a rather straightforward matter of transitivity and complementation. However, quotation raises a number of intriguing and perplexing questions for the functioning, structure, and development of syntactic systems, and for their interactions with the semantic–interpretative interface. The purpose of this review is to articulate and exemplify these challenges as raised in the literature of various linguistic domains, and to highlight the ways in which quotation evokes a range of empirical and theoretical implications. This article begins by discussing the issues faced by traditional syntactic analyses of quotation, then examines the types of changes implicated by this sector: grammaticalization, lexicalization,
and systemic change and variation. The view that emerges is that approaches that privilege the syntax as the sole structure-building component of the grammar are insufficient for accounting for the linguistic and discourse–pragmatic facts; advances in understanding this linguistic system necessarily require a more holistic approach that incorporates both intrinsic and extrinsic factors.
What is the mechanism by which a linguistic change advances across successive generations of speakers? We explore this question by using the model of incrementation provided in Labov 2001 and analyzing six current changes in English. Extending Labov's focus on recent and vigorous phonological changes, we target ongoing morphosyntactic(-semantic) and discourse-pragmatic changes. Our results provide a striking validation of the incrementation model, confirming its value as a key to understanding the evolution of linguistic systems. However, although our findings reveal the predicted peak in the apparent-time progress of a change and corroborate the female tendency to lead innovation, there is no absolute contrast between men and women with respect to incrementation. Instead, quantitative differences in the social embedding of linguistic change correlate with the rate of the change in the speech community.
This article investigates the structural assembly and semantics of innovative quotatives such as be like, be all and go in English. While the sociolinguistic origins and spread of these forms have received ample attention, a question that is rarely addressed is how precisely this construction is syntagmatically composed, and how it relates to more canonical forms of speech representation. We argue that the basic component structures are the be like or go clause as a whole (I’m like, he went, etc.) and the reported complement. It is the entire reporting clause, rather than the reporting verb as is traditionally assumed, which is complemented by the quoted material. The proposed interclausal dependence analysis, which applies to English direct speech constructions generally, can accommodate grammatically intransitive as well as semantically nonreportative verbs such as be and go. As well, it helps motivate the emergence of be like and go quotatives by a fundamental semantic correspondence between these, broadly speaking, ‘imitation’ clauses and reporting clauses.
Speakers (and their dialects) on the move. Urry begins his 2007 book, Mobilities, by throwing some quite stunning statistics at his readers: in 2010, there were 1 billion legal international arrivals at ports and airports; in 1800 people in the US travelled on average 50 metres per day, today it is 50 kilometres per day; 8.7 per cent of world employment is in tourism; and, at any one time, there are 360, 000 passengers in flight above the United States (2007: 3-4). But very many of these mobilities for the individuals concerned are or have become rather unexceptional - a flight to a holiday in Majorca or Florida, a journey on a crowded commuter train into Madrid or Tokyo, a cross-Channel ferry to Calais in France to pick up some cheap wine and a camembert. Whilst much of the theoretically influential dialectological literature on mobility reports on long-distance, often permanent, often dangerous migrations, I turn our attention here to the dialectological consequences of this unexceptional everyday movement. I will argue that, just as more dramatic and long-distance mobilities can trigger linguistic change, so too can the much more mundane movements we engage in in everyday life. I demonstrate that the linguistic consequences of that contact are similar if not the same - perhaps less dramatic, perhaps involving the convergence of an initially less divergent array of variants - but typologically of the same ilk. And I demonstrate that because these mobilities have been long-term, intensive and ongoing, their consequences on the dialect landscape have been highly significant. Important to remember, however, is that these mobilities are socially stratified and unevenly distributed. As Wolff put it: ‘the suggestion of free and equal mobility is… a deception, since we don’t all have the same access to the road’ (1993: 253).
Much recent work on English direct quotation assumes that the system is undergoing rapid and large-scale change via the emergence of “innovative” forms such as be like. This view is supported by synchronic evidence, but the dearth of diachronic evidence forces reconsideration of this assumption. Drawing on data representing the full history of New Zealand English, this paper presents a variationist analysis of the quotative system, providing a continuous link between present-day quotation and that of the late 19th century. It reveals a longitudinal and multifaceted trajectory of change, resulting in a highly constrained variable grammar in which language-internal contextual factors have evolved and specialized, the effects of which reverberate throughout the sector.
Recent acoustic studies have provided evidence that /u/ (goose) and /ʊ/ (foot) have fronted in the standard accent of England in the last fifty years, but what is less clear is whether this fronting is due entirely to a repositioning of the tongue or whether it has been accompanied by an unrounding of the lips. Four experiments were carried out to shed light on this issue. An acoustic study of anticipatory coarticulation in /s/ in the first of these suggested a similar degree of lip-protrusion for young speakers whose F2 of /u/ was raised compared with that of older speakers. Compatibly, judgments of lip-rounding elicited from cross-dubbed auditory-visual stimuli and an analysis of lip movement showed young speakers' /u/ to be produced with rounded lips. Their tongue positions and movements in the final experiment were found to be almost as advanced for /u/ as for /i/ (fleece) and nearer to a central position for lax /ʊ/ (foot). Taken together, these results confirm firstly, that the diachronic shift in /u/ has involved a realignment of the tongue, but not of the lips; and secondly, that the diachronic shift in /ʊ/ is likely to be a more recent innovation than that of its tense counterpart.
This study investigates High Rise Terminals (HRTs), i.e., utterance-final rising pitch movements, as used in Southern Californian English (SoCalE), examining the phonetics and phonology of HRTs and their relation to pragmatic functions. Twelve female and 11 male speakers were recorded during a map task and in the retelling of a sitcom scene. HRTs were coded for discourse function (statement, question, confirmation request, floor holding) based on context. The alignment of the pitch rise start was measured from the onset of the utterance's last stressed vowel, and the rise's final Hz value was recorded. In HRTs used for statements, the rise started within the stressed vowel, while in questions it started after vowel offset. Together with the low F0 on the stressed syllable, this pattern suggests that statements have a L*L-H% melody while questions have L*H-H%. Confirmation requests and floor holding were more variable in alignment. Consistent differences in pitch scaling were found in the order: questions, confirmation requests > floor holding > statements. Females used HRTs more often than males, and their HRTs showed greater pitch excursion and later alignment. In conclusion, SoCalE uses different HRT melodies than other varieties and maintains a distinction between HRTs for statements and questions.
This article examines change in social and linguistic effects on be like usage and acceptability. Results from two studies are presented. The first set of data comes from a trend study with samples of U.K. university undergraduates collected in 1996 and 2006. While the effect of subject person, morphological tense, and quote content is constant in the two samples, the effect of speaker sex decreases. The second study is a judgment experiment with 121 native speakers of U.S. English, examining acceptability of be like in environments biasing direct speech and reported thought readings. The analysis reveals no interaction between age and the reported thought/direct speech contrast, suggesting no support for change in this effect on be like acceptability in apparent time. The two studies therefore converge in suggesting no evidence of change in linguistic constraints on be like as it has diffused into U.K. and U.S. Englishes.
The selective attention paid to the language of adolescents has led to the enduring belief that young people are ruining die language and that, as a consequence, the language is degenerating. One feature of contemporary vernaculars that is often held up as exemplification of these ideological principles is like, the "much-deplored interjection . . . that peppers the talk of so many of the unpliant young these days" (Wilson 1987, 92). There is, in fact, an intricate lore surrounding like. It includes the idea that like is meaningless, that women say it more than men do, and that it is an Americanism, introduced by the Valley Girls. This article systematically addresses ideologically driven myths about the uses and users of like. Drawing on empirical data, it seeks to disentangle the facts from the fiction that has been cultivated in the general social consciousness. It is argued that most beliefs about like are either false (e.g., meaninglessness, Valley Girl creationism) or too broad to reflect any coherent reality (e.g., the role of women). However, in examining individual beliefs about like, it becomes clear that each contributes to the perpetuation of others in important and nontrivial ways.
How do today's teenagers talk? What are the distinguishing features of their style of language, and what do they tell us about the English language more generally? Drawing on a huge corpus of examples collected over a fifteen-year period, Sali A. Tagliamonte undertakes a detailed study of adolescents' language and argues that it acts as a 'bellwether' for the future of the English language. Teenagers are often accused of 'lowering the standards' of the English language by the way they talk and text. From spoken words - 'like', 'so', 'just', and 'stuff' - to abbreviated expressions used online, this fascinating book puts young people's language under the microscope, examining and demystifying the origins of new words, and tracking how they vary according to gender, geographical location, and social circumstances. Highly topical and full of new insights, the book is essential reading for anyone interested in how teenagers talk. Provides documentation of an under-studied population: the language of pre-adolescents, teenagers and young adults Includes stories, tales, expressions and sayings as well as many examples of interesting teen language features Contributes insights into sociolinguistics, lifespan change, linguistic change and linguistic theory.
This volume brings together key players in discourse variation research to offer original analyses of a wide range of discourse-pragmatic variables, such as 'like', 'innit', 'you get me', and 'at the end of the day'. The authors introduce a range of new methods specifically tailored to the study of discourse-pragmatic variation and change in synchronic and longitudinal dialect data, and provide new empirical and theoretical insights into discourse-pragmatic variation and change in contemporary varieties of English. The volume thus enhances our understanding of the complexities of discourse-pragmatic variation and change, and encourages new ways of thinking about variability in discourse-pragmatics. With its dual focus on presenting innovative methods as well as new results, the volume will provide an important resource for both newcomers and veterans alike in the field of discourse variation analysis, and spark discussions that will set new directions for future work in the field.
Although varieties of North American English have come in for a good deal of linguistic scrutiny in recent years, the vast majority of published works have dealt with American rather than Canadian English. This volume constitutes a welcome addition to our linguistic knowledge of English-speaking Canada. While the focus of the volume is primarily synchronic, several of the dozen papers it contains offer a diachronic perspective on Canadian English. Topics range from general issues in Canadian lexicography and orthography to sociolinguistic studies of varieties of English spoken in all major geographical areas of the country: Atlantic Canada, Ontario, Quebec and the West. A theme common to many of the articles is the relationship of Canadian English to American varieties to the south.
Introduction Improved understanding of, and sensible approaches to, linguistic and cultural diversity in society are increasingly critical to promote equity and respect, particularly in schools and workplaces, for members of all groups in our society. Language is a core element, both in real differences and in the symbolic proxy it provides for other social parameters, such as ethnicity. Headlines in recent years on hot issues such as Ebonics and bilingual education demonstrate the widespread misunderstanding of the underpinnings of those educational issues and of language in general. While scholars understand many of the linguistic principles underlying variation in language and multilingualism in society, the many educational and social issues that arise in connection with diversity remain significant challenges. Better information and understanding of how language works and how people learn languages is sorely needed. Myths and misconceptions about language pervade public discourse and underlie policy decisions at all levels, and those knowledgeable about language need to be involved in those conversations. These issues were underscored by a panel convened by the National Science Foundation to consider the development of human capital, identifying research questions for the future and potential areas for contributions from linguistics (Wolfram and Schilling-Estes 1996b). The panel set its premise as follows: Given the cognitive basis of the human language faculty and the sociocultural context in which language use is embedded, linguistic investigation has played and should continue to play a central role in advancing our basic understanding of the effective utilization of human capital. (1996b:1) © Cambridge University Press 2007 and Cambridge University Press, 2010.
We share the experience of others through the stories they tell of the crucial events in their lives. This book provides a rich range of narratives that grip the reader's attention together with an analysis of how it is done. While remaining true to the facts, narrators use linguistic devices to present themselves in the best possible light and change the listener's perception of who is to blame for what has occurred. William Labov extends his widely used framework for narrative analysis to matters of greatest human concern: The danger of death, violence, premonitions, and large-scale community conflicts. The book also examines traditional epic and historical texts, from Herodotus and the Old Testament to Macaulay, showing how these literary genres draw upon the techniques of personal narratives. Not only relevant to students of narratology, discourse and sociolinguistics, this book will be rewarding reading for anyone interested in the human condition.
Written in readable, vivid, non-technical prose, this book, first published in 2007, presents the highly respected scholarly research that forms the foundation for Deborah Tannen's best-selling books about the role of language in human relationships. It provides a clear framework for understanding how ordinary conversation works to create meaning and establish relationships. A significant theoretical and methodological contribution to both linguistic and literary analysis, it uses transcripts of tape-recorded conversation to demonstrate that everyday conversation is made of features that are associated with literary discourse: repetition, dialogue, and details that create imagery. This second edition features a new introduction in which the author shows the relationship between this groundbreaking work and the research that has appeared since its original publication in 1989. In particular, she shows its relevance to the contemporary topic 'intertextuality', and provides a useful summary of research on that topic.
Due to the recent and rapid newcomer, be like, the English quotative system is a good place to catch language change in action. However, since most previous analyses target people in their early twenties, little is known about how be like is diffusing. In this paper we conduct an analysis of Canadian youth between ten and nineteen years old and compare the results with an earlier study. There is a dramatic increase in be like in real time. In apparent time, the content of the quote and grammatical person are significant and the constraints are parallel for all ages except one. The effect of content of the quote has reversed among the oldest speakers, aged between 17 and 19. Moreover, there is a clear shift in the social evaluation of be like: sex is significant and strong for 15-16 year olds onwards, revealing that age and sex interact in sociolinguistic change. Furthermore, we establish ongoing grammaticalization of be like.
differentiates narratives into verses. Within these verses, lines are differentiated, commonly by distinct verbs. (Sometimes items in a catalogue, expressions in a song, and the like serve to differentiate lines.) The verses themselves are grouped, commonly in threes and fives. These groupings constitute "stanzas" and, where elaboration of stanzas is such as to require a distinction, "scenes." In extended narratives, scenes themselves are organized in terms of a series of "acts." Four Chinookan groups are known to us in narrative. Texts in Shoalwater Chinook and in Kathlamet Chinook (two mutually unintelligible languages) were collected by Franz Boas between 1890 and 1894 from Charles Cultee. Texts in Clackamas Chinook, our largest corpus, were collected by Melville Jacobs in 1930 and 1931 from Mrs. Victoria Howard. In both cases the person was the last person able and willing to perform narratives, and did so shortly before his and her death. We have texts in the easternmost dialect, Wasco (Wishram) Chinook, from two periods. Edward Sapir collected "Wishram texts" from Louis Simpson in 1905, when the language was still extensively spoken. Texts in the same dialect have been collected by me in the 1950s and by Michael Silverstein in the 1960s and early 1970s, when the language had become obsolescent. These materials add something to the store of narratives, but are most important for what they add to our understanding of conditions and features of performance. In particular, Silverstein, working after the publication of the Clackamas materials and my own first analysis of the story discussed in this paper, has been able to establish that features that might have seemed idiosyncratic to Mrs. Howard or Cultee are in fact part of a common fabric of performance style, knowledge of which illuminates Kathlamet and Shoalwater as well.' Three mutually unintelligible languages (Shoalwater, Kathlamet, and the Clackaiitas-Wasco [Wishram] continuum known to its members as kiksht) share a common form of poetic organization. A Wishram text, Louis Simpson's "The Deserted Boy," has been analyzed in a paper recently published,2 where the method of work is exhibited at
This work accounts for the influence mutually intelligible dialects of a language have on one another when they come into contact. It examines linguisitic accommodation in face-to-face interaction and treats this phenomenon as crucial to an understanding of longer-term phenomena such as the geographical spread of linguistic features, the development of "interdialect" and the growth of new dialects.
Language demonstrates structure while also showing considerable variation at all levels: languages differ from one another while still being shaped by the same principles; utterances within a language differ from one another while exhibiting the same structural patterns; languages change over time, but in fairly regular ways. This book focuses on the dynamic processes that create languages and give them their structure and variance. It outlines a theory of language that addresses the nature of grammar, taking into account its variance and gradience, and seeks explanation in terms of the recurrent processes that operate in language use. The evidence is based on the study of large corpora of spoken and written language, what we know about how languages change, as well as the results of experiments with language users. The result is an integrated theory of language use and language change which has implications for cognitive processing and language evolution.
This paper reports on changes in the system of speech and thought introducers that are brought about by the adoption of innovations. Quantitative variationist analysis of a newly created corpus that spans 5 decades of conversational recordings in North-Eastern England investigates three questions: (1) What effect do extralinguistic and intralinguistic variables have on the relative distribution of the variants diachronically? (2) What are the determinants of change? (3) To what extent do different strategies of variable definition, in particular choices about the inclusion of internal states, determine the outcome of the investigation? Innovative methodology allows me to pinpoint the loci of the change that has been sparked by the intrusion of innovations, both in terms of repository of forms but also regarding the constraints that condition the whole system.
The narrative is a naturally bound unit of discourse in which both formal and functional aspects of grammatical variation can be examined in a controlled and systematic way. This paper is a quantitative analysis of the past and the historical-present tenses as alternative ways of referring to past events in narrative. It shows how the organization of narrative delimits the area in which the historical present can occur, and how various structural and functional constraints restrict (or favor) switching between the two tenses. It also shows that the historical present evaluates narrative events because it is a use of the present tense, and that switching out of the historical present separates narrative events from each other.
When we trace the parts of which this terrestrial system is composed, and when we view the general connection of those several parts, the whole presents a machine of a peculiar construction by which it is adapted to a certain end. We perceive a fabric, erected in wisdom, to obtain a purpose worthy of the power that is apparent in the production of it.
L'A. examine de maniere quantitative l'occurrence de la forme be + like par rapport aux deux autres possibilites d'introduire un dialogue (go/goes/went, say/says/said). Il fournit ensuite une etude sociolinguistique systematique de la distribution de cette forme dans differents groupes sociaux en tenant compte de l'âge, du sexe, de l'ethnie et du contexte rural vs. urbain. Il examine enfin les fonctions de la forme be + like et les caracteristiques pragmatiques qui la distinguent des autres introducteurs du dialogue
The conversational historical present tense (CHP) occurs only in a specific type of narrative, here labeled a 'performed story.' In contrast to previous analyses of this feature, it is the thesis of this paper that CHP in itself has no significance. Rather, it is the switching between CHP and the past tenses which is the relevant feature. Two important constraints-that of sequence of tenses in coördinated sentences, and that of non-occurrence of CHP in subordinate clauses beginning with when-support the theory that CHP alternation operates to separate events from one another. The fact that alternation is, in itself, an expressive feature, leads to speculation about the nature of other types of linguistic variation.
We examine tense variation in the complicating portion of unreflecting narratives of past personal experience in Australian English (AusE). Previous research has shown that the simple past tense (PT), historical present (HP) and historical present perfect (HPP) alternate innovatively in performed AusE narratives, enabling speakers to foreground pivotal events in the story. However, little is known about the sociolinguistic factors constraining tense variation more generally. Foregrounding is mostly performed by the HP in American English and by the HP and the HPP amongst working class London preteens. We provide a multivariate analysis of the sociolinguistic factors contributing to tense choice in the complicating clauses of 100 narratives of past personal experience collected in Perth in 2011/2012 and told by 38 high school- and university-educated native speakers of Anglo-Celtic AusE, aged 12–62. Multivariate analysis using Goldvarb X reveals that the PT is consistently favoured in complicating action clauses, as per its unmarked function in narrative, while the HPP is used minimally (1% (9/678)). Foregrounding in our narrative corpus is significantly constrained by speaker age. The PT dominates in the 36–62 cohort (89%). The HP is significantly favoured with quotative verbs by speakers aged 12–28 (0.66). Our cross-generational results indicate that AusE narrative style has undergone significant changes in line with Rodríguez Louro's contentions on the reorganization of the AusE quotative system. Namely, the rise of quotation amongst youth (notably the upsurge of quotative be like) is crucially intertwined with the use of the HP to foreground pivotal events in conversational narrative. The apparent time perspective afforded by our methodology shows that the HP has systematically encroached on AusE story-telling.
We present analyses of linguistic features undergoing change in South Eastern Ontario, Canada: stative possession, deontic modality, intensifiers, and quotatives. The largest urban center of the country (Toronto) and three towns outside the city are analyzed from the comparative sociolinguistic perspective. Parallel frequency and constraints are found in changes with a time depth of 200 years or more, corroborating the parallel transmission of complex systems over time and space. However, changes that began more recently show marked differences across communities. While the youngest generations in the small towns have appropriated the incoming forms, the accompanying suite of functional constraints found in the urban center is absent. This confirms that diffusing changes do not perfectly replicate the model system. There is, however, notable divergence within patterns of diffusion. The expanding changes exhibit varying configurations, depending on the community, its founders, and the stage of development of the change. The results suggest that increasingly complex contact situations will continue to expand the possible outcomes of diffusion.
The English quotative system (featuring forms such as say, think, zero, go, all and Be like used in direct speech reproduction and thought) has been the subject of vigorous, in-depth sociolinguistic investigation, particularly in the past two decades. However, with the notable exception of Winter’s (2002) study of quotative Be like in the speech of Melbourne adolescents, the Australian English quotative system remains virtually uncharted. I address this gap in the literature by offering a quantitative sociolinguistic analysis of the quotative system of Perth English, investigating to what extent linguistic (grammatical person, content of quote and tense) and social (age and sex) variables are implicated in the use of Be like. My results stem from 32.5 hours (325 096 words) of spontaneous narratives of personal experience recorded with 47 speakers in Perth in 2011 and evince an overwhelming increase in the use of Be like particularly amongst the youngest speakers — as compared to Winter’s (2002) findings for Melbourne in the late 1990s. Multivariate analysis using Goldvarb X (Sankoff, Tagliamonte and Smith 2005) indicates that — although some constraints like the favouring effect of first person subjects behave similarly across the generations and are in line with other Englishes — Australian Be like is subject to different constraints across generations of young speakers. Pre-adolescent and adolescent girls are active agents of language change by upping Be like’s frequency and its use with the historical present in narratives. Young adults are steady users of Be like in historical present contexts but the significant effect of sex has reversed: it is young male adults — rather than women — who favour Be like in this cohort. The findings are in line with trends noted in the literature on English quotation elsewhere and point once again to the irrevocable link between system-internal forces and social factors as speakers move through life.
This paper proposes an account of some properties of the manner quotative constructions be like [Quote] in English and hebben (zo)iets van [Quote] in Dutch. We make two main claims about these constructions. First, in the spirit of Rothstein’s (1999) proposal for adjectival predicates of copula be, we propose that eventive direct speech interpretations of these quotatives are derived via a coercion mechanism akin to those that make count readings out of mass nouns in the nominal domain. Second, adapting a proposal for be like originally made by Kayne (2007), we propose that some exceptional syntactic properties of be like as a quote introducer in English are explained by the presence of a silent something quantifier, which takes a like-headed PP as its complement. We compare English be like quotatives with innovative (zo)iets van quotative constructions in Dutch, which contain an overt something quantifier and behave similarly. Keywords: quotative; English; Dutch; copula; event; coercion; have/be alternations
This study investigates the diffusion and structural adaptation of quotative be like into a rural African American speech community. The data come from a longitudinal corpus of recordings (1988–2010) with rural African American Vernacular English (AAVE) speakers born between 1894–2002. Previous research suggests other innovative AAVE features have diffused into this community from neighboring urban areas (Cukor-Avila 1995, 2001; Cukor-Avila & Bailey 1995b, 1996) approximately a generation after they appear in urban varieties. The present analysis supports Cukor-Avila (2002) that be like has followed a similar path of diffusion, and adds new recordings of young speakers to provide necessary data to explore the transmission of be like in the community, its continued diffusion, and how these processes reinforce each other as be like becomes the primary means of expressing quoted speech. In addition, the present study explores how quotative be like has been structurally adapted into the AAVE copula system. (AAVE, transmission, diffusion, adaptation, quotative be like)*
We propose substantive universals in the relationship between social evolution and language change. Social anthropologists have categorized societies into roughly four broad types by social organization: bands, tribes, chiefdoms and states. This classification is evolutionary in the sense that the society types arose in human history in the sequence given above. We compare these society types to a broad classification of types of language change: divergence and several types of interference (borrowing, convergence, and contact languages—lingua francas, pidgins, creoles and stable mixed languages). Divergence results from social fission and communicative isolation; it is found in all society types, though less so with states. Interference is a result of the three main loci of societal contact: marriage, trade and political integration. Extralinguistic exogamy can occasionally lead to significant borrowing. Trade involves different types of multilingualism depending on the society type; lingua francas and trade pidgins are associated with state societies and a few chiefdoms involved in long-distance riverine/marine trade. Intensive borrowing and stable mixed languages occur with incorporation into a state society in situ, and creoles with state-driven migration (including slavery); there may be examples in chiefdoms, where incorporation sometimes occurs. Thus, certain types of language change are a recent phenomenon in human history and the uniformitarian hypothesis for language change must be abandoned, at least for contact-induced change. The implications of comparing society types with respect to linguistic processes are explored for language history and language endangerment.
Based on a comparative study of informal speech and writing practices within comparable samples of American college students in 2003 and 2006, this article charts a dramatic expansion in the use of quotative like, and of reported speech and thought more generally, in Instant Messaging (IM). The spread of be+like from speech, where it was already pervasive, into IM correspondence gives a quotative format once thought exclusively oral new purchase in written language and heralds new strategies of voice representation within a typewritten medium ostensibly limited in its expressive potential. We present this development as evidence of a speech community that recognizes specific quotative forms and functions as constitutive of a preferential conversational style we term ‘polyphonic’, which foregrounds morally and affectively charged voicings.