Pragmatic Markers and Sociolinguistic Variation: A Relevance-Theoretic Approach to the Language of Adolescents

367 Pages·2001·1.03 MB·English

by  Gisle Andersen

PRAGMATIC
MARKERS AND
SOCIOLINGUISTIC
VARIATION:
A Relevance-Theoretic
Approach to the
Language of Adolescents
GISLE ANDERSEN
John Benjamins Publishing Company
PRAGMATIC MARKERS AND SOCIOLINGUISTIC VARIATION
Pragmatics & Beyond
New Series
Editor:
Andreas H. Jucker (Justus Liebig University, Giessen)
Associate Editors:
Jacob L. Mey (Odense University)
Herman Parret (Belgian National Science Foundation, Universities of
Louvain and Antwerp)
Jef Verschueren (Belgian National Science Foundation, Univ. of Antwerp)
Editorial Address:
Justus Liebig University Giessen, English Department
Otto-Behaghel-Strasse 10, D-35394 Giessen, Germany
e-mail: [email protected]
Editorial Board:
Shoshana Blum-Kulka (Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
Chris Butler (University College of Ripon and York); Jean Caron (Université de Poitiers)
Robyn Carston (University College London); Bruce Fraser (Boston University)
Thorstein Fretheim (University of Trondheim); John Heritage (University of California at Los Angeles)
Susan Herring (University of Texas at Arlington); Masako K. Hiraga (St. Paul’s (Rikkyo) University)
David Holdcroft (University of Leeds); Sachiko Ide (Japan Women’s University)
Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni (University of Lyon 2)
Claudia de Lemos (University of Campinas, Brazil); Marina Sbisà (University of Trieste)
Emanuel Schegloff (University of California at Los Angeles)
Deborah Schiffrin (Georgetown Univ.); Paul O. Takahara (Kobe City Univ. of Foreign Studies)
Sandra Thompson (University of California at Santa Barbara)
Teun A. Van Dijk (University of Amsterdam); Richard J. Watts (University of Berne)
84
Gisle Andersen
Pragmatic Markers and Sociolinguistic Variation
A relevance-theoretic approach to the language of adolescents
PRAGMATIC MARKERS AND
SOCIOLINGUISTIC VARIATION
A RELEVANCE-THEORETIC APPROACH
TO THE LANGUAGE OF ADOLESCENTS
GISLE ANDERSEN
University of Bergen
JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY
AMSTERDAM/PHILADELPHIA
TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
8 American National Standard for Information Sciences — Permanence of
Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Andersen, Gisle.
Pragmatic markers and sociolinguistic variation : a relevance-theoretic aproach to the
language of adolescents / Gisle Andersen.
p. cm. -- (Pragmatics & beyond, ISSN 0922-842X ; new ser. 84)
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
1. Pragmatics. 2. Discourse markers. 3. Language and languages--Variation. 4.
Linguistic change. 5. Teenagers--Great Britain--London (England)--Language I. Title.
II. Series.
P99.4.P72 A53 2000
306’.44--dc21 00-049411
ISBN 90 272 5103 7 (Eur.) / 1 58811 018 4 (US) (alk. paper) CIP
© 2001 – John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any
other means, without written permission from the publisher.
John Benjamins Publishing Co. • P.O.Box 75577 • 1070 AN Amsterdam • The Netherlands
John Benjamins North America • P.O.Box 27519 • Philadelphia PA 19118-0519 • USA
The voice is a dangerous instrument. I don’t mean the timbre of
the voice, which may be high or low, melodious or grating. I’m
not talking about the sound but about the inner world from which
it springs — the underlying mysteries.
Knut Hamsun Mysteries

Table of Contents
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
C 1
Generalintroduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 Pragmatics and sociolinguistic variation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Aims and scope of the current study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
1.3 The structure of this book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
C 2
Theoreticalbackground . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.1 Relevance and grammaticalisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
2.2 Pragmatic markers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
2.3 Pragmatic markers and (non-)propositional meaning . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
2.4 Pragmatic markers and relevance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
C 3
COLTandtheBNC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
3.2 The COLT conversations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
3.3 The BNC/London conversations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
3.4 Statistical method and representativity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
C 4
Invarianttagsandfollow-ups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
4.2 Pragmatic functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
4.3 Variation and language change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
viii T  C
C 5
Thepragmaticmarkerlike . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
5.2 Pragmatic functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
5.3 Variation and language change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
C 6
Pragmaticaspectsofteenageandadultconversation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301
6.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301
6.2 Language change and age-grading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302
6.3 Suggestions for future research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305
Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 345
Acknowledgements
I wish to express my sincerest thanks to Professor Anna-Brita Stenström at
the University of Bergen, who has supported and inspired me throughout the
process of writing this book. I also wish to thank Professor Deirdre Wilson
and Professor Richard A. Hudson at University College London for reading
parts of the manuscript in the early stages of this project, and for their
encouraging comments.
Thorstein Fretheim, Paul Kerswill and Ann Williams have on various
occasions given me valuable comments and ideas, for which I am grateful.
I would like to thank members of the COLT team, Vibecke Haslerud,
Kristine Hasund, Knut Hofland and Manfred Thaller, for cooperation and
interesting discussions on various aspects of corpus building and research,
and Kolbjørn Slethei for help with the statistical analysis.
My thanks are also due to the Norwegian Research Council and the
Faculty of Arts at the University of Bergen for financially supporting this
research project.
I am also very grateful to my family and friends for their continuous
encouragement. Especially, I am greatly indebted to my mother and father
for supporting me whole-heartedly in all stages of my research. Finally, I
wish to thank Therese Visted for her unfailing support and love.