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5 - Discourse-Pragmatic Variation in England

from Part I - English

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 October 2024

By
Heike Pichler  and
Jenny Cheshire
Edited by
Susan Fox
Susan Fox
Affiliation:
Universität Bern, Switzerland
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Summary

This chapter provides the first overview of regional variation in the frequency and sociolinguistic distribution of discourse-pragmatic items in England. We outline methodological and conceptual reasons for the historically limited knowledge of regional discourse-pragmatic variation, before addressing this gap by synthesising findings from individual research projects. We focus on comparing the distribution of selected discourse-pragmatic items from across different clause and utterance positions: general extenders, grammatically dependent negative-polarity question tags, invariant tags, focus markers, backchannel responses, attention signals, intensifiers, discourse like and quotatives. Notwithstanding acknowledged challenges in comparing results from individual studies, our overview reveals both striking cross-variety parallels in the distribution of these items, which we tentatively attribute to communicative factors, as well as robust patterns of regional variation, which we cautiously ascribe to regional socio-demographic differences that promote either linguistic conservatism or innovation.

Keywords

discourse-pragmatic variationgeneral extendersquestion tagsinvariant tagsfocus markersintensifiersbackchannel responsesquotativesdiscourse likeattention signals
Type
Chapter
Information
Language in Britain and Ireland , pp. 128 - 150
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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