16 - Tag questions

Summary

Preliminaries

Tag questions are a well-known phenomenon in British and American English, but there have been some changes in their form and use since the classic descriptions of the first half of the twentieth century. The aim of this chapter is to outline the general system of tag questions in the two major varieties of English and to point to some differences between them. Firstly, though, it will be helpful to clarify some basic issues.

BrE and AmE each embrace a wide range of varieties of English, varying according to such factors as the precise geographical region, the social group and the social situation of the language users involved, as well as the complex question of spoken as against written language. All linguists are restricted by the data available to them, and the present writer is no exception. This chapter will take BrE, more specifically English English, as its starting point, but will attempt to highlight contrasts with AmE, paying particular attention to some recent changes in BrE, which may partly reflect American influence.

Ideally the sources for studying a particular linguistic phenomenon should include both naturally occurring texts and the intuitions of native speakers. As a native speaker of English English, the present writer has been able to follow recent developments in this variety at first hand.