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.

This study analyzes the use of general extenders in recorded conversations in English and Spanish between nine pairs of young adult Spanish–English bilingual friends from Southern Arizona. Building on previous studies in both languages, 325 tokens of general extenders were analyzed quantitatively according to frequency, length in words, and function (referential or non–referential), as well as the gender and language dominance of participants. It was expected that general extenders would be susceptible to borrowing in a language contact situation since discourse–pragmatic features often appear on the periphery of grammar and are detachable. However, in the speech of the same Spanish–English bilinguals, contact with English did not appear to influence the use of general extenders in Spanish. No English forms of general extenders were found in Spanish. Moreover, general extenders in Spanish were significantly longer and were used to fulfill referential functions more often than general extenders in English. As the first study to analyze the use of general extenders in English and Spanish in the speech of the same bilinguals, these results underline the ability of bilinguals to both understand and reproduce the subtleties of the use of these features in the two languages they speak.