The Dynamics of Linguistic Variation: Corpus Evidence on English Past and Present (Studies in Language Variation)

The Dynamics of Linguistic Variation Studies in Language Variation The series aims to include empirical studies of li...

Author: Terttu Nevalainen | Irma Taavitsainen | Paivi Pahta | Minna Korhonen

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The Dynamics of Linguistic Variation

Studies in Language Variation The series aims to include empirical studies of linguistic variation as well as its description, explanation and interpretation in structural, social and cognitive terms. The series will cover any relevant subdiscipline: sociolinguistics, contact linguistics, dialectology, historical linguistics, anthropology/anthropological linguistics. The emphasis will be on linguistic aspects and on the interaction between linguistic and extralinguistic aspects — not on extralinguistic aspects (including language ideology, policy etc.) as such.

Editors Frans Hinskens

Paul Kerswill

Jannis K. Androutsopoulos

Barbara Horvath

Rajend Mesthrie

Arto Anttila

Brian Joseph

Pieter Muysken

Gaetano Berruto

Johannes Kabatek

Marc van Oostendorp

Paul Boersma

Juhani Klemola

Jenny Cheshire

Miklós Kontra

Peter Auer

Universität Freiburg

Meertens Instituut & Lancaster University Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam

Editorial Board Leibniz Universität Hannover Stanford University L’Università di Torino University of Amsterdam University of London

Gerard Docherty

Newcastle University

University of Sydney The Ohio State University Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen University of Tampere

Meertens Institute & Leiden University

Sali Tagliamonte

University of Toronto

Johan Taeldeman

Bernard Laks

Oystein Vangsnes

CNRS-Université Paris X Nanterre

William Foley

Universitat de Barcelona

University of Sydney

Radboud University Nijmegen

University of Szeged & Hungarian Academy of Sciences

Penny Eckert

Stanford University

University of Cape Town

Maria-Rosa Lloret

University of Gent

University of Tromsø

Juan Villena Ponsoda Universidad de Málaga

K. K. Luke

The University of Hong Kong

Volume 2 The Dynamics of Linguistic Variation. Corpus evidence on English past and present Edited by Terttu Nevalainen, Irma Taavitsainen, Päivi Pahta and Minna Korhonen

The Dynamics of Linguistic Variation Corpus evidence on English past and present

Edited by

Terttu Nevalainen University of Helsinki

Irma Taavitsainen University of Helsinki

Päivi Pahta University of Tampere

Minna Korhonen University of Helsinki

John Benjamins Publishing Company Amsterdam / Philadelphia

8

TM

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The dynamics of linguistic variation : corpus evidence on English past and present / edited by Terttu Nevalainen [et al.]. p. cm. (Studies in Language Variation, issn 1872-9592 ; v. 2) This volume consists of a selection of articles based on papers presented at the 27th Conference of the International Computer Archive of Modern and Medieval English (ICAME) in Helsinki in May 2006. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. English language--Data processing--Congresses. 2. English language--Variation--Congresses. 3. Computational linguistics--Congresses. 4. English language--Discourse analysis-Congresses. 5. Sociolinguistics--Data processing--Congresses. I. Nevalainen, Terttu. II. International ICAME Conference (27th : 2006 : Helsinki, Finland) PE1074.5.D93 2008 427'.00285--dc22 isbn 978 90 272 3482 7 (Hb; alk. paper)

2008035115

© 2008 – 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 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa

Table of contents

List of contributors Exploring the dynamics of linguistic variation through public and private corpora Terttu Nevalainen, Irma Taavitsainen and Päivi Pahta

vii

1

Part I. Creating discourse Introduction

13

“And so now…”: The grammaticalisation and (inter)subjectification of now Tine Defour

17

Self-repetition in spoken English discourse Göran Kjellmer

37

Modal adverbs in interaction – obviously and definitely in adolescent speech Karin Aijmer

61

Pressing -ing into service: I don’t want you coming around here any more Michael Wherrity and Solveig Granath

85

Part II. Moving across varieties Introduction

101

Conversations from the speech community: Exploring language variation in synchronic dialect corpora Sali A. Tagliamonte

107

The English modals and semi-modals: Regional and stylistic variation Peter Collins

129

vi


Patterns of negation: The relationship between NO and NOT in regional varieties of English Pam Peters

147

Verb-complementational profiles across varieties of English: Comparing verb classes in Indian English and British English Joybrato Mukherjee and Marco Schilk

163

Angloversals? Concord and interrogatives in contact varieties of English Andrea Sand

183

South Pacific Englishes – Unity and diversity in the usage of the present perfect Carolin Biewer

203

Part III. Levelling out variability Introduction

223

Feature loss in 19th century Irish English Raymond Hickey

229

The written wor(l)ds of men and women in early white Australia Clemens Fritz

245

The progressive and phrasal verbs: Evidence of colloquialization in nineteenth-century English? Erik Smitterberg

269

Probabilistic determinants of genitive variation in spoken and written English: A multivariate comparison across time, space, and genres Benedikt Szmrecsanyi and Lars Hinrichs

291

Her daughter’s being taken into care or her daughter being taken…? Genitive and common-case marking of subjects of verbal gerund clauses in Present-day English Susanna Lyne Index

311 335

List of contributors

Karin Aijmer English Department Göteborg University Box 200 SE 405 30 Göteborg Sweden [email protected] Carolin Biewer Englisches Seminar Universität Zürich Plattenstr. 47 CH-8032 Zürich Switzerland [email protected] Peter Collins Linguistics Department School of Languages and Linguistics University of New South Wales 2052 Australia [email protected] Tine Defour Ghent University English Department Rozier 44 B-9000 Ghent Belgium [email protected] Clemens Fritz Tulpenweg 9 93080 Pentling Germany [email protected]

Solveig Granath Fakultet 4/ Engelska Karlstad University SE-651 88 Karlstad Sweden [email protected] Raymond Hickey English Linguistics Essen University D-45117 Essen Germany [email protected] Lars Hinrichs English Language and Linguistics Department of English University of Texas at Austin [email protected] Göran Kjellmer English Department Göteborg University Box 200 SE 405 30 Göteborg Sweden [email protected] Minna Korhonen VARIENG/Department of English P.O. Box 24 (Unioninkatu 40 B) 00014 University of Helsinki [email protected] Susanna Lyne Box 527 75120 Uppsala Sweden [email protected]

viii The Dynamics of Linguistic Variation

Joybrato Mukherjee Justus Liebig University Giessen Department of English Chair of English Linguistics Otto-Behaghel-Str. 10B 35394 Giessen Germany [email protected] Terttu Nevalainen VARIENG/Department of English P.O. Box 24 (Unioninkatu 40 B) 00014 University of Helsinki [email protected] Päivi Pahta School of Modern Languages and Translation Studies 33014 University of Tampere [email protected] Pam Peters Department of Linguistics Macquarie University NSW 2109 Australia [email protected] Andrea Sand Universität Trier FB 2 Anglistik D-54286 Trier Germany [email protected] Marco Schilk Institüt für Anglistik Otto-Behaghel-Str. 10B 35394 Giessen Germany [email protected]

Erik Smitterberg Department of Humanities and Social Sciences University of Gävle SE-801 76 Gävle Sweden [email protected] Benedikt Szmrecsanyi English Department (R 4222) University of Freiburg Rempartstr. 15 79098 Freiburg Germany benedikt.szmrecsanyi@anglistik. uni-freiburg.de Irma Taavitsainen VARIENG/Department of English P.O. Box 24 (Unioninkatu 40 B) 00014 University of Helsinki [email protected] Sali A. Tagliamonte 130 St George Street Department of Linguistics Robarts Library University of Toronto Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 3H1 [email protected] Michael Wherrity Fakultet 4/ Engelska Karlstad University SE-651 88 Karlstad Sweden [email protected]

Exploring the dynamics of linguistic variation through public and private corpora Terttu Nevalainen, Irma Taavitsainen and Päivi Pahta

1.

Introduction

This volume approaches linguistic variation as a combination of dynamic processes, both external and internal to language. In terms of content, the fifteen articles included in the volume provide carefully documented, corpus-based descriptions of sets of linguistic processes that the English language has undergone, or is currently undergoing, as a result of social and regional variation and the varying purposes of communication. Both new inputs into these processes and outcomes arising from them are addressed. Methodologically, the articles make use of both public-domain and private corpora compiled according to various principles. One of the aims of this volume is to create dialogue between corpus-based areal, sociolinguistic, and pragmatically oriented variation studies. This dialogue arises from the complementary strengths of the approaches on the one hand, and the overlapping uses they are put to by linguists on the other. Compartmentalization and specialization are perhaps more common in linguistics than attempts at unification, although there are areas of study, such as linguistic variation and . This volume consists of a selection of articles based on papers presented at the 27th Conference of the International Computer Archive of Modern and Medieval English (ICAME) in Helsinki in May 2006. The articles focus on the general theme of the Conference, which was language variation, contact and change. We would like thank the peer reviewers who helped us make the initial selection of contributions for this volume, as well as the SiLV series editors, who further sharpened its focus. Terttu Nevalainen drafted this general introduction, and the section introductions were written by Irma Taavitsainen (Part I), Päivi Pahta (Part II) and Terttu Nevalainen (Part III). Minna Korhonen was responsible for the list of corpora in the Appendix, editing all working versions of the typescript, and keeping the authors up-to-date about the progress of the volume.

Terttu Nevalainen, Irma Taavitsainen and Päivi Pahta

language change, that clearly benefit from complementary approaches and multiple methodologies. In this introduction, we will be arguing that the adoption of a broad view of linguistic variation requires the use of multiple empirical methodologies. We will discuss the trends towards methodological convergence that we see taking place in the practices of corpus linguists and sociolinguists, and the diversification of the field of variation studies that has been and will increasingly be the result of this convergence. After an overview of the typical data sources used in variation studies, we will move on to discuss the broad view of linguistic variability to which this volume makes a systematic contribution: the ‘life cycle’ of linguistic variation.

2.

Language variation and public corpora

Comprehensive reference works such as The Handbook of Language Variation and Change (Chambers, Trudgill & Schilling-Estes, eds., 2004) suggest that the study of the dynamics of linguistic variation falls within the purview of sociolinguistics. Variationist sociolinguistics is typically based on spoken materials elicited in sociolinguistic interviews, and uses quantitative methods to obtain information about processes of language change and the ‘orderly heterogeneity’ that is assumed to lie behind these processes (Weinreich, Labov & Herzog 1968). However, as early as the 1970s, sociolinguists also began to construct electronic corpora of recorded speech, and were thus able to benefit from a variety of tools such as word indexes and concordances in their work (Poplack 2007). The use of such tools is, of course, the hallmark of corpus-based approaches to language variation in general. The first English-language electronic corpora were focused on situational, text-based variation. They go back to the 1960s, with the prototype corpus, on which a number of others have been modelled, being the Brown University Corpus of written American English, which uses genres as structural units. The evergrowing Brown family of corpora is unified by the size (1 million words) and composition (a variety of written genres) of the individual corpora. In the 1970s, spoken language corpora began to be compiled, in order to provide material for comparisons examining the effect of the medium of communication. One of the first was the London-Lund Corpus of Spoken British English (LLC), which was released in the early 1980s. Since then, researchers have continued to compile corpora which represent the spread of areal and regional varieties of English, and which approach the variationist agenda of sociolinguistics and social dialectology even more closely, with the International Corpus of English (ICE) as a case

Exploring the dynamics of linguistic variation through public and private corpora

in point. The ICE corpora all include both written and spoken components, and allow comparisons across varieties of English around the world. With advances in computer technology, English language corpora have grown in size. One of the milestones in terms of large corpora was the release of the British National Corpus (BNC), which consists of 100 million words. Both written and spoken material is included in this corpus, the latter category ranging from context-governed genres to demographically sampled data, with the aim of wide regional coverage. Although modern sociolinguistic corpora are still more focussed both regionally and socially than most public-domain corpora, these two basic types of data source have clearly been undergoing a rapprochement over the last couple of decades. Spoken data are included in both, as are a variety of registers. Moreover, the internet offers vast electronic data sources, which also contain new media, and which many corpus linguists are now using to supplement public corpora or fill in gaps left in the existing public and private databases. A similar rapprochement is in evidence in the field of historical variation studies. Following the model set by the Brown family of corpora, the first historical corpora, such as the Helsinki Corpus of English Texts (HC), were designed for the study of register variation in the English language over time. From early on, regional variation has been a part and parcel of historical corpus studies: regional variation was included in the Helsinki Corpus, and formed the basis of areal genre-based corpora such as those of the Helsinki Corpus of Older Scots (HCOS) and early American English. Although there is to date no historical ICE corpus, the regional coverage of historical English corpora is becoming quite comprehensive, as witnessed in this volume by the papers based on early Australian and Irish English corpora, for example. The effect of the medium of communication is the focus of diachronic corpora that systematically sample speechlike and speech-based genres, notably the Corpus of English Dialogues (CED). Although sociolinguists studying language from before the age of recording equipment do not have real spoken data, the sampling of written data sources such as letters can also be based on individual informants, as in the Corpus of Early English Correspondence (CEEC). Most of these historical corpora are publicly available and, taken together, can be used to investigate language variation and change from various theoretical perspectives in a rich array of regional, social and communicative contexts of varying time depths (for overviews, see Beal, Corrigan & Moisl, eds., 2007 and Kohnen 2007). Certain orientational differences between corpus-based inquiries naturally prevail. One of the differences between sociolinguistic databases and many public. It is a sign of the passage of time that the BNC, itself available online, returns 93 instances of the word internet but has only one of home page, and none of web page.


domain corpora lies in their basic sampling unit: corpus linguists sample texts, both written and spoken, while sociolinguists sample speakers (cf. Milroy & Gordon 2003: 23). However, this difference between texts and speakers may be seen partly as one of emphasis. After all, what sociolinguists are in practice engaged in analyzing is transcriptions of data, which of course also qualify as texts. Similarly, various speaker and writer variables are recorded by corpus linguists who analyze texts produced by known individuals. Another difference between public and private corpus compilation is that private sociolinguistic databases are usually compiled with a given set of research questions and a particular field of linguistics in mind, the social embedding of language variation and change being their common denominator. By contrast, it is typically the case that no one research agenda motivates the compilation of many public-domain corpora, although the composition of a corpus will inform many of the uses to which it can subsequently be put, as well as the generalizations that can be made on the basis of it. It is precisely this complementarity, however, that will be needed in order to obtain a maximally comprehensive view of linguistic variation – a goal that could be seen as unifying the different methodologies of variation studies. Signs of this process are also in evidence. The Handbook of Language Variation and Change, for example, devotes chapters to the study of public corpora (Bauer 2004) and written documents (Schneider 2004), thus offering a more rounded picture of the study of linguistic variation. This is also the aim of this volume, the contributions to which, moreover, chart the ‘life cycle’ of linguistic variation combining various corpus-, socio- and pragmalinguistic methods.

3.

Approaching the life cycle of linguistic variation

The studies included in this volume make use of both private and public-domain databases, including the resources offered by the internet. The rationale for this selection lies in the view that both are needed to provide a comprehensive view of what might metaphorically be called the ‘life cycle’ of linguistic variability. This is not to be interpreted in concrete terms as the life cycle of a particular linguistic feature or pattern – although these are of course the indicators of changes in progress – but rather more abstractly, as the increase or decrease in linguistic variability in a language or variety of language over time. In the spirit of Weinreich, Labov and Herzog (1968), we have divided this volume into three sections, which highlight different stages in the dynamics of linguistic variability in English across time and space. Increase in variability can be initiated and fed into by processes that give rise to new patterns of discourse, and can ultimately crystallize into new grammatical elements. The papers included


in the first section look at this renewal and diversification of discourse patterns and grammatical resources. We have grouped these studies under the heading Creating discourse. They focus on interpersonal communication and processes of pragmaticalization and grammaticalization. The data sources used in all the papers in this section are public corpora. Aijmer and Kjellmer both make use of spoken-language corpora. Aijmer’s data come from the London-Lund Corpus of Spoken British English (LLC) and the Bergen Corpus of London Teenage Language (COLT), both spoken language resources, and Kjellmer’s from the spoken British section of the Cobuild Corpus. Wherrity and Granath base their study on British newspaper corpora, while Defour’s diachronic study draws on the Helsinki Corpus of English Texts (HC), the Corpus of Early English Correspondence Sampler (CEECS) and the Corpus of English Dialogues (CED).

The next phase in the ‘life cycle’ is the spread of linguistic features and patterns of discourse, both new and well established, through the social and regional varieties of the language. The articles in this section analyse the diffusion of linguistic features across varieties of English around the world within various frameworks of what might be called comparative social dialectology. These studies come under the heading of Moving across varieties. The key issues they address include supralocalization, new dialect formation/new Englishes, Americanization and ‘angloversals’. The studies in this section make use of a wide range of corpora, public and private. Tagliamonte analyses synchronic dialect material in the Roots Archive, collected from Northern England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Collins’s data for Australian and British English come from the publicly available ICE corpora (ICE-AUS, ICE-GB), while results on American English are based on a specially-assembled dataset (C-US), comprising the Santa Barbara Corpus (SBC) and parts of the Freiburg-Brown Corpus (FROWN). Peters draws her data from three ICE corpora, representing British (ICE-GB), Australian (ICE-AUS) and New Zealand English (ICE-NZ), and four other standard written regional corpora, the Freiburg-Brown and Freiburg-LOB (FROWN, FLOB), the Australian Corpus of English (ACE) and the Wellington Corpus of New Zealand English (WC-NZ), but she also refers to findings based on the classic Brown, Lancaster-Oslo-Bergen (LOB) and London-Lund (LLC) corpora, as well as the more recent Longman Spoken and Written English corpus (LSWE). Mukherjee and Schilk base their study on a web-derived Times of India corpus, containing 110 million words of Indian English newspaper texts, and the periodical part of the British National Corpus (BNC), but they, too, cite results from the British and Indian components of the ICE family (ICE-GB, ICE-IND). Sand’s comparison across seven regional varieties also makes use of the ICE corpora, in her case representing Great Britain


(ICE-GB), New Zealand (ICE-NZ), Jamaica (ICE-JAM), India (ICE-IND), Kenya (ICE-EA(K)) and Singapore (ICE-SIN), and two smaller corpora representing Irish English, the Northern Ireland Transcribed Corpus of Speech (NITCS) and the Potsdam Corpus of Northern Irish English (PNIE). Finally, Biewer uses two private datasets compiled from online sources, the South Pacific English Editorials Corpus (SPEed), consisting of newspaper editorials and letters to the editor, and the South Pacific and East Asian Corpus (SPEAC), a collection of newspaper articles.

The final phase in this ebb and flow consists of processes promoting some variable features over others across registers and regional and social varieties, resulting in increased linguistic homogeneity. The papers in the third section focus on the levelling out of linguistic and generic variability in specific varieties and over time. The general issues they are concerned with are dialect levelling, standardization, and the colloquialization of the written language. We have labelled this topic area Levelling out variability. The papers included in this section make use of both public and private corpora, as well as private corpora that have subsequently been made publicly available. Fritz’s multigenre Corpus of Oz Early English (COOEE) is private: the author compiled it for his diachronic study of Australian English. A Corpus of Nineteenth-century English (CONCE), used by Smitterberg, is similarly available for in-house use only. Hickey illustrates his analyses with data from A Corpus of Irish English, now publicly available, which comprises texts from the 14th century up to the present-day. Lyne bases her study on four subcorpora taken from the British National Corpus (BNC). Szmrecsanyi and Hinrichs make use of the Corpus of Spoken American English (CSAE), the Freiburg Corpus of English Dialects (FRED), and sections of the Brown family of corpora (Brown, LOB, FreiburgBrown, and Freiburg-LOB).

Following the general theme of this volume, all the papers take language-external variables into account when analysing linguistic variation. The vast majority of the authors use quantitative methods, and discuss the dynamics of variation in real time. This is something that the systematic efforts that have gone into

. Sections 2 and 3 may also represent two sides of the same process, particularly as far as the formation of new dialects is concerned. It can be described in terms of koineization, that is, linguistic processes which occur when different dialects come into contact. Koineization can, in turn, be broken down into two separate processes: first, the mixing of features from different dialects, which results in an increase in variation in the speech of individuals; and second, the reduction of marked features, which results in a decrease in variation in the speech community. However, new interdialectal features may also emerge from dialect contact (cf. Trudgill 1986: 107–108).


c ompiling public corpora have now made possible, not only for the earlier periods of English, but also for the more recent past. For instance, this trend can be seen in the Brown family of corpora in a comparison between the 1990s sequels to the original Brown University and Lancaster-Oslo-Bergen Corpora, Freiburg-Brown and Freiburg-LOB, and their 1930s ‘prequels’ currently under compilation (Leech & Smith 2005). Register variation, often approached in terms of genre and medium, forms the cornerstone of most of these public corpora, and is also drawn on in many contributions to all three sections of this volume. Typically the purview of private sociolinguistic corpora, regional variation and speaker variables such as sex/gender are increasingly being included in the sampling frames of public corpora – with region naturally being the major sampling unit for the ICE family. These factors are addressed in many of the contributions, and found to be sources of systematic variability at each stage of the ‘life cycle’ of linguistic variation. However, the contributors also pay due attention to the role of linguistic factors as determinants or correlates of the variation they are reporting. A variety of such constraints are discussed, stemming from the linguistic topics investigated. In addition to these variable-specific factors, factors arising from the linguistic co(n)text emerge as significant. These range from patterns of collocation in processes of grammaticalization to constraints specific to the medium of communication, such as phonological conditioning in syntactic and morphological variation. The speakers’ multilingual or multidialectal competence can also influence the variation observed. In long-term language contact situations, some of the papers report substrate influence as the key factor accounting for a given pattern of variation. As suggested above, many of the contributors make interesting connections between the linguistic and external factors that lie behind the linguistic variation they observe. We will discuss these linguistic and language-external patterns which are found to characterize the linguistic variables in the fifteen contributions in more detail in the three section introductions. These introductions also delineate some of the overarching trends that can be detected behind the dynamics of linguistic variation described in each section.

References Bauer, Laurie. 2004. “Inferring variation and change from public corpora”. The Handbook of Language Variation and Change ed. by J. K. Chambers, Peter Trudgill, & Natalie SchillingEstes, 97–114. Malden, MA, Oxford: Blackwell. Beal, Joan C., Karen P. Corrigan & Hermann L. Moisl, eds. 2007. Creating and Digitizing Language Corpora. Vol. 2: Diachronic Databases. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.


Chambers, J. K., Peter Trudgill & Natalie Schilling-Estes, eds. 2004. The Handbook of Language Variation and Change. Malden, MA, Oxford: Blackwell. Kirk, John. 1991. Northern Ireland Transcribed Corpus of Speech. Vol. 1: Textfile (in 2 parts with S. Gibson and S. West); Vol. 2: Wordlist; Vol. 3: Index; Vol. 4: Concordance (in 9 parts). Colchester: Economic and Social Research Council Data Archive, University of Essex, Colchester. Kohnen, Thomas. 2007. “From Helsinki through the centuries: The design and development of English diachronic corpora”. Towards Multimedia in Corpus Studies ed. by Päivi Pahta, Irma Taavitsainen, Terttu Nevalainen & Jukka Tyrkkö. Studies in Variation, Contacts and Change in English, Volume 2. Leech, Geoffrey & Nicholas Smith. 2005. “Extending the possibilities of corpus-based research on English in the twentieth century: A prequel to LOB and FLOB”. ICAME Journal 29.83– 98. Milroy, Lesley & Matthew Gordon. 2003. Sociolinguistics: Method and Interpretation. Malden, MA, Oxford: Blackwell. Poplack, Shana. 2007. “Foreword”. Creating and Digitizing Language Corpora. Vol. 2: Diachronic Databases, ed. by Joan C. Beal, Karen P. Corrigan & Hermann L. Moisl, x–xiv. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. Schneider, Edgar W. 2004. “Investigating variation and change in written documents”. The Handbook of Language Variation and Change ed. by J. K. Chambers, Peter Trudgill, & Natalie Schilling-Estes, 67–96. Malden, MA, Oxford: Blackwell. Trudgill, Peter. 1986. Dialects in Contact. Oxford: Blackwell. Weinreich, Uriel, William Labov & Marvin Herzog. 1968. “Empirical foundations for a theory of language change”. Directions for Historical Linguistics ed. by Winifred P. Lehmann & Yakov Malkiel, 95–188. Austin: University of Texas Press.

Appendix: Corpora referred to in this chapter ACE = Australian Corpus of English BNC = British National Corpus BROWN = Brown Corpus CED = Corpus of English Dialogues CEEC = Corpus of Early English Correspondence CEECS = Corpus of Early English Correspondence Sampler (The) Collins Wordbanks Online (Cobuild Corpus)


COLT = The Bergen Corpus of London Teenage Language CONCE = Corpus of Nineteenth-century English < http://www.engelska.uu.se/research.php?s=1&ss=2> COOEE = Corpus of Oz Early English (A) Corpus of Irish English CSAE / SBC = Santa Barbara Corpus of Spoken American English FLOB = Freiburg-LOB Corpus of British English FRED = Freiburg Corpus of English Dialects FROWN = Freiburg-Brown Corpus of American English (The) Guardian/Observer Archive 1990–2004 HC = (Diachronic Part of the) Helsinki Corpus of English Texts HCOS = Helsinki Corpus of Older Scots ICE = International Corpus of English – ICE-AUS – ICE-East Africa – ICE-GB – ICE-India – ICE-Jamaica – ICE-New Zealand – ICE-Singapore LLC = London-Lund Corpus of Spoken English LOB = Lancaster-Oslo/Bergen Corpus of British English LSWE = Longman Spoken and Written Corpus, see Peters (this volume) NITCS = Northern Ireland Transcribed Corpus of Speech, see Kirk (1991) PNIE = Potsdam Corpus of Northern Irish English, see Sand (this volume) SBC = Santa Barbara Corpus, see CSAE SPEAC = South Pacific and East Asian Corpus, see Biewer (this volume) SPEed = South Pacific English Editorials Corpus, see Biewer (this volume) ToI Corpus = Times of India Corpus, see Mukherjee and Schilk (this volume) WC-NZ = Wellington Corpus of Written New Zealand English

part i

Creating discourse

Introduction

At its initial stage, linguistic change is manifested by increased variability. The four papers in this section deal with emergent interpersonal meanings that linguistic items have already gained or are in the process of gaining in discourse. In all these articles, the focus is on the negotiation of meaning in interaction between speaker and hearer in the context of utterance, taking into account the widening meaning potential of the linguistic items under scrutiny (e.g. Thomas 1995: 22). The articles deal with the creation of additional functions to shape and structure discourse. The changes in meaning are subtle, and require a close contextual analysis. The context of the utterance plays an important role in the interpretation of the meaning. The items discussed in this section function either to signal forthcoming issues in the unfolding discourse or to reveal the attitude and alignment of the speaker; alternatively, they may combine both functions. The changes discussed here take place at the semantic and pragmatic levels of language. On the one hand, they can be motivated by the desire to be more explicit and add emphasis to the content of the utterance. On the other hand, the linguistic items can be utilised to convey implicit meanings, to express more than is said. The features discussed in this section belong to the categories of discourse markers, modal adverbs, phrasal constructions and repetition. In the case of repetition, the process may be unconscious, used to create more time for the speaker to produce complex utterances; speech defects are not considered here. Two of the papers deal with spoken language, two with written. The articles are discussed here in order of the main function that the linguistic items perform in the creation of discourse. The first two articles deal with the foregrounding functions of certain linguistic features, and the structuring of discourse is an issue. The last two deal with attitude marking. Multiple functions are common, and stance, i.e. epistemic or attitudinal comments on propositional information (Biber 2004: 107), is also discussed in the first two articles. The signalling or foregrounding function is considered together with alignment and stance in the analysis of the discourse marker now in Tine Defour’s paper. The article discusses the pragmatic meanings of the adverb now in a long diachronic perspective, based on material from three historical corpora (HC, CEECS and CED). Register as a text-external conditioning factor is kept constant, as only speech-based genres are considered. Defour is able to trace the line

14


of development of a variety of pragmatic meanings that the discourse marker now has accrued. The long diachronic perspective allows the author to follow the development of the adverb from its early, semantically bleached meanings to its current status as a fully-developed discourse marker. In present-day English, now can signal a change of topic, it can structure discourse, and it can mark steps in the argumentation, but it also conveys strong contrastive attitudes. Its interpersonal functions are connected with the marking of stance. In contrastive situations, it expresses the speaker’s subjective opinion, which is often in disagreement with the other interactants’ views. Thus, its foregrounding function in unfolding discourse is strengthened, giving the hearer a warning of what is to follow and offering her a chance to adjust. The paper examines various stages in the semantic-pragmatic development of this item with regard to the theory of the stages of grammaticalisation – semantic bleaching and pragmatic strengthening – and processes of (inter)subjectification, which ultimately result in an interpersonal marker which functions to help the speaker and the addressee to negotiate meaning. Linguistic conditioning factors include sentence position, various adverbial meaning categories, interpersonal functions, and verbal collocates. Göran Kjellmer’s article charts the occurrence of self-repetition in spoken British English and deals with the foregrounding function of this phenomenon in the creation of discourse. It focuses on repetition in natural speech, where the phenomenon can serve a number of functions. The most important linguistic conditioning factors are the position of the repetition in the turn-taking structure and the length of the sentence or utterance length which follows. The focus is on the role that repetition plays in interpersonal negotiations of meaning. Repetition is helpful, and sometimes necessary, as it can facilitate the processing of conversational flow: it allows time for the hearer to cope and prepare herself, as repetition often signals that the upcoming utterance is long and complex. This paper deals with present-day English, and uses data from the spoken section of the Cobuild Corpus of British English. The assessment reveals an interesting role played by gender: turns introduced by repetition occur more frequently in men’s speech and such turns are longer in men’s speech than in women’s. Adverbs of certainty are the focus of Karin Aijmer’s paper. In the LondonLund Corpus (LLC), certainly and surely occur frequently, whereas in the Bergen Corpus of London Teenage Language (COLT), obviously and definitely have become more frequent. These modal adverbs serve an intensifying function and carry affective meanings. The article covers a period of thirty years, from the 1960s to 1990s, and it makes predictions about the present by assuming continuation of the attested tendencies. Linguistic conditioning factors include position in the sentence, whether initial, medial, or final, and the sociolinguistic parameters of age and sex/gender. Time constraints in real-time spoken discourse are

Part I. Introduction

considered. The changes in the means of expressing stance are connected with grammaticalisation processes. The article explains the changes on the basis of the characteristics of modal adverbs in interaction in adolescent speech. Michael Wherrity and Solveig Granath’s paper discusses the emergence and spread of the grammatical construction want [NP Ving] at the expense of the structure want [NP to V]. The new expression is becoming increasingly popular, though at present it is still a very minor variant. The material for the study comes from the written language of recent British newspapers. The period covered is fairly short, as the corpus covers only fifteen years of recent history (1990–2004), but the authors succeed in showing the increase in the use of this structure, and argue that their results are valid for the spoken language as well. The reasons for the increased variability in want structures are discussed in terms of the interpersonal meanings conveyed with this construction. The construction can occur in affirmative and interrogative sentences, but it is more commonly found in negative utterances which perform imperative, proclamatory, and exhortatory functions. In interpersonal negotiations, the -ing complement is felt to be more forceful and lend added emphasis to the semantic content of the utterance. The construction want [NP Ving] lends the activity of the matrix verb a sense of being ongoing, emphasising the immediacy of the action. It serves as a device that allows speakers to polarize the urgency of their utterance. The time periods covered in the articles in this section vary a great deal. In general, changes are difficult to detect at their initial stages. Increased variation with broadening meaning potential is the first sign that something is taking place, and the mechanism of change can be scrutinized even using a fairly low number of examples within a short time span, as the last paper of this section demonstrates. An examination covering some decades allows for some interesting observations of on-going changes, as Aijmer’s paper testifies, but changes seen from a longer diachronic perspective reveal the patterns more clearly. Sociolinguistic parameters such as gender can give us insights into patterns of variation even in a completely synchronic study, as Kjellmer’s paper shows.

References Biber, Douglas. 2004. “Historical patterns for the grammatical marking of stance: A cross-register comparison”. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 5:1.107–136. Thomas, Jenny. 1995. Meaning in Interaction. London and New York: Longman.

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“And so now…” The grammaticalisation and (inter)subjectification of now Tine Defour University of Ghent

In addition to its primary temporal meaning, the adverb now displays a variety of pragmatic meanings in present-day English. Now serves as a means to structure topic changes or to emphasise different steps in an argumentation, providing “a temporal index for the world within the utterance” (Schiffrin 1987: 245). On an interpersonal level, the marker can introduce a subjective opinion, often placing the speaker’s view in disalignment with that of others. With the recognition of interpersonal differences, now also offers the hearer a chance to be involved in the suggested discourse frame. Diachronically, semantically bleached meanings of now are attested as early as the Old English period (Aijmer 2002). This paper aims to further examine various stages in the marker’s semanticpragmatic development, with specific attention for the influence of underlying hypotheses of grammaticalisation – implying semantic bleaching and pragmatic strengthening – and processes of (inter)subjectification, through which historical language change develops meanings that focus increasingly on speaker and addressee (Traugott 1999). The material for this paper is taken from three historical corpora containing speech-based data, i.e. the diachronic part of the Helsinki Corpus of English Texts (HC), the Corpus of Early English Correspondence (Sampler) (CEECS), and the Corpus of English Dialogues (CED).

1.

Introduction

1.1

Context and aims

Pragmatic markers (Brinton 1996) are those elements which do not contribute to the propositional content of an utterance. Previous synchronic research (Schiffrin 1987; Aijmer 2002) has discussed the wide range of text-structuring and interpersonal functions which a pragmatic marker such as now has, and

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found that now can be used as a discourse connector in utterance-initial position to initiate topics or announce an upcoming coherence break, to signal the speaker’s view on how the discourse should be organised or to introduce a subjective opinion to the addressee. The temporal meaning of now still shines through in present-day pragmatic functions, however, and can be seen as a significant source for the development of later meanings. Because the functional distinction between propositional and pragmatic uses cannot always be clearly made, now has been called an “emergent particle” (Aijmer 2002: 58), indicating that the marker can be situated in an ongoing historical process of semantic-pragmatic language change. The aim of this paper is to discuss the diachronic evolution which now has undergone from a deictic adverbial to a multifunctional pragmatic marker, by means of a formal and functional corpus analysis. Specific attention will be given to the role of the speaker and addressee, and to underlying processes of (inter)subjectification in the marker’s textual and interpersonal development. After a selected overview of the synchronic uses of now and of the theoretical hypotheses supporting this study, the main body of this paper will move on to look at the historical uses of now in three historical corpora, focussing on the relationship between temporal and pragmatic uses, and on a possible semantic-pragmatic evolution for now.

1.2 Corpus research Because pragmatic markers are more frequent in oral discourse and it has only recently been made possible to record spoken data, the selected corpora include text types that come as close as possible to natural spoken interaction of previous centuries (see Culpeper & Kytö 1997, 2000). The diachronic part of the Helsinki Corpus of English Texts (HC) covers the period from Old English up to c. 1710, and contains a wide range of genres. The Corpus of Early English Correspondence (Sampler) (CEECS) is a letter corpus which runs from 1417 to 1681. A third text collection is the Corpus of English Dialogues (CED), which covers the period between 1560 and 1760 and focuses particularly on speech-related genres such as plays or sermons (i.e. dramatic constructions of speech), trial proceedings or witness accounts (i.e. reconstructed recordings of speech). . The HC and CEECS are taken from the ICAME CD-ROM (the International Computer Archive of Modern and Medieval English). Further information on the HC and the CEECS can be found on (last accessed on 22/08/2008). For the CEECS: also see Nevalainen and Raumolin-Brunberg 1996. For the CED, see (last accessed on 22/08/2008).

The grammaticalisation and (inter)subjectification of now

2.

Previous research & synchronic functions

2.1

Temporal meanings of now

The primary meaning of now, as listed in the Oxford English Dictionary (“at the present time or moment” (OED, now, adv. Ia)) indicates ‘reference to present time’ (cf. Hasselgård 2006). As a temporal deictic, the meaning of now has a determining part in what Schiffrin calls “reference time” (Schiffrin 1987: 228), i.e. the deictic relationship between the time presented in the proposition and the time at which the proposition is uttered. In examples (1) and (2), now correlates with a present tense, illustrating that the reference time in the proposition (i.e. the propositional time) matches the speaking time. (1) John reads a great deal now. (Aijmer 2002: 58; My bold and passim) (2) In the third to the Philippians, the Apostle describeth certaine. They are men, saith hee of whom I haue told you often, and now with teares I tell you of them, their God is their belly, their glorying and reioycing is in their owne shame, they mind earthly things. (HC, Ceserm2a: 1570–1640)

When now correlates with a past tense, as in examples (3) and (4) below, the temporal element refers to a point of time within the narrative. This use is referred to as “narrative time” (Aijmer 2002: 58) and functions as a “marker of a personal narrative situation, or personal point of view’ (Bronzwaer 1975: 59 in Aijmer 2002: 58). (3) It was of no use asking myself this question now. There I was… (Bronzwaer 1975: 59 in Aijmer 2002: 58) (4) […] our Guides steered by their own Experience; this was not so comfortable, to behold nothing but a Sea of Sand; for now we began to turn our back upon the Gulf, and steer a more Northern Course […] (HC, Cetrav3b: 1640–1710)

2.2 Textual meanings: Now as a topic shifter Previous synchronic studies by Schiffrin (1987), Aijmer (1988, 2002) and Hasselgård (2006) have discussed the connections between temporal uses of now – as in example (5) – and pragmatic meanings (e.g. example [6]). (5) The subject of my talk now (= at this moment) is… (6) Now, the subject of my talk is… (Quirk et al. 1985: 633)

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The temporal meaning of now, which has a “propulsive” effect on a narrative (Aijmer 2002: 63), can be applied to the textual progression of a piece of discourse. Following Schiffrin (1987), we can regard discourse as a ‘tree’, which branches into topics and subtopics. Placed in utterance-initial position, the deictic strength of now can allow a speaker to draw attention to an upcoming topic, and can in that way signal a new piece of information – making sure that the hearer is warned about an upcoming coherence break. The following selection of text-structuring uses illustrates that now can help the speaker to guide an addressee through the ‘branching’ of (sub)topics in discourse. (7) Right. Well now switching to your return to this country…we have been very distressed at the thought of you becoming a school teacher. (adapted from Aijmer 2002: 75 and passim)

When now is used to introduce a new topic, as in example (7), the abruptness of the topic shift can be mitigated by means of a metalinguistic marker (Aijmer 2002: 75), explicitly describing the topic change. The transition to a subtopic or between subtopics, as in example (8), essentially entails an element of contrast. As the main argument “branches into subtopics” (Schiffrin 1987: 230), now introduces a comparison here between the speaker’s father and Charlotte’s father. (8) A. My father would have been a hundred and twenty-seven […] Now Charlotte’s father would have been a hundred would he […] if […] he’d been alive. (Aijmer 2002: 80)

The OED describes now as a means to “introduce an important or noteworthy point in an argument or proof, or in a series of statements (also now then)” (OED, now, II 10). Therefore, when different steps in an argument need to be listed or structured, now can serve to emphasise important subtopics (example [9]) to highlight the different stages in a narrative or to emphasise the order in which the speaker wants to present them. In example (10), for instance, now allows the speaker to focus on the order in which the guitar lesson progresses. (9) Now one of the people who took English lessons from Joyce was the son-inlaw of this family […] (Aijmer 2002: 82) (10) A: Now I’ll play them as a chord [plays chord] A: now you can see that I’ve still got my finger down on the low G string, and that’s the one we’re really interested in (Aijmer 2002: 83)

In a final related function, now initiates parts of an argument which elaborate on or justify a previous topic, as in example (11) below:


(11) […] the water supply to our house was from a well – now it had to be a well, because you could not build a house in those days without digging the well. (Aijmer 2002: 87)

In this text-structuring use of now, the marker draws attention to a – newly introduced – elaborating subtopic. In present-day data, this textual function is often found in collocation with explanatory phrases such as I mean or you see (Aijmer 2002: 86), which illustrate the speaker’s need to bring his or her viewpoint across to the addressee. As a text-structuring marker, now indicates “a speaker’s progression through discourse time by displaying attention to an upcoming idea unit, orientation, and/ or participation framework” (Schiffrin 1987: 230). Although the temporal, deictic meaning of adverbial now remains visible to some extent, the indication of time has shifted and is now applied to the world of discourse. Schiffrin states that now structures the speaker’s progression through discourse, and “provides a temporal index” for the world within the utterance (1987: 245).

2.3 Interpersonal functions: Introducing a subjective opinion 2.3.1 Speaker-perspective The fact that now signals the speaker’s progression through what can be seen as a structured set of topics and subtopics also suggests that now offers the speaker a subjective means to choose the order in which s/he wants to present and connect his/her utterances. By structuring different subtopics, “[n]ow introduces and develops the argument – and is inserted whenever the speaker feels the need to underline a step in the argumentation” (Aijmer 2002: 82). As such, the use of now can serve as an important element in the establishment of a particular point (Schiffrin 1987: 238). In this respect, the text-structuring use of now also holds an interpersonal element, because the textual development of an argumentation also necessarily entails a progression of ideas (cf. Schiffrin 1987: 237). Now can emphasise the speaker’s role in the progression of different (sub)topics, but in addition also announces shifts in speaker orientation. Schiffrin describes orientation as the “stance which the speaker is taking toward what is being said” (1987: 240). Apart from grammaticalised changes in orientation – e.g. transitions from a declarative to an interrogative mood – now can initiate nongrammaticalised changes, for instance from a narrative to an evaluative mode. Aijmer (2002) points out that shifts in orientation are frequently accompanied by evaluative metacomments given by the speaker. The subjective function of now is often dependent on these evaluative collocations, as illustrated in the following phrases.

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a. speaker-control In combination with phrases such as listen to me (example [12]), let me see, let me try and think or where was I (Aijmer 2002: 88), now signals that the speaker attempts to gain control over the “topical development of talk” (Schiffrin 1987: 241). (12) That don’t make any difference. Now listen to me. Take a lead eh eh a chisel, and hit it. (Schiffrin 1987: 241)

b. personal point of view and evaluation The use of now in for instance Now this is very difficult, Now that’s dreadful or Now she wouldn’t say something like that, if she was rational (example [13]) indicates a shift to an evaluative comment, highlighting the speaker’s assessment of a particular step in an argumentation. (13) a. b. c. d. e.

For example, eh…eh…let’s assume the husband’s a– w– a– a– a– the husband’s Jewish, and the girl’s, say, Catholic. and they have an argument and she says ‘You goddamn Jew!’ Now she wouldn’t say something like that, if she was rational. (Schiffrin 1987: 241)

In example (13), the speaker’s evaluation “brings out the point of his argument” and “provides a frame in which to understand what he has just said” (Schiffrin 1987: 241).

c. awareness of interpersonal differences Phrases such as Now I think, Now I do believe…, …now I don’t agree with… introduce a subjective opinion and are “often associated with conflict and with disagreement” (Aijmer 2002: 92). Now introduces a personal point of view and at the same time signals that the speaker is aware of other opinions differing from his or her own. (14)

none of whom will speak to each other and all of whom want to cut each other’s throats – now I think this is a very bad thing – bad thing for British democracy – I watched I I’m old enough to have watched the Labour the Liberal Party […] (Aijmer 2002: 92)


In example (14), now not only has a textual function – introducing a new subtopic or elaboration – but also serves as a “disclaimer, i.e. the speaker signals that his view is not to be aligned with that of others.” (Aijmer 2002: 92). When now introduces a personal opinion about a disputable topic, a contrast is created with other points of view, and “the marker illustrates the speaker’s recognition of interpersonal differences about that topic”. (Schiffrin 1987: 235).

2.3.2 Hearer-orientation Shifts in speaker orientation and speaker evaluation necessarily extend “beyond the speaker’s own relationship to information: they also propose changes in the hearer’s relation to that same information” (Schiffrin 1987: 243; bold in original). As a pragmatic marker, now can be used by a speaker to introduce a personal evaluation of – for instance – a prior comment, or a subjective “assessment of the world” (Schiffrin 1987: 244). The hearer is offered a chance to be involved and to participate in the interactional frame in an equally evaluative way and “to thereby align (or disalign) [himself/herself] with a stance toward the world” (Schiffrin 1987: 244). It is expected that a speaker will try to communicate the attitude which he or she wants the hearer to adopt (cf. Schiffrin 1987: 245 in Aijmer 2002: 87). This connection between speaker and addressee is emphasised through a phrase such as Now do you agree that… – where the hearer is explicitly acknowledged and the search for common ground between speaker and addressee is clearly illustrated by a “change in ‘footing’”, i.e. a transition from speaker perspective to attention for the hearer (Goffman 1981; Aijmer 2002: 93). 3.

Historical evolution

3.1

Theoretical processes: Grammaticalisation and (inter)subjectification

As a topic changer, now serves as a means to structure discourse into topics and subtopics, but also “facilitate[s] the communication by drawing attention to the way in which the speaker wants to organize his/her discourse” (Finell 1992: 729). The co-occurrence of temporal uses with textual or interpersonal meanings raises questions on how semantic and pragmatic functions of now can be connected historically, and whether they can be situated in a broader frame of processes of grammaticalisation and subjectification. Grammaticalisation, as defined by Traugott (1995a/b), causes propositional elements such as temporal adverbs to undergo a loss in semantic content (‘semantic bleaching’) and an increase in pragmatic implicatures. According to the

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riginal hypothesis, this process evolves unidirectionally from propositional, o over text-structuring, to interpersonal or expressive functions. Recent hypotheses (Traugott 1999; Traugott & Dasher 2002) have put a greater emphasis on an increase in subjectivity and intersubjectivity. Subjectification (Traugott 1995b, 1997) causes lexical meanings to “shift toward greater subjectivity [and] become increasingly associated with speaker attitude” (Traugott 1995a: 2). Intersubjectification, which is generally preceded by subjectification and cannot occur without it (Traugott & Dasher 2002: 97), is “a mechanism whereby meanings become more centered on the addressee” (Traugott 1999: 3). Grammaticalisation and pragmatic change can be motivated and directed by these processes of (inter)subjectification, i.e. by the speaker’s need to communicate personal attitudes to an addressee. The diachronic analysis of our corpus data will therefore focus on the influence of speaker- and addressee relations in the use of now as a text-structuring and interpersonal marker in different layers of historical corpus material.

3.2 Historical analyses: Data In present-day material, the distinction between different pragmatic functions or between temporal and pragmatic meanings relies to a great extent on prosodic features. Aijmer (2002: 62) finds that the pragmatic use of now usually forms a separate tone unit, that it is more often deaccentuated than sentential now is (also see Horne et al. 2001: 1064 (in Aijmer 2002: 59)), and often co-occurs with lexical collocates, as in well now or now then. For our historical research it is impossible to make the distinction between temporal and pragmatic functions by using prosodic features as a defining factor. This study is therefore based on formal and functional criteria of possible language change. Because pragmatic markers – in general – predominantly although not exclusively occur in sentence-initial position (e.g. Auer 1996), the material used in this paper will consist of tokens of now placed only in utterance-initial position. Table 1 below shows the total number of now-tokens used per corpus, and the number of utterance-initial tokens. Table 1. Now-tokens: Numbers per corpus. Now

now-tokens: total per corpus

now-tokens: initial position

HC CEECS CED Total

3544 964 2398 6906

1486 (41.9%) 284 (29.5%) 1003 (41.8%) 2773 (40.15%)


4.

Historical collocations

4.1

Narrative time and temporal comparisons: And now, so now, but now

Although the distinction between propositional and pragmatic uses cannot always be clearly distinguished, an initial look into the historical corpus data shows that the majority of uses of now clearly belongs to the temporal category. Using the criterion of tense, and taking into account individual contexts, however, we can say that the use of now in “narrative time” (as discussed in 2.1) covers 10.5% of all utteranceinitial tokens for the HC (156 tokens), 4.6% for the CEECS (13 tokens) and 5.1% for the CED (51 tokens). This – propositional – use offers an initial illustration of the speaker’s need to direct a narrative by referring to specific points within discourse. A first transition between propositional meanings and text-structuring functions is found in the use of temporal comparisons. Schiffrin suggests that “the discourse structure of temporal comparisons neutralizes the distinction between now as a time adverb and now as a marker” (Schiffrin 1987: 231). In example (15) below, a contrast is created between two periods of time – one of which is indicated by means of now. This temporal contrast coincides with a (sub)topic differentiation. (15) I did notice Poppy sort of taking her engine to pieces – and your husband saying: “all right now put it together again” – and she said […] (Aijmer 2002: 60)

In the historical data, temporal comparisons appear early on in all three corpora. The combination with a conjunction (e.g. and, but, so) can influence the nature of the comparison. In (16), the combination of and and now indicates “topic continuation” (Aijmer 2002: 73), with an added resultive meaning. (16) […] I recomaund me unto your Grace, mervelynge moch that I never herd form you syns […], so often as I have sent and wrytten to you. And now am I left post a lone in effect (CEECS, Origina1: 1418–1529)

Quirk et al. add that the combination of and and now not only links two (sub)topics, but also “leads to a new stage in the sequence of thought” (Quirk et al. 1972: 667 in Aijmer 2002: 73). The use of so now, as in (17), indicates a conclusion and can also be called resultive, but has a more informal use (Quirk et al. 1985: 635 in Aijmer 2002: 73). (17) I discharged my pockets of all the money I had: and as I came pennilesse within the walls of that Citie at my first comming thither; so now at my departing from thence, I came moneylesse out of it againe. (HC, Cetrav2a: 1570–1640)

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The collocation of now with but or yet has a contrastive effect, as illustrated in (18)–(21) below, marking “the contrastive relationship between the subtopics” (Schiffrin 1987: 326) as well as “the speaker’s orientation to an upcoming subtopic” (ibid.). (18) […] and some tyme y was ryche; but now haue y no frende ne kyn (HC, Cmbrut3: 1350–1420) (19) […] for ye sye well your selfe [that] hit was feble but now hit is myche worse. (CEECS, Marchall: 1440–1476) (20) I did not at that time thinke it was the deuill: but now I see it could be none other. (CED, Dialogue concerning Witches: publication date 1593) (21) I coulde not hitherto hope of any fauor from you, yet now my indeuors shall euer bee such towards you as that I will all wais aprooue my selfe […] (CEECS, Cornwall: 1613–1644)

Although the use of now is still clearly propositional in these examples, the temporal comparison tends to entail a situational (topic) shift or a change in perspective from the speaker’s point of view.

4.2 Now as a historical marker of textual progression According to a suggestion made by Quirk et al. (1985: 640), viz. that the evolution from an adverbial to a pragmatic marker “takes place when there is the implication of a verb of speaking”, the semantic-pragmatic development of now is hypothesised to originate in a structure such as the following: “[One can say] now [that…]” or “Now [I will say that…]”. In other words, the adverb is used in a structure where the speaker explicitly announces a topic change. The temporal succession, indicated by adverbial now is said to be “converted into the logical succession of discourse” when a verb of speaking is implied (Quirk et al. 1985: 640). This hypothesis ties in with Finell’s suggestion that “verbally extended topic changers” become more compressed in their historical evolution (Finell 1992: 732). She mentions, for instance, And now Sir let mee tell you or And [now] let mee aske you. Phrases like these not only give the speaker control over the conversational floor, the use of verbal collocations also guides the addressee towards an upcoming topic change. Tables 2, 3 and 4 below present concrete figures from the historical corpora, divided according to consecutive periods of time. These data include all utteranceinitial uses of now from the three corpora. The category “Verbal Collocation” contains those utterance-initial tokens of now which explicitly mark topic changes.


This group is split up into two categories: the first (e.g. examples [22]–[27]) consists of tokens that are accompanied by a verb of speaking such as tell or say. The first two examples ([22] and [23]) are not prototypical illustrations of this category, but do give us an idea of two very early examples in the corpus data. (22) Nu hæbbe we gereaht [= related, explained] be welan & be anwalde, & þæt ilce we magon reccan be þæm þrim ðe we unareht habbað; þæ is weorðscipe & foremærnes & willa. (HC, Coboeth: 850–950) (23) And now Monsieur le Bastard and they of the Counsell here say yt is a good torne for the King here, and a great weale for his reaulme that he is not Emperor, […] (CEECS, Origina1: 1418–1529) (24) And now, my Lord, give me leave to tell you how sore it presseth upon the zeale […] (CEECS, Wesa: 1632–1642) (25) And now y shal telle yow of þe noble Erl Thomas of Lancastre. (HC, Cmbrut3: 1350–1420) (26) And now, my dearest Cosin and friend, fearing to renew those paines of your head by the reading of thease […], I forbear to say for the present any thing else in thease then what my heart now and at all times inforceth mee (CEECS, Cornwall: 1613–1644) (27) Now Jenny, I’ll tell thee what made our other Merchant, Sir Flat-face Puppy, scatter Words and Threats about my Credit, to make thee Uneasy, and endeavour to make me Ridiculous. (CED, English Lucian: publication date 1703)

A second group contains the uses of now which do not collocate with a verb of speaking (examples [28]–[30]), but also explicitly announce the speaker’s intention to shift to a new topic or conclude a previous one. The three examples (28) […] neuerthelesse chryst Iesu hyr housbande is her heed. & almyghty god is hyr heed also. But now let vs retourne to our instruccyon. Thus than ye vnderstande how that in the vnyuersall chyrche of chryste remayneth the spyryte of trouthe for euer. (HC, Ceserm1a: 1500–1570) (29) For a bodye hath dyuers lynes metyng sometime in one corner. Now to geue you example of triangles, there is one whiche is all of croked lynes, and […] (HC, Cescie1b: 1500–1570) (30) Now, my lord, I will leave this long preface, and come to some matters in my former letters. (CEECS, Leyceste: 1585–1586)

An additional category (“Quotation”) consists of uses of now which are embedded in a context of direct reported speech, and are accompanied by a verb of speaking – as in examples (31), (32) and (33).

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(31) Ymb ða hwilendlican tida sanctus Paulus spræc, ða he cuæð: Nu is hiersumnesse tima & nu sint hælnesse dagas. (HC, Cocura: 850–950) (32) So the good Wife was constrayned to fetch more, for feare lest the Pan should burn; And when he had them, he put them in the pan. Now, quod he, if you have no butter, the pan will burn and the eggs too. (CED, The Sack-Full of Newes: publication date 1673) (33) As soon as he was gone, Mr. Froth began to consider with himself what was best to do, stick to the first Design, or discover all to your Ladyship. Now, said he, have I a fair Opportunity of turning Callid’s Knavery to my own advantage, by discovering all to Amoranda; (CED, The Reform’d Coquet: Speech event date 1724/publication date 1725)

In this context, the use of direct speech indicates that a speaker can be connected with a particular attitude, and explicitly shows that it is the speaker who introduces a topic change. The numbers of the Quotation-category, however, will not be further discussed here but are added for completeness. The Helsinki Corpus (Table 2) contains data from the Old English period and therefore dates back further than the CED and CEECS. With an average of 15.6 percent verbal collocations, the HC displays relatively larger percentages than the two later corpora. The highest numbers (up to 27.5%) can be found in the early periods between 950 and 1250. The numbers decrease in later periods, in particular in the latter half of the Middle English period (i.e. c. 1400), which is reflected in the data from the CED and CEECS (see Tables 3 and 4 below). Table 2. Verbal collocations HC: Historical evolution. HC

Verbal Collocation

(Quotation)

None

Total Initial

< 850 850–950 950–1050 1050–1150 1150–1250 1250–1350 1350–1420

100 (1) 6.1 (4) 18.2 (55) 27.5 (11) 21.6 (24) 14.8 (16) 16.1 (23)

– 25.7 (17) 6.6 (20) – – 2.8 (3) 3.5 (5)

– 68.2 (45) 75.2 (227) 72.5 (29) 78.4 (87) 82.4 (89) 80.4 (115)

100 (1) 100 (66) 100 (302) 100 (40) 100 (111) 100 (108) 100 (143)

1420–1500 1500–1570 1570–1640 1640–1710

14.9 (31) 18.6 (31) 9.3 (20) 13.7 (17)

2.9 (6) 1.2 (2) 4.6 (10) 1.6 (2)

82.2 (171) 80.2 (134) 86.1 (186) 84.7 (105)

100 (208) 100 (167) 100 (216) 100 (124)

Total

15.6 (233)

4.4 (65)

79.9 (1188)

100 (1486)


Table 3. Verbal collocations CED: Historical evolution. CED

Verbal Collocation

(Quotation)

None

Total Initial

1550–1600 1600–1650 1650–1700 1700–1750 1750–1800

7.3 (18) 7 (20) 6.5 (21) 9.4 (12) 5.3 (1)

8.1 (20) 7.4 (21) 5.2 (17) 9.4 (12) –

84.6 (209) 85.6 (244) 88.3 (286) 81.2 (104) 94.7 (18)

100 (247) 100 (285) 100 (324) 100 (128) 100 (19)

Total

7.2 (72)

7 (70)

85.8 (861)

100 (1003)

Table 4. Verbal collocations CEECS: Historical evolution. CEECS

Verbal Collocation

(Quotation)

None

Total Initial

A (1400–1500) AB (------------) B (1500–1600) BC (------------) C (1600–1700)

2.8 (1) – 12.5 (12) 11.1 (2) 13 (15)

– – 3.1 (3) – –

97.2 (35) 100 (19) 84.4 (81) 88.9 (16) 87 (100)

100 (36) 100 (19) 100 (96) 100 (18) 100 (115)

Total

10.6 (30)

1.1 (3)

88.4 (251)

100 (284)

Starting from 1417 and 1560 respectively, the CEECS and CED present a lower number of verbal collocations than the HC does. In the CED, we see a fairly stable evolution without massive increases or decreases – but with an overall average of about 7.2 percent tokens that are accompanied by a text-structuring verbal phrase. The CEECS, however, displays a tentative increase – from 2.8 % before 1500 to higher numbers (13%) in the period after 1600. A comparison shows that this percentage is still lower than the average percentage in the HC. Although further detailed research with respect to genre is necessary to provide further explanations for these differences, the data confirm that now as a temporal adverb shifts diachronically towards a textual indication of time, thus echoing Quirk et al.’s suggestion that the implication of a verb of speaking advances the pragmatic evolution of now. The propositional meaning of the adverb is in this sense applied for a subjectified use, i.e. to indicate personal choices in discourse structuring.

. The tokens from the CEECS and CED were classified according to five main chronological periods, in an attempt to create subdivisions that would make it easier to compare the data from all three corpora, and to trace possible evolutions between different periods of time. For the CEECS, categories A, B and C respectively represent the periods between 1400–1500, 1500–1600 and 1600–1700. Categories AB and BC contain tokens from texts which are situated in an overlapping period of time (e.g. AB: 1461–1550; BC: 1566–1638). The texts from the CED were easier to divide – into time stretches of 50 years – because only one date is given per text.

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In the initial stages of the marker’s development, now frequently occurs in a context where the intentions of the speaker on how the upcoming discourse will be structured are explicitly announced by means of an extended verbal phrase. From the earliest Old English data onwards, now is combined with a metacomment including a verb of speaking, as a means to announce topic shifts or to allow a speaker to comment on the progress of a narrative structure. Tables 3 and 4 show that the textual function based on the use of verbal collocations continues to be used up to the present day. In addition, however, now appears more often without a verbal metacomment from the late Middle English period onwards (i.e. c. 1300–1500), and can be found in a more implicit textual use, for instance in example (34) below, where now appears in a text-structuring function indicating the transition to two upcoming subparts (i.e. structuring and listing different steps in an argumentation). (34) […] yet is it venial synne; and deedly synne whan the love of any thyng weyeth in the herte of man as muchel as the love of God, or moore. Now been ther two maneres of Pride: that oon of hem is withinne the herte of man, and that oother is withoute. Of whiche, soothly, thise forseyde thynges, and mo than I have seyd, apertenen to Pride that is in the herte of man; and that othere speces of Pride been withoute. […] (HC, Cmctpros: 1350–1420)

Examples (35) and (36) present the appearance of a new textual use, in which now introduces a new (sub)topic which specifies or elaborates on a previous topic. In (35), now recapitulates one previously mentioned element (…a gentleman…Now this Gentleman had…), in order to direct the course of discourse towards a specification of one particular subtopic. (35) [H]e had a Gentleman that had boarded with him, that pretended to study Astrology; but no otherwise than to gull the Husband and lye with his Wife, who had promised him that favour, if he could beguile the Carpenter. Now this Gentleman had a Rival, that had a months mind to have a lick at her Honeypot, but she hated him and loved her Boarder. (HC, Cefict3a: 1640–1710)

In example (36), a description (and set of options) is first presented (some mocked, others threatned; and some cried…). Now introduces an elaboration of this description, by focussing on one aspect, viz. the group of people mocking, threatening, etc. – and drawing attention to two specific people from the group. (36) The Neighbours also came out to see him run, and as he ran, some mocked, others threatned; and some cried after him to return: Now among those that did so, there were two that were resolved to fetch him back by force: The name


of the one was Obstinate, and the name of the other Pliable. Now by this time the Man was got a good distance from them; […] (CED, Pilgrim’s Progress: 1678)

This text-structuring use of now already appears in the Middle English period (before 1500), emphasising an upcoming step in an argumentation.

4.3 “Consideration” as a factor in textual progression One of the meanings of now in the OED signifies “under the present circumstances; in view of these facts” (I. adv. 1.b). As a propositional adverb, now can preface a transition to a new perspective which can be based, however, on what has been said in a previous part of speech. In (37) and (38), now is used in a semantic sense, directing speaker and addressee forward to upcoming (sub)topics. (37) [...] Nu mihht tu sen þatt tatt wass rihht þatt mannkinn for till helle. (HC, Cmorm: 1150–1250) (38) Đære sunnan ryne is swiðe rum, forðan ðe heo is swiðe upp; & þæs monan ryne is nearo, forðan þe he yrnð ealra tungla nyðemyst, & þære eorðan gehendost. Nu miht ðu understandan, þæt læssan ymbgang hæfð se man þe gæð onbuton an hus, þonne se ðe ealle þa burh begæð. (HC, Cotempo: 950–1050)

This use of now can be paraphrased as “at this point (in discourse)” or “after this has been said” and illustrates that the speaker invites the hearer to follow a suggested path of reasoning. This interaction between an uttered argumentation and a consequent consideration or understanding can also be found in the collocation of now with then. As early as 950 (example [39]), the historical corpus data display occurrences of a semantically bleached meaning of the temporal adverb (cf. Aijmer 2002: 65), in the use of now then (examples [39]–[43] below). (39) Nu þonne gif ðe to hefig ne þince, sege me þinne naman and þin gelymp arece me. Đa cwæð Apollonius: Gif ðu for neode axsast æfter minum naman, ic secge þe ic hine forleas on sæ. (HC, Coapollo: 950–1050) (40) Nu þenne seli meiden. Gef þe is weole leof; nim þe him to lauerð. Đæt wealdeð al þæt is & wes & eauer schal iwurðen. (HC, Cmhali: 1150–1250) (41) Nou þench þanne huanne þo […] [= now then think how to…] (HC, Cmayenbi: 1250–1350) (42) […] yf that a wyght wolde ryden for cause of hele, he ne desireth not so mochel the moevyng to ryden, as the effect of his hele. Now thanne, syn that alle thynges ben required for the grace of good, thei ne ben not desired of alle

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folk more than the same good. But we han grauntide that blisfulnesse is that thing for whiche that alle thise othere thinges ben desired.(HC, Cmboeth: 1350–1420) (43) Nowe than on Soundaye was the Coronacion, which allso was of such a maner. (CEECS, Origina2: 1520–1586)

According to Bolinger, the collocation of now and then “marks a transition to something new resulting in a fresh look on a state of affairs” (in Aijmer 2002: 65). He states that “the then is the ‘then’ of consequence resulting from some intervening consideration that alters the view of things” (1989: 293). Consideration necessarily involves the awareness of preceding utterances. When a speaker introduces a new (sub)topic into the interactive frame, he or she will have to take into account what has been said in previous speaker turns. In the case of a monologue, this is necessary for establishing a well-founded point, but also when other interactants are involved, the introduction of a new topic is likely to take into account preceding opinions, which will help to establish a good understanding with the addressee. In the earliest periods of the CEECS (1400–1500), and in the Middle English layers of the HC, the data display an increasing number of uses where now is followed by a subclause introduced by if, whether, though or since. Example (44) is the earliest occurrence of a clear non-propositional use of now in the CEECS. In this case, the marker has a bleached semantic meaning and is followed by a subclause (introduced by and, i.e. if) which mentions one specific option or perspective, as considered by the speaker. (44) Now, and my good lady wold of hir great gentlenes and noble mynd send a token, as is within wrytten, I cold never deserve yt to hir […] (CEECS, plumpton: 1461–1550)

The added aspect of consideration, whether it is indicated formally by a conditional subclause or not, should be seen as a shade of meaning, and not as a separate functional categorisation. In fact, the use of verbal collocations (see Section 4.2) can be combined with this layer of meaning, as is shown in example (45). The figures presented in Tables 2–4 therefore also contain the examples presented in this section. (45) Now, whether this be first to be regarded or such kindred, this I say, […] (CEECS, Cornwall: 1613–1644)

Similarly, in example (46), the introduction of a new topic is again explicitly made (“I will make sum mention of…), but the accompanying phrase following now


(“…, considering…”) reveals that the topic change is also based on a mental deliberation – or the ‘sizing up’ of a situation. (46) […], and nowe, considering what thinges have hapned since the writinge of your letters, I will breefly make sum mention of thinges latelie passed. (CEECS, Leyceste: 1585–1586) (47) Now, concerning what you write to me by Tom Talbot, I am of your opinion that I must be advised by these ministers heere. (CEECS, Charles: 1634–1678)

In this context (also see example [47]), now can be paraphrased as ‘at this point’ or ‘considering this’ – or similar to the OED, ‘in view of these facts’. Consideration entails an awareness of different options, and a marker such as now can serve as a means to posit a subjective opinion exactly by making a contrast. In the early Modern English period (from 1500 onwards), the use of now in the corpus data is increasingly followed by an explicitly personal, often concessive point of view (examples [48]–[50]). (48) Now though quick Lime be the powder that this direction makes choice of, yet I doubt not, but that there may be much more convenient ones found out […]. (HC, Cescie3a: 1640–1710) (49) Now, if that wod bring him home, it weare noe matter; but, alas! I fear it will note […] (CEECS, Cornwall: 1613–1644) (50) And, no doubtes, yf hir majesty wyll goe to the chardge but for ij yeres, she may as assuredly stablysh these countreys as she shall please, […]. Now, whether you ther conceave styll as you have done, that these countreys be of consequence for hir majesties safty and servyce, to be kept at hir devotyon, I must leave to yourselves; but yf you be, than doth now your opportunytye well serve you, both to move hir majestye and […] (CEECS, Leyceste: 1585–1586)

Now can be used at the start of an argumentation, to introduce “an important or noteworthy point in an argument or proof, or in a series of statements” (OED now II 10). The reference to for instance a previous point of view, a statement by an interlocutor or a line of thought not only serves to acknowledge different opinions, but also forms a suitable basis on which a speaker can build a possibly opposing view or a subjective, personal opinion. Further detailed historical research will show whether the functions arising from verbal collocations (cf. Section 4.2.) concur with the evolution of now then, as well as with the appearance of conditional phrases, and whether different developments can be further outlined into groups of different polysemies for pragmatic now.

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4.4 Expressions of certainty In the late Middle English period and the start of the early Modern English period, we can find occurrences of now which illustrate an advanced level of semantic loss, in contexts where the aspect of speaker-evaluation becomes more prominent (cf. examples [51]–[54]). Rather than an indication of textual progression, these examples illustrate a heightened subjective element in the use of now. (51) Now without doubt (quoth her Gossip) you are to blame to say so […] (HC, Cefict2b: 1570–1640) (52) “Tell me, I prey the”, quoth I, “who was the father of thy childe?” She stodyd a whyle, and sayde that it hadde a father. “But what was hee?” quoth I. “Nowe, by my trouth, I knowe not,” quoth shee; “you brynge me out of my matter so, you do.” “Well, saye on,” quoth I. (HC, Cefict1b: 1500–1570) (53) Now trust me truly, I am of opinion you will become it singular well. (HC, Cefict2b: 1570–1640) (54) Now be grete god ye sey fful well (HC, Cmludus: 1420–1500)

The tokens in these phrases can be said to display an affective meaning, giving additional strength to an assertion, a personal opinion, or an expression of certainty. Interestingly, these subjectified uses of now in many cases also have a direct effect on the addressee, who is not only met with a change in textual progression (viz. change in speaker turn), but also with a shift in perspective.

5.

Conclusions

Early on in the historical material of the HC, CEECS and CED, adverbial now can be attested as an ideal starting point for pragmatic recruitment. The “propulsive” force of the temporal element helps to create meanings that enable a speaker to look forward on a text-structuring as well as ideational level, and to apply the marker in contexts of temporal contrast and textual progression. The deictic nature of adverbial now proves to be an ideal basis for further semantic-pragmatic development towards meanings that indicate the importance of an upcoming topic. In the diachronic data, we see that the speaker’s need to express a personal opinion creates a motivation for now to lose semantic meaning and become a warning signal for the addressee, announcing a possible discourse change or attitudinal shift. On a formal level, we can notice the use of specific collocations, e.g. with speech act verbs – indicating the speaker’s explicit intention to introduce topic changes, or with subclauses adding an aspect of consideration and


a wareness of previous speaker turns – which may differ from the speaker’s point of view (also cf. now then). Against the background of hypotheses of subjectification and intersubjectification, we can see a tentative evolution towards a greater emphasis on “personal” and “interpersonal” meanings. Not only does now increasingly introduce subjective points of view issued by the speaker; the marker also invites the addressee to follow a suggested textual progression or personal argumentation. Interestingly, the attention for speaker-attitude and hearer-orientation does not appear solely at the end of the historical cline, but is also very much present in early periods of all three corpora. Further research will be useful to study the different diachronic levels of meaning of now in greater detail, in order to place the semantic-pragmatic development of now in a larger frame of grammaticalisation and (inter)subjectification.

References Aijmer, K. 1988. “Now may we have a word on this: the use of now as a discourse particle”. Corpus Linguistics: Hard and Soft ed. by M. Kytö, O. Ihalainen & M. Rissanen, 15–34. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Aijmer, K. 2002. English Discourse Particles. Evidence from a Corpus. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Auer, P. 1996. “The pre-front field in spoken German and its relevance as a grammaticalization position”. Pragmatics 6:3.295–322. Bolinger, D. 1989. Intonation and its Uses. Melody in Grammar and Discourse. London: Edward Arnold. Brinton, L. J. 1996. Pragmatic Markers in English. Grammaticalization and Discourse Functions. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter Bronzwaer, W. J. M. 1975. “A hypothesis concerning deictic time-adverbs in narrative structure”. Journal of Literary Semantics 4.53–73. Culpeper, J. & M. Kytö. 1997. “Towards a Corpus of Dialogues, 1550–1750”. Language in Time and Space. Studies in Honour of Wolfgang Viereck on the Occasion of His 60th Birthday (Zeitschrift für Dialektologie und Linguistik – Beihefte 97), ed. by H. Ramisch & K. Wynne, 60–73. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. Culpeper, J. & M. Kytö. 2000. “Data in historical pragmatics. Spoken interaction (re)cast as writing”. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 1:2.175–199. Finell, A. 1992. “The repertoire of topic changers in personal, intimate letters: A diachronic study of Osborne and Woolf ”. History of Englishes: New Methods and Interpretations in Historical Linguistics ed. by M. Rissanen, O. Ihalainen, T. Nevalainen & I. Taavitsainen, 720–735. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Goffman, E. 1981. Forms of Talk. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Hasselgård, H. 2006. “Not now – on non-correspondence between the cognate adverbs now and nå”. Pragmatic Markers in Contrast 2. (Studies in Pragmatics) ed. by K. Aijmer & A.-M. Simon-Vandenbergen. Oxford: Elsevier.

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Horne M., P. Hansson, G. Bruce, J. Frid & M. Filipsson. 2001. “Cue words and the topic structure of spoken discourse: The case of Swedish men ‘but’”. Journal of Pragmatics 33.1061–1081. Nevalainen, T. & H. Raumolin-Brunberg. 1996. “The Corpus of Early English Correspondence”. Sociolinguistics and Language History. Studies based on the Corpus of Early English Correspondence ed. by T. Nevalainen & H. Raumolin-Brunberg, 39–54. Amsterdam & Atlanta: Rodopi. Quirk, R., S. Greenbaum, G. Leech & J. Svartvik. 1972. A Grammar of Contemporary English. London: Longman. Quirk, R., S. Greenbaum, G. Leech & J. Svartvik. 1985. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. London & New York: Longman. Schiffrin, D. 1987. Discourse Markers. Cambridge University Press. Traugott, E. C. 1995a. The role of the development of discourse markers in a theory of grammaticalization. Paper presented at ICHL XII, Manchester 1995. Traugott, E. C. 1995b. “Subjectification in grammaticalisation”. Subjectivity and Subjectivisation ed. by Dieter Stein & Susan Wright, 31–54. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Traugott, E. C. 1997. “The rhetoric of counter-expectation in semantic change: A study in subjectification”. Historical Semantics and Cognition ed. by P. Koch & A. Blank, Version of 12/1997. Traugott, E. C. 1999. From subjectification to intersubjectification. Paper presented at the Workshop of Historical Pragmatics, Fourteenth International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Vancouver, Canada, July 1999. Traugott, E. C & R. B. Dasher. 2002. Regularity in Semantic Change. Cambridge University Press.

Electronic resources A Corpus of English Dialogues 1560–1760. 2006. Compiled under the supervision of Merja Kytö (Uppsala University) and Jonathan Culpeper (Lancaster University). (last accessed on 22/08/2008). The Corpus of Early English Correspondence Sampler (1998) on cd-rom (International Computer Archive of Modern and Medieval English (ICAME)). Compiled by T. Nevalainen and H. Raumolin-Brunberg. Department of English, University of Helsinki. Manual: (last accessed on 22/08/2008) The Diachronic Part of the Helsinki Corpus of English Texts (1996) on cd-rom (International Computer Archive of Modern and Medieval English (ICAME)). Helsinki: Department of English, University of Helsinki. Compiled by Rissanen Matti et al. Manual: (last accessed on 22/08/2008) or (last accessed on 22/08/2008) The Oxford English Dictionary (OED), J. A. H. Murray, H. Bradley, W. A. Craigie & C. T. Onions (eds.) 1989 (1961). Oxford: Clarendon Press. The Oxford English Dictionary Online: (last accessed on 22/08/2008)

Self-repetition in spoken English discourse Göran Kjellmer University of Gothenburg

The objects of the present paper are, first, to chart the occurrence of selfrepetition in the spoken British module “ukspok” in the Cobuild Corpus, and secondly, to present evidence to show that repetition serves a great number of functions, and that far from being an obstacle it is a helpful and sometimes even necessary ingredient for everyday conversation to be successful. It was found that repetititon is a ubiquitous phenomenon in the spoken language and is very often used in preparation for long and complex sentences. It was also found that men have a much higher rate of repetition-introduced turns than women, and that men’s repetition-introduced sentences are much longer than women’s.

1.

Introduction

The relatively recent growth of interest in collocations has brought with it a realisa tion of the importance of repetition. It is only by being frequently repeated that a sequence of words assumes the status of a lexical phrase, a collocation. If the recur ring repetition of word combinations in different utterances by different language users is thus recognised as essential for the formation of collocations, the occurrence of accidental, mostly unintended repetition of elements in the same utter ance of one speaker is a different matter. The latter variety is often looked upon as a kind of disturbance, an obstacle to the free flow of conversation. Repetition certainly has a bad name in several contexts. Tannen (1989: 53) refers to “conventional wisdom by which repetition is considered undesirable in conversation. […] Evidence of negative associations with repetition abounds.” Jucker (1994: 48) suggests that “at first sight many repetitions appear to be a waste of effort”, and Jean Aitchison’s “provisional assessment suggests that immediate self-repetitions of syllables, morphemes, and words can mostly be regarded as bad, since they cause comprehension problems: they tend to be filtered out as mistakes, or else treated as iteratives.” (1994: 27)

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The low esteem in which the linguistic phenomenon repetition is often held can perhaps be ascribed to its disorderly appearance. In a different context Ronald Macaulay (1995: 39) quotes a paper by Jane Hill, who observes that adopting Bakhtin’s approach to language would radically change the scope of linguistic investigation: Translinguistics [i.e. Bakhtin’s metalingvistika, RM] will admit to scholarly study the momentary, the individual, the performative, the disorderly – all those aspects of the human voice which linguistics considers beyond the scope of sys temic order.

“The momentary, the individual, the performative, the disorderly” – that would seem to be a good characterisation of intra-utterance repetition in spoken discourse. Repetition is a pervasive phenomenon, occurring in the spoken form of all languages, in all societies, and in almost all situations (Merritt 1994: 27). This is in itself a sufficient reason to look into it. Tannen (1989: 46) deals with various types of repetition and thinks that it “raises fundamental questions about the nature of language, and the degree to which language is freely ‘generated’ or repeated from language previously experienced”. It has attracted a great deal of interest, particularly among literary scholars, who often see it as a consciously used stylistic device, but it is also discussed among linguists. There is quite a body of linguistic literature on the subject with many different approaches. Among the relevant works could be mentioned Persson (1974), Tannen (1987a, 1987b, 1989), Fischer (1994, collection of articles), Johnstone (1994, collection of articles) and Bazzanella (1996, collection of articles). There is also a substantial chapter on “Repeats” in Biber et al. (1999). The most recent work to my knowledge dealing with repetition is Denke (2005). After defining repetition as used in this paper, the study will move on to a description of its nature, forms and occurrence in a large material taken from a modern corpus. The main focus will then be on the various functions repetition can be seen to serve, where the overriding purpose will be to show that even “the momentary, the individual, the performative, the disorderly” has an important place in ordinary everyday discourse.

2.

Definition and material

Repetition can be taken to refer to a variety of phenomena, including quotations, rhymes, literary allusions, exchanges of greetings, etc. (For a discussion of this, see e.g. Tannen 1989; Johnstone et al. 1994.) In previous research, which deals

Self-repetition in spoken English discourse

with allo-repetition (echoing the words of another speaker), non-adjacent paraphrase and other such phenomena are included (Tannen 1987: 577–579); in the present paper a much more restricted view of repetition will be taken. Repetition as used here only applies to sequential repetition in the narrow sense in the spoken English language as recorded in the CobuildDirect Corpus, which is a 56-million-word corpus of modern British, American and Australian English. The subsection made use of in this study is “ukspok”, UK transcribed informal speech. What distinguishes this study from most other work in the area is thus that it is based on a modern corpus, with the consequent recourse to a vast collection of genuine repetitions. The present use of repetition refers to the situation when a spoken element occurs immediately or almost immediately after an identical element in the same turn. (The turn may be briefly interrupted by an interlocutor.) An element can be anything from the representation of a single sound, through parts of words, whether syllables or not, and whole words, to sequences of words (mostly phrases or clauses), where there is no upper limit to the number of words. Repetition, as used here, does not include paraphrase, “where propositions are repeated, but exact words are not” (Aitchison 1994: 19). This restricted definition of repetition will evade tricky questions of definition; it is evident that it will also leave out of account many aspects pertaining to the wider field of repetition, not least issues concerning interpersonal relations such as involvement. (See, however, Functions, 5 below.) But one of the aims of the present study is to find out how and why a speaker manipulates his own language, consciously or uncon sciously, using his own linguistic resources. If therefore a speaker echoes the pre ceding speaker exactly, that will not be counted as repetition here. We are thus only concerned with so-called self-repetition and not with allo-repetition. One advantage of defining repetition so narrowly is that we are spared the difficulty of distinguishing between reduplication and repetition and of deciding how long an intervening part of the conversation can be in order for the occurrence of two . The study by Culpeper and Kytö (2006) is based on an Early Modern English corpus, the Corpus of English Dialogues 1560–1760. . Cf. Tannen (1989: 52): “Repeating the words, phrases, or sentences of other speakers (a) accomplishes a conversation, (b) shows one’s response to another’s utterance, (c) shows acceptance of others’ utterances, their participation and them [sic], and (d) gives evidence of one’s own participation.” Egner (1996: 69–70) mentions interactional functions from agreement, solidarity, and approval to irony and disapproval, and Johnstone (2002: 146) lists among the functions of repetition things like backchannelling, conversational problem-solving, the creation of harmony and rapport among interlocutors and the indication of superficial listening or indifference. . See Persson (1974: 6f.).

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identical elements to be regarded as a case of repetition. Another advantage is that we can make use of the annotation of the spoken British component (“ukspok”) of the Cobuild Corpus, where and enclose repeated elements in the present sense. ( represents a transcriber’s guess.) In that corpus, 129 483 instances are marked / .

3.

Intentional and unintentional repetition

In the spoken language, repetitions are mostly unintentional and thus random, i.e. “explicable in terms of the speaker’s task of production in face-to-face conversation”, but they can also be significant repeats, i.e. “instances of repetition that perform some identifiable operation on their previous occurrence” (Ehrlich 1994: 87f., quoting Norrick). “In spoken speech, it is often unclear whether repetition is a consciously-used device or not.” The distinction between random and significant, or unintentional and intentional is important. Most writers on the subject seem to be dealing with significant or intentional repetition. In individual cases it is occasionally difficult to distinguish intentional from unintentional cases of repetition (cf. Biber et al. 1999: 1056), but in material from a spoken corpus it is plainly evident that the unintentional ones represent the overwhelming majority. It is an often expressed belief that, as Tannen (1987b: 576) puts it, “each time a word or phrase is repeated, its meaning is altered.” That may well be true for many of the intentional repetitions, but it certainly does not hold for the majority of the unintentional ones. It is another matter that, as I hope to show, even those cases of repetition that seem to be random will mostly fulfil certain functions, some more important than others. Here is an example of an intentional or significant repeat: (1)

<M01> Good stuff. Well thank you for the information Helen. That’s okay. <M01> That’s very very very kind of you. Text: S0000000062.

and then one of an unintentional one:

. This figure is unnecessarily, and perhaps misleadingly, precise because there are occasional instances of repetition that are not marked as such and also a few cases of misplaced repetition tags. . Aitchison (1994: 21). Aitchison distinguishes intentional and unintentional repetition and adds a third category, “covert controlled”, which however is hardly relevant in a material of the present type, self-repetition.


(2) <M01> And and er what and what does she look like now Shirley? Text: S0000000047.

4.

Frequency and distribution

4.1

Is repetition a frequent phenomenon?

Repetitions as defined here include the whole gamut from individual phonemes and word fragments via words up to phrases and full clauses. The items most often repeated are function words. The top ten in the material are: I, the, it, and, that, you, it’s, a, they, we. There are 9 272 579 words in ukspok and 129 483 instances of repetition. So it might seem that repetition represents (129 483/9 272 579 =) 1.4% of the ukspok total. As, however, a number of the repetitions involve more than single words, from two words to 13, the percentage of repeated material must be much higher than that. So, simply put, it is obvious that spoken English discourse is made up of repetitions to a considerable extent.

4.2 Which types of words feature multiple repetition? If it is primarily function words that are repeated, one would expect them to figure prominently in a list of multiple repetitions. This is borne out by Table 1, a list of the elements in the material that are repeated three times or more in succession. Thus, words that exhibit multiple repetition are characteristically mono syllabic function words. Note that contractions (I’m, it’s, you’re) behave like the function words.

4.3 Male and female repetition Speaker turns are often introduced by repeated elements. In the spoken British component, ukspok, of the Cobuild Corpus, <M01> represents the first male person and the first female person to speak in a passage, and, as indicated above, and enclose repeated elements. (The identities of <M01> and thus vary throughout the Corpus.) A comparison of male and female repetition, where the whole of the ukspok subcorpus is made use of, is presented in Table 2.

. Contracted forms are regarded as units/words.

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Table 1. Multiple repetition. a a a a a a conference being and and and and and transcend and er and and and and er and but but but but but but real dialogue Do you do you do you do do he he he g he he ga he gave me I I I have known I have known I I I I I think when if if if if if it’s possible to say so I’m I’m I’m I’m misreading in in in in in in Nicholas Nickleby it it it it is a it is a fact it’s it’s it’s it’s plodding not not not all close up not of of of of of of of a deliberately on a on a on a s a slightly or or or or or or or made that that that that’s Yeah. the the the the the the the economies They they they they they they perceive to to to to to to agree on we we we we we haven’t got wh wh wh er wh what whatever Wh what what what what about with with with with with with with characters you you you you you put up You’re you’re you’re you’re all listening.

Table 2. Male and female rates of repetition.

<M01>

RepetitionNon-introduced introduced turns turns

Total turns

% repetitionintroduced

4810 2518

170 865 160 263

2.8 1.6

166 055 157 745

<M01> and have very roughly the same number of turns, but the male turns are much more often than the female ones introduced by repeated elements, 2.8% versus 1.6%. So if we are to judge from this material, men tend to repeat themselves more often than women, at least in the introductions to their speech-


turns. It will be shown later that men’s repetition-introduced turns are also much longer than women’s (Section 5.4.1). Are there any differences between men’s and women’s repetitions in the material? If the most frequently repeated words, those repeated more than 23 times in the <M01> and material, are recorded, the calculations in Table 3 may answer the question. The table shows that I is by far the most often repeated item by both speaker categories in turn beginnings, followed by and, what and it. In order to compare the <M01> and distributions I have related the raw figures to the total number of repetitions for each category. It then appears that women repeat I relatively more often than men, while men repeat you relatively more often than women. Women repeat both he and she and also we relatively more often than men.

5.

Functions

5.1

Overview

This section has for its object to show that, despite its bad name, repetition carries out a number of important functions in English spoken discourse, and by implication almost certainly in the discourse of other languages as well. As Bazzanella (1996: vii) says, “The universality and pervasiveness of [repetition] have been pointed out by many scholars, since ancient times, but, as in other ‘obvious’ aspects of our life, we are not totally aware of using it or of the different functions we perform in using it.” One of the difficulties in using transcribed speech to identify what functions repetitions serve in the discourse is that intonational factors, which can be crucial for the understanding of a text segment, are not marked. Another difficulty, of a different order, is the fact that several functions are frequently carried out simultaneously by individual instances of repetition, where it may not be obvious to the listener, and even less to the reader of the transcript, which of the functions is the most important or primarily intended one (cf. Section 6.6). Yet another difficulty is that functions seem to multiply as occurrences are analysed in depth. Some consolation can be derived from Tannen (1989: 55): “It would be hubris (and hopeless) to attempt to illustrate every form and function of repetition.” But if we assume that the existence of a very great number of repetitions in English as in other languages can be explained with reference to their usefulness, we must ask what the nature of that usefulness is.

. See, e.g., Joos (1964: 7f.) on the importance of prosody for the interpretation of meaning.

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Table 3. Qualitative differences between male and female repeated items. <M01>+

+

% of M total

% of F total

%M–%F

a

83

48

1.7

1.9

–0.2

and

343

260

7.1

10.3

–3.2

are

37

21

0.8

0.8

–0.1

but

134

55

2.8

2.2

0.6

did

57

19

1.2

0.8

0.4

do

82

65

1.7

2.6

–0.9

have

24

10

0.5

0.4

0.1

he(‘x)

82

57

1.7

2.3

–0.6

how

97

44

2.0

1.7

0.3

I(‘x)

566

334

11.8

13.3

–1.5

if

49

36

1.0

1.4

–0.4

in

70

29

1.5

1.2

0.3

is

65

53

1.4

2.1

–0.8

it(‘x)

190

126

4.0

5.0

–1.1

just

34

9

0.7

0.4

0.3

N

34

14

0.7

0.6

0.2

or

34

19

0.7

0.8

0.0

S

50

13

1.0

0.5

0.5

she(‘x)

26

34

0.5

1.4

–0.8

so

158

69

3.3

2.7

0.5

Th

64

20

1.3

0.8

0.5

that(‘x)

180

73

3.7

2.9

0.8

the

128

46

2.7

1.8

0.8

there(‘x)

42

19

0.9

0.8

0.1

they

88

56

1.8

2.2

–0.4

this

30

13

0.6

0.5

0.1

to

51

31

1.1

1.2

–0.2

we(‘x)

76

47

1.6

1.9

–0.3

Wh

97

24

2.0

1.0

1.1

what(‘x)

230

133

4.8

5.3

–0.5

when

41

21

0.9

0.8

0.0

where

37

10

0.8

0.4

0.4

who(‘x)

38

16

0.8

0.6

0.2

why

45

34

0.9

1.4

–0.4

Y you(‘x)

86 198

33 80

1.8 4.1

1.3 3.2

0.5 0.9


When one is trying to get a grip on the functions possibly performed by the subgroup of repetitions studied here, intra-utterance self-repetition, it could be rewarding to see how scholars with a more comprehensive definition of repetition regard the problem. “The varied purposes simultaneously served by repetition can be subsumed under the categories of production, comprehension, connection, and interaction. The congruence of these functions of discourse provides a fourth and over-arching function in the establishment of coherence and interpersonal involvement”, says Tannen (1989: 48). Bazzanella (1996: ix) mentions “some macro-functions which have been attributed to [repetition]: cognitive, textual, stylistic, argumentative, conversational, interactional, and ethnic.” Denke (2005: 181) divides the repetitions in her material into the four groups (1) hesitational repetition, (2) rhetorical repetition (semantically motivated), (3) repetition due to return to previous construction, and (4) repetition due to involvement. With a wider definition of repetition than the one applied in this paper, it is apparent that the variety of functions served by repetition is impressive. It will be seen below, however, that even the subtype dealt with here can occur in a range of functions. They can be organised in a variety of ways, one of which is attempted below.

5.2 Stuttering Pathological stuttering does not really belong in an account of the functions of repetition, as it is a speech defect that does not occur in normal speech. But stuttering may occur for other reasons, such as nervousness, and because it falls under the definition of repetition as given here and because it does provide one answer to the question “Why do repetitions occur?”, an example will be given: (3) Does er d d d does er d d do you d do you find er with some of the things that you want y y you you argue argue with your mum and dad Text: S9000000883.

5.3 Structuring Johnstone et al. (1994: 8) call attention to the fact that repetitions can do metalinguistic work some of the time. Marking by means of repetition the major subsections of a lecture or a discussion can be an effective way of keeping the audience oriented:

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(4) First er first let’s look at English and then I’ll compare Korean to it. Text: S0000000292.

[Beginning of class.] (5) <M02> It is historic and I I don’t really know the answer to that one. <M01> Mm. Right. Right okay that’s that’s great. The the er next next bit I suppose is what I’m supposed to be asking you that’s technology. Text: S9000000374.

[Starting a new subdivision of the discussion in an exam situation.] As we shall see (6.4 below), one of the most notable functions of repetition is that of providing time for reflection. The occurrence of repetition can naturally indicate that a new topic is about to be brought up, a new departure: (6) <M01> and you’re a sheep and a lamb and a a fool if if you if you get involved in organised boycott it’s stupid. Make up your own mind you’re big enough you’re grown up. Now now erm oh I’ve lost my thread. What was that I was going to talk about then? <M02> No. I don’t know. <M01> Oh. <M02> Er <M01> Back in a minute. Text: S0000000162.

5.4 Thinking-time 5.4.1 Introductory length and complexity marker It has been shown that the stressed Swedish conjunction att ‘that’ tends to introduce clauses that are longer and more complex than those introduced by unstressed att (Roll et al. 2005). Stressed att is thus a marked clause-introducer that differs from unmarked unstressed att. The authors think that “by introducing a stressed function word speakers seem to indicate that they need more time for the planning of a complex utterance” (28). English clause-introductory repetition is marked and (more) stressed in relation to non-repetition. We may then hypothesise that a similar phenomenon might arise with English repetitions. Are English repetition-introduced sentences longer and more complex than others? If so, the use of repetition could be taken to be a device to provide more time for processing


the sentence. In order to test the hypothesis, 200 × 2 turn-initial “sentences” were investigated, 100 starting with <M01>+ (repetition), and 100 starting with just <M01> (no repetition), and then similarly 100 with + and 100 with just . However, the boundaries of spoken sentences are often difficult to identify (“I was just going to would you like some of I don’t really ...”) and would involve a great number of subjective judgements on the part of the analyst. Therefore it was considered better to count length of turns. This was done in the following way. A turn is here counted as starting from <M01> or and finishing either at the start of another speaker, irrespective of the length of his/her turn, or at the end of the extract. 100 randomly selected turns each from the four classes of turns introduced by <M01>, <M01>+, and +, respectively, were counted. Contracted words were counted as units. Symbols (like ) were not counted. Parts of words were counted as words. The result is this: Table 4. Length of repetition-introduced speaker turns. Male Female Total

No repetition

+ repetition

Total

% + repetition

641 648 1289

1540 958 2498

2181 1606 3787

70.6 59.7 66.0

It appears that a turn that starts with a repetition is generally much longer than one that starts without such an introduction. On average, a turn introduced by a repetition is twice as long as one without such repetition. It can also be seen that men’s repetition-introduced turns are much longer than women’s, while men’s and women’s non-introduced turns are equally long (cf. Section 4.3). It is true that repetition-introduced turns can be expected to be longer than non-introduced ones for the simple reason that the repeated sequence adds some words to the repetition-introduced turn total, but since the vast majority of repeated sequences consist of only one or two elements, their influence on the statistics is minimal. Also, as the turns are only counted to the end of the extracts, some turns are longer than the figures show. If the ones that go on beyond the end of the extracts are considered separately, the following distribution appears: Table 5. Number of extended repetition-introduced speaker turns. Male Female Total

No repetition

+ repetition

Total

5 3 8

17 13 30

22 16 38

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There are thus many more repetition-introduced than non-repetition-introduced turns that run on beyond the extract, 30 against 8. So the figures given for turn-length above are underestimated for both categories, but they are more underestimated for the repetition-introduced type. The tendencies illustrated in the first table above are therefore reinforced. We can conclude that clause-introductory English repetitions can be used much like stressed Swedish att, i.e. to indicate that a longer and presumably more complex utterance is about to follow. As we shall see, this is one of the main functions of repetition in spoken discourse.

5.4.2 Hesitation/uncertainty The entities that are repeated most often in relation to their chances of occurrence are pronouns + contracted forms of BE or HAVE. Such contracted forms characteristically introduce a clause. Clause introduction is a favourite position of repeated items for reasons of planning (see below). It is therefore natural that con tracted forms should be found as repetitions in the spoken part of the language. This also applies, though maybe less obviously, to the function words as a group, so frequently repeated. Speakers who are going to say something about someone or something may not have finished processing the utterance in their minds when they set out to speak or when they are embarking on a new train of thought, perhaps because they have not decided precisely what they are going to say or what position they are going to take, or because they cannot think of an appropriate word. By repeating introductory items they then allow themselves thinking-time. This function of repetition is similar to that of er and erm (Kjellmer 2003), as is also indicated by Biber et al. (1999: 1060). “By far the most of [self-repetitions] point out the problems connected with the complexity of the task of creating understandable and acceptable speech” (Mönnink 1996: 121). In Denke’s (2005: 191) material, repetition due to hesitation is the most frequent category. It is therefore no coincidence that the articles the and a, often used to introduce a semantically heavy noun phrase, are among the most frequently repeated words in the language. Cf. also Tannen (1989: 49): “To the extent, then, that repetitions and variations are automatic, they enable speakers to carry on conversation with relatively less effort, to find all or part of the utterance ready-made, so they can proceed with verbalization before deciding exactly what to say next.” So just like the use of stressed Swedish att, the use of turn-introductory repetitions may signal that the speaker is preparing for a longer and probably more involved turn, or that s/he is looking for an appropriate word or term. It is typical of repetitions that they occur at the beginning of a turn or, less often, of a new information unit (Schegloff . “The same bit of language can be repeated until the speaker is able to continue.” (Biber et al. 1999: 1055)


1987: 71). In terms of theme and rheme or of topic and comment, intra-utterance repetition thus contributes to the theme or topic. An important aspect of hesitation is that of planning. Speakers hesitate and repeat themselves because when they are planning ahead as they speak, planning what to say, the details in the planning scheme have not been fully worked out. The planning scheme applies to phrase structure as well as to clause structure, so it is natural that repetition should be found predominantly at the beginning of noun phrases and verb phrases and at the beginning of clauses, often after an introductory unstressed word. This may be illustrated by Table 6, a random list of 20 cases of repetition from the material, a list which also shows the frequent departure of spoken material from written standards: Table 6. Planning ahead. S0000000001 I used to be S0000000001 it’s a right there S0000000001 they’re by they are just S0000000001 ay and my teacher said oh S0000000001 F0> and just starts again S0000000001 hat way. I mean not S0000000001 he realises that you know S0000000001 m I too young. Well S0000000001 ‘re very rich aren’t they S0000000001 t is difficult about this S0000000003 he can just keep walking S0000000003 Oh yeah it’s <M0X> S0000000003 went I think. <M0X> Well S0000000003 ad deja vu So S0000000003 gal. And eventually S0000000003 sn’t that’s the other one S0000000003 the telly. Yes. And S0000000005 I’ve been bone idle lazy S0000000005 over there. Yes please.

my my What bag Do you do you know do you early early sort of Italian fifteen fifteen hours worth it’s it’s a shame really running running towards it’s not it’s not the he’s he’s just not very and and Yes. <M0X> Yeah why why isn’t she you know you know run Did did did you say anything I I was there when on in In Birmingham on Tuesday I they they just got cut off. is is the first page isn’t it I was I was try I kept trying this this weekend. Right right on

The phenomenon may be referred to as “stalling”. A few more examples may illustrate this, first one where repetition occurs because the processing of the utterance is not quite ready: . Cf. Tannen (1987b: 583), who holds the opposite view, probably because her focus is on intentional or inter-utterance repetitions. Both views can therefore be correct depending on the type of repetition being dealt with.

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(7) <M02> And this is this is this is where erm this is where I think I can’t remember when we began to diverge from the pure scientific-interest point of view. Text: S9000000745.

and then one where repetition occurs because the speaker is temporarily lost for words or choosing between alternatives: (8)

<M0X> That’s that’s That’s terrible isn’t it. <M0X> that’s dreadful. Text: S0000000239.

[Trying to find a strong enough word.] When word-finding difficulties arise in mid-utterance, repetitions halt the delivery, again to provide thinking-time for the speaker: (9) I got a bit frustrated with him because erm I’d arranged several times to go out with him and and you know seventy-five per cent of the time he’s he’s he’s he stood me up. Text: S0000000277. (10) Well they were both really bad I mean but FX was really nervous and really frightful and and and and and and fluffed it. Text: S0000000188.

This sort of repetition is particularly noticeable when the speaker is about to intro duce an unusual or difficult word: (11) Anyone who was at the abortion forum will have heard Gerrity Horgan speak about the situation in Ireland where conc con contraception is completely unavailable. Text: S0000000285.

Repetition typically affects normally unstressed elements occurring before semantically heavy elements, whether a word or a syllable, in the utterance.10 This is of course a consequence of the time lag in the planning procedure referred to above.

10. For example, out of a random sample of 100 non-repeated instances of too, 74 are of the premodifying type (“too much”) and 26 are subjuncts with additive meaning (“Women have their part to play, too.”), whereas the 33 repeated occurrences of too in our material are all premodifying (“is that too too little?”).


(12) I agree with all your comments about the the the the horrors of abortion being induced be because of the sex of the fetus. Text: S0000000285.

Amplifiers and emphasisers, which characteristically occur before a semantically heavy element, are therefore often repeated: (13) [<M03>] the cost of making that sale is just just tremendous. Text: S9000000444.

6.4.3 Reduction of processing effort By repeating certain elements of his/her output a speaker may facilitate the hearer’s understanding of it. Repeated items, and thus a certain redundancy, will give the hearer time to absorb the content of the message at about the same rate as it is delivered (Tannen 1989: 49). (14)

<M01> and a new single is sixty-five and a new double is ninety-eight. That’s incredibly cheap. <M01> It’s just literally erm er in Berkeley Square. <M01> So you’re quite if you’d like me to book if you’d like me to book the rooms for you Ooh well then I might ask you to book a room a room for me and my two little you know. <M01> Yeah. No trouble at all. Text: S0000000188.

When part of an utterance is obscured by an overlap with other speakers or other disturbances,11 repetition of a previous item may help the hearer get the message or follow the argument (Jucker 1994:55). (15) Are there <M22> Er you know I disagree with you completely. are there older people? Are there anybody older people in the audience who agree with this? Text: S0000000959. (16) [<M02>] Then of course I m I married before I got my degree a well-off lady He met his fate as well. <M02> a well-off lady lecturer in the Faculty of Arts Text: S0000000825.

11. “Repetition is required for redundancy when there is noise” (Johnstone et al. 1994: 9).

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(17) she told me to meet her at the Arts. Well she says I think she said the Arts Centre the Arts Centre and I thought she meant the Midlands Art Centre so I turned up there Text: S0000000001.

[Reduced audibility] Turn beginnings “project a ‘shape’ for the turn” (Schegloff 1987:74), and initial self-repetitions may “open up a syntactic frame and thus allow the addressee to formulate a slightly more specific anticipatory hypothesis” (Jucker 1994:55). Such repetitions may therefore reduce the hearer’s processing effort: (18) [Is it necessary for you to video your seminars?] Right. But it’s not been our our erm it’s not been our practice up to now to do that. Text: S0000000042.

5.5 Attention marker 5.5.1 Emphasis. Marker of importance This function includes that of intensifier.12 It is similar to that under “Reduction of processing effort” in stressing one particular element, but it is different from it in that its object is not primarily that of helping the hearer get the point, but rather that of demonstrating the speaker’s attitude, what s/he thinks is important. The two functions often overlap. Unlike other functions the expression of emphasis usually represents a conscious effort of the speaker and shows signs of involvement (Denke 2005: 194) and thus falls in the intentional category: (19) [] Girls were terrified of her and she was a frightful frightful bully. Text: S0000000812.

5.5.2 Attention-calling i. Calling attention to oneself (20) [M0X1] But I mean I mean one of the interesting things about the the way it’s written is it actually gives 12. Cf. Persson (1974: 49–50): “Intensifying repetition cannot be absolutely distinguished from so-called emphatic repetition [...], and the suggestion is made that the two are variants of the same phenomenon” and “A more precise title [of the chapter entitled ‘Emphatic Repetition’] would be: ‘Repetition with emphatic, emotive, assertive, exclamatory, exhortative, insistent, urgent, or contrastive force.’”


s the actors quite a lot of scope as to how they er speak these lines. Er <M0X2> Can I can I ask you know what you were saying about erm your your writer being asked about repetitions <M0X1> Yeah. <M0X2> and when when to repeat myself I I d I don’t know. Text: S0000000342.

[The diffident listener M0X2 sees his chance to call attention to himself when the fluent speaker M0X1 catches his breath.] ii. Calling attention to something important (21)

6.

<M01> And five times he got silver silver silver silver Right <M01> You know five silvers it is. Text: S9000001324.

Turn handling

Schegloff (1987) shows that repeated (“recycled”) turn beginnings in overlapping conversation turns are a powerful tool in gaining advantages in the conversational battle for the floor.

6.1 Turn-taking There is a slight distinction, often difficult to uphold, between this function and the one illustrated under 5.5.2, “Calling attention to oneself ”, such that the latter focuses on the speaker while turn-taking focuses on the message. (On surrogate mothers:) (22) <M01> No. I asked you what’s the what difference does it make to the individ ual who carries the child when they before birth. What difference does it make emotionally physically what <M04> Well there must be some attachment surely <M01> Well you tell me because you’re you’re you’re clear that some difference is made <M04> Well I would <M01> Don’t ask me what the difference is

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<M04> I I would <M01> I don’t agree with you <M04> I I would think there would be erm <M01> But what <M04> a a natural attachment Text: S0000001666.

[By means of repeating I would, M04 is trying to, and eventually succeeding in, presenting his point in the face of fierce opposition from M01.]

6.2 Turn-holding There are devices used to avoid being interrupted such as speeding up one’s delivery (Schegloff 1987: 78). Another such device is repetition. “Keeping the turn has the upper hand, when a speaker repeats her/himself, because s/he is undergoing external interference. Overlapping, interruption or background noises mean that s/he resumes with a segment of the speech during or after this interference” (Mönnink 1996: 121). Turn-holding as a strategy is reminiscent of what is called “reduction of processing effort” above, in that repetition may occur across another speaker’s intervention in both cases, but the difference between them is one of purpose. In one case the purpose is to provide service to the hearer and in the other it is to avoid being interrupted. (23) <M01> I must admit I love Southern Spain. I think Spain is a beautiful country. Do you really? <M01> Yes I think it’s gorgeous. Well my son <M01> Some of the some of the the the some of the hills which are sort of burnt brown from the sun Uh huh. <M01> er and with the with the white houses and villas and things it looks a real treat Text: S0000000053.

[By repeating some of the M01 stops F07’s attempt to introduce another topic (my son ...)]


6.3 Turn-yielding By repeating some unstressed words the speaker can invite his or her interlocutor to take over. (24) Do you see a more more of a personal mix for the future? <M0X> Of of of residents of visitors or or More residential <M0X> Yeah. erm as well as visitors yeah Text: S0000000015.

[The speaker’s voice can almost be heard to trail off during the repetition.]

6.4 Change marker 6.4.1 Change of tack The speaker is going to finish the sentence in one way but decides halfway through to go off in another direction. Repetition marks the point where the change takes place. (25) There again theoretically and simply er the gains from a common currency area er primarily consist of the elimination of exchange rate risk er and the ec eco avoidance of transactions costs. Text S0000000394. (26) [M01>] I have written you know a fair amount of T V drama but I I I don’t r I might come back to it later okay. Text: S0000000358.

6.4.2 Self-repair Self-repair differs from change of tack in that there is no change of direction, only an improved version of an initially faulty word or phrase embedded in a repetition. “It doesn’t change the flow of conversation; nothing happens; nobody else is involved.” (Johnstone et al. 1994: 16) (27) she deals with far more divided loyalties than a men can e than a man can ever hope to have to deal with. Text: S9000001504.

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Göran Kjellmer

(28) Erm the thing that worries me most is is the thing of our culture is acces a as assessed that while the work by women directors and playwrights happens more in the regions it doesn’t count as much in the eyes of people who [...] Text: S0000000354.

6.5 Social aspects One of the functions of talk is that of relating to other people. Talk does not take place in a social vacuum. Repetition, which is a prominent feature of natural talk, can clearly be seen to have a social function. “Examining [repetition] is a way of linking the surface patterns of talk with interactional goals, and of understanding how people are linked to each other through talk in interaction” (Tannen 1987b: 580–581). It is clear that the kind of repetition that carries out the best part of social functions is allo-repetition, repetition across speaker boundaries, and it is allo-repetition that is mostly referred to in discussions of the social role of repetitions. Nevertheless, self-repetition also has a part to play in this context. Some of the examples given above have suggested that overlapping talk can be indicative of competition and jostling for position in a social context. However, it is also true, as Tannen (1989: 89) points out, that it can be cooperative and rapport-building rather than interruptive. “The momentary, the individual, the performative, the disorderly” can have positive aspects, given the right environment. Tannen (1989: 209) refers to Lakoff who observes that a hesitant speaker may be more likable. Hesitant speech marked by repetition can then act as a signal of unpretentiousness and friendliness. (29) The woman always thinks it’s the man’s fault and the man always thinks it’s the woman’s fault and round and round and round we go <M01> Yeah I’d I’d I’d talk to anybody quite frankly that’s why I phoned you <M01> I didn’t I didn’t mean it like that but Well it beats it beats an anxiety attack <M01> Er yeah yeah I mean I I wrote my car off Text: S0000001667.

[The repetitions in the telephone conversation tend to present the man as humble and self-effacing.]


The hesitating and unobtrusive character of repetitive talk makes it appropriate in exchanges on personal and/or sensitive issues, as in (30): (30) Do you do you get any other help from anywhere else? You you say you have a cleaner in I have a cleaner yes Cleaner Oh yes Do do you pay for that Corpus: ukspok/04. Text: S9000001636.

6.6 Combined functions It will have been clear from some of the examples given that the functions per formed by repetitions often shade into one another. This is particularly obvious when, as here, the spoken repetitions have been transcribed without any prosodic information. But even with such information it would often have been difficult to say which particular function is served by an individual example, because the func tions are not altogether discrete categories. It is sometimes natural to regard a case of repetition as performing several functions at once, where one function may be more prominent than the other(s). Here is an example of such repetitions: (31) <M01> It’s very difficult because we have different reactions to different things. I mean we we we Yes. <M01> looked at the the the s the slaughter in Tiananmen Square Yes. <M01> in in in China Yeah. And that got us all going. <M01> a year or two back. But but we nobody said We must go in and and help these poor people . No. That’s right. <M01> And in fact erm Douglas Hurd is out there now chatting I think to to to About Hong Kong. <M01> to the Chinese about Hong Kong Yes and everybody’s getting up a sweat. <M01> as if nothing had happened. Text: S0000000065.

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Here are several examples of M01 hesitating and planning before heavy content words (looked, slaughter, China, the Chinese). (Surprisingly, there is none of that before Tiananmen Square, perhaps because the established phrase is “the slaughter in Tiananmen Square”.) At the same time, M01 holds the floor despite F06’s interventions, which, however, are helpful and congenial. So the extract could be said to illustrate a combination of stalling, turn-holding and cooperation. Another example is (14), where the male speaker’s repetition can be seen as a change marker (change of tack) as well as a help to the listener.

7.

Conclusion

In conclusion, a few questions can now be addressed. The first one is whether repetition is harmful or useful. The answer must be that it is both. It can be harmful in arresting the flow of communication in severe cases of stuttering or hesitation, as in (32) Now I think that’s you know you know I mean that’s a little you know it’s an important it’s an important p aspect of of the area erm its immigration and er and and and and er and the population. But you know the people have stayed on. Erm but it is you know it is a c it is it is a c it is a contrast with what it er er might have been. Text: S9000001583.

It is condemned by various writers on the subject from early times (Aitchison 1994: 32). On the other hand, repetition is useful, even as self-repetition, as I hope to have shown, by having a number of communicative functions, some of which are important for both the delivery and the processing of the utterance. At this point, Schegloff (1987: 84) is worth quoting: partial repetitions or recycles [of parts of utterances] are frequently treated as sloppiness, as inarticulateness, as not having thought about what one was going to say, as evidence of the disorderliness of single occurrences in passing conversation. I hope it can now be seen that almost precisely the opposite of each of these is the case.

Another issue, raised at the beginning of this paper by reference to Deborah Tannen, is “the degree to which language is freely ‘generated’ or repeated from language previously experienced.” As we have now seen, repetitions are characterised by high frequency and largely uniform appearance, which clearly suggests that speakers rely to a great extent on “language previously experienced.”


A related question, finally, is whether repetition can tell us about how language is stored in our brains. The treatment of repeated elements in spoken delivery indi cates that we have at our disposal a large number of ready-made, ready-processed chunks of language, what Pawley and Syder (1983: 210) call sentence stems. Sentence stems like “do you “, “do you mind”, “I don’t know”, “I mean”, “I think”, “it’s a”, “it’s just”, “it’s quite”, which are repeated a great number of times, especially at the beginning of utterances, need only minimal processing and are readily available to speakers of English. Because of their easy availability they can serve as a kind of stopgap in the flow of words and need not lay claim to any of the mental energy required for the processing of the rest of the utterance. They are therefore indispensable in the linguistic repertoire of the fluent speaker of English. As a concluding remark it may therefore be said that repetitions constitute a natural and often useful element in the spoken language, an element that hardly any speaker can do without. Their high frequency in ordinary speech is a reflection of the many functions they are called upon to perform.

References Aitchison, Jean. 1994. “‘Say, say it again Sam’: The treatment of repetition in linguistics”. Fischer 1994. 15–34. Bazzanella, Carla, ed. 1996. Repetition in Dialogue. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer. Biber, Douglas, Stig Johansson, Geoffrey Leech, Susan Conrad & Edward Finegan. 1999. Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. Harlow, Essex: Longman. CobuildDirect Corpus, an on-line service: http://titan.collins.co.uk. Culpeper, Jonathan & Merja Kytö. 2006. “‘Good, good indeed, the best that ere I heard’: Exploring lexical repetitions in the Corpus of English Dialogues 1560–1760”. Dialogic Language Use ed. by I. Taavitsainen, J. Härmä & J. Korhonen, 69–86. Helsinki: Société Néophilologique. Denke, Annika. 2005. Nativelike Performance. A Corpus Study of Pragmatic Markers, Repair and Repetition in Native and Non-native English Speech. Stockholm: Department of English, Stockholm University. Egner, Inge. 1996. “Other-repetition in Question-form”. Bazzanella 1996. 66–77. Euler, Bettina. 1991. Strukturen mündlichen Erzählens. Parasyntaktische und sententielle Analysen am Beispiel des englischen Witzes. Tübingen: Gunter Narr. Ehrlich, Susan. 1994. “Repetition and point of view in represented speech and thought”. Johnstone 1994a. 86–97. Fischer, Andreas, ed. 1994. Repetition. Tübingen: Gunter Narr. Hill, Jane H. 1986. “The refiguration of the anthropology of language”. Cultural Anthropology 1.89–102. Johnstone, Barbara, ed. 1994. Repetition in Discourse. Interdisciplinary Perspectives. 1–2. Vols. 47–48. Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex Publishing Corporations. Johnstone, Barbara. 2002. Discourse Analysis. Oxford: Blackwell. Johnstone, Barbara et al. 1994. “Repetition in discourse: A dialogue”. Johnstone 1994, 1–20.

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Joos, Martin. 1964. The English Verb, Form and Meanings. Madison and Milwaukee: University of Wisconsin Press. Jucker, Andreas H. 1994. “Irrelevant repetitions: A challenge to Relevance Theory”. Fischer 1994. 49–60. Kjellmer, Göran. 2003. “Hesitation. In defence of er and erm”. English Studies 84:2.170–198. Macaulay, Ronald K. S. 1995. “The adverbs of authority”. English World-Wide 16:1.37–60. Merritt, Marilyn. 1994. “Repetition in situated discourse – Exploring its forms and functions.” Johnstone 1994. 23–36. Mönnink, Johan. 1996. “Repeating as monitoring”. Bazzanella 1996. 119–128. Obler, Loraine K. 1992. “Dementia and language”. International Encyclopedia of Linguistics ed. by William Bright, 345–346. New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pawley, Andrew & Frances Hodgetts Syder. 1983. “Two puzzles for linguistic theory: Nativelike selection and nativelike fluency”. Language and Communication ed. by J. C. Richards & R. W. Schmidt, 191–226. London: Longman. Persson, Gunnar. 1974. Repetition in English. Part I. Sequential Repetition. Uppsala: Textgruppen. Roll, Mikael, Johan Frid & Merle Horne. 2005. “Ett att kan betyda så mycket”. Språkvård 2005/3: 27–31. Schegloff, Emanuel A. 1987. “Recycled turn beginnings: A precise repair mechanism in conversation’s turn-taking organisation”. Talk and Social Organisation ed. by Graham Button & John R. E. Lee, 70–85. Clevedon, Philadelphia: Multimedial Matters. Tannen, Deborah. 1987a. “Repetition in conversation as spontaneous formulaicity”. Text 7:3.215–243. Tannen, Deborah. 1987b. “Repetition in conversation: Towards a poetics of talk”. Language 63.574–605. Tannen, Deborah. 1989. Talking Voices. Repetition, Dialogue, and Imagery in Conversational Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Modal adverbs in interaction – obviously and definitely in adolescent speech*

Karin Aijmer Göteborg University

When we compare corpora compiled at different periods we can notice that the overall frequency of the adverbs of certainty is different. For example, certainly and surely do not have such a strong position in the Bergen Corpus of London Teenage Language (COLT) as in the London-Lund Corpus (LLC). On the other hand, obviously and definitely are proportionately more frequent in the COLT corpus than in the LLC. In particular they have become more frequent in uses involving intensification and affective meaning. Changes in the language are intimately connected with grammaticalization. The article argues that the grammaticalization of obviously and definitely can be explained with reference to the characteristics of adolescent speech.

1.

Introduction

This paper is about a grammatical and semantic innovation that is taking place in Present-day English. It is illustrated by the following two extracts. In the first example a young girl is trying to convince her friend that she should not be taken in by every guy who tells her he fancies her. The speaker emphasises this by using obviously: [Yeah I mean obviously you’re] not gonna instantly assume that every guy that says he fancies you is just joking no obviously you’re not gonna assume that and I understand how easy it would be to be mislead but then on the other hand it makes me think you know you know with people like Ch= you know laugh why, why are they suddenly so friendly towards you Charlotte?

* The paper has been presented at the ICAME conference Helsinki 2006 and at the ESSE conference, London 2006. I am grateful to the participants for their comments.

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The next extract illustrates the use of the emphatic definitely: and Foxy goes yeah yeah definitely yeah, you know, cos he was doing it subtly so I came back and I said to Jess you know really, an and Foxy said there was nothing strange about, it was no f you know it was definitely to fe s f erm Sal was er you know being truthful, there was not like erm yeah well yeah you know

Linguistic changes take place in communication and in context. The expansion to new grammatical contexts is accompanied by semantic and pragmatic changes of the adverb. These changes are unidirectional and can be described in terms of grammaticalization and subjectification. Studying grammaticalization also involves taking into account who the users are and the situation in which they use new forms. It is well-known from many studies that young speakers use language in new ways which may be seeds of changes which spread to the larger community. We know for example from other studies of adolescent language that young people use features (such as like, innit, just) which are not used as frequently and in the same way by adults (Stenström et al. 2002). The aim of this paper is to study how we can explain the innovative use of obviously and definitely by using corpus data from different periods.

2.

Some frequency data

Even in a short time perspective there may be changes affecting modal adverbs which become visible when we compare corpora of spoken English. For this study I have used two corpora from different time periods. The focus is on the use of the adverbs in the COLT Corpus (The Bergen Corpus of London Teenage Language) which is the most recent of the corpora and is interesting from a sociolinguistic perspective since the speakers are adolescents. The COLT Corpus consists of 500, 000 words of informal conversation. The speakers represent different age groups ranging between 10–19 years old from the London boroughs. Males and females are represented in roughly equal proportions (Stenström et al. 2002). A comparison is made with the London-Lund Corpus (LLC) and the ICEGB Corpus (The British component of the International Corpus of English). The material from ICE-GB (Nelson, Wallis & Aarts 2002) is restricted to direct, i.e. face-to-face conversation (180,000 words). In the LLC Corpus only the face-toface conversations have been included (170,000 words). The ICE- GB corpus is interesting because like the COLT Corpus it represents Present-day English. Both corpora date from the 1990s. The London-Lund Corpus is the oldest of the three spoken corpora and comprises texts recorded mainly

Modal adverbs in interaction

Table 1. Distribution of modal adverbs of certainty in three different corpora. Adverb

COLT 500,000

LLC 170,000

ICE-GB spoken 180,000

certainly surely definitely no doubt indeed obviously clearly evidently of course naturally Total

16 (4.9%) 7 (2.1%) 43 (13.1%) 13 (4%) 35 (10.7%) 64 (19.5%) – – 146 (44.5%) 4 (1.2%) 328

263 (35.5%) 58 (7.8%) 43 (5.8%) 13 (1.8%) 74 (10%) 72 (9.7%) 44 (5.9%) 12 (1.6%) 143 (19.3%) 18 (2.4%) 740

178 (21.7%) 31 (3.8%) 119 (14.5%) 11 (1.3%) 31 (3.8%) 217 (26.5%) 6 (0.7%) 3 (0.4%) 217 (26.5%) 6 (0.7%) 819

* raw frequencies have been normalized to 500, 000 words

in the 1970s. There is therefore a time gap between the corpora which makes it possible to investigate short time changes in the language. The starting-point for this study was the observation that there are considerable frequency differences between modal adverbs in the corpora. Table 1 shows relative frequencies and raw frequencies of the modal adverbs of certainty.1 To begin with, we can notice that the overall frequency of adverbs of certainty is different in the three corpora. In the LLC Corpus speakers use a certainty adverb almost twice as often as the COLT speakers, and in the ICE-GB corpus the adverbs of certainty are even more frequent. It is possible therefore that adolescent speakers use other expressions of certainty or that they generally sound less certain. This has however not been investigated. The table suggests that changes are taking place in the system of modal adverbs and that we need to look at how the changes affect the paradigm. For example, certainly and surely do not have such a strong position in the COLT Corpus as in the LLC. On the other hand, obviously and definitely are proportionately more frequent in the COLT Corpus than in the LLC. For example the COLT speaker is more likely to prefer obviously to another adverb of certainty in 19.5% of the cases. In the LLC Corpus this figure is only 9.7%. It is also interesting to compare COLT and the ICE-GB. Obviously was for instance more frequent in the ICEGB than in COLT. The corresponding percentages for definitely are 13% (COLT)

1. The high frequency of obviously and definitely in relation to other adverbs of certainty was originally noted in research carried out together with Anne-Marie Simon-Vandenbergen and provided the impetus for this study (see Aijmer and Simon-Vandenbergen, 2007).

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Table 2. The rank ordering of the most frequent adverbs in some corpora. LLC

COLT

ICE-GB

Biber et al. 1999

1

certainly

of course

of course

2

of course

obviously

of course obviously certainly

3

obviously

definitely

definitely

certainly definitely

and 5.8% (LLC). It follows that the ranking order of the most frequent adverbs is different in the three corpora (Table 2).2 I have added frequency information from The Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English (Biber et al. 1999) for comparison. In the LLC, speakers used certainly, of course and obviously in that rank order. In the COLT Corpus on the other hand the rank order is of course, obviously, definitely. Obviously is the second most frequent adverb followed by definitely. Certainly is not among the three most frequent adverbs which suggests that speakers prefer adverbs which are closer to ‘taken for granted’ or which express more emphasis. The ICE-GB Corpus had the order of course and obviously first, followed by certainly and definitely. In the Longman grammar (Biber et al. 1999) finally, the rank ordering for the adverbs of certainty is of course, certainly and definitely confirming that definitely is becoming more frequent. (Obviously was not included in the Longman grammar.) It would be interesting to study all the changes and restructurings which have taken place within the subsystem of modal adverbs of certainty across the corpora. Of course has for instance affective meaning in addition to its evidential meaning ‘self-evidence’ which can explain that it is more frequently used by the young speakers in COLT (cf. Holmes 1988: 56). The focus in the following discussion will be on comparing the adverbs in the two corpora in terms of grammaticalization processes. Grammaticalization is closely linked to factors such as position in the utterance, collocations and prosody (on prosody see Wichmann et al. forthcoming). Of particular interest is the development of social or interpersonal meanings which makes the adverbs more like pragmatic markers. Obviously can be compared with a pragmatic marker when it is grammaticalized. It is important not only to consider internal constraints on grammaticalization but how the process is actuated in social contexts and the motivation for it. In the rest of the paper I will consider the functions of the adverbs in COLT. For

2. Indeed has not been included since in many cases it serves as a degree adverbial.


example in COLT obviously seems to be developing a function which serves to strengthen the solidarity in the group. Definitely on the other hand is developing into an intensifier which is characteristic of more expressivity and can be associated both with adolescent language and with change. In the conclusion I return to the question of the relationship between grammaticalization and the frequent use of the adverbs with social functions in adolescent speech.

3.

Obviously

Obviously is an evidential adverb with the meaning of certainty. Like other modal adverbs of certainty obviously is difficult to analyse because the meaning certainty is not stable. The degree of certainty (or uncertainty) depends on the type of evidence, the larger context and the knowledge state of the speaker and the hearer. Moreover the evidential meaning can disappear or be weakened, i.e. obviously has social or affective meaning only. It is important to discuss the adverbs with regard to both form and function. The expansions of obviously to different positions is discussed in Section 3.1. In the following sections (3.2–3.5) I will discuss the semantic-pragmatic extensions of obviously under four headings: obviously as an evidential (strong evidentiality), as a hedge with distancing meaning (weak evidentiality), and obviously as marker of imposition and as a marker of solidarity. Only the first two functions are evidential. Obviously and grammaticalization is further discussed in Section 3.6. Section 4 deals with definitely. The concluding discussion is Section 5 deals with both obviously and definitely.

3.1

The position of obviously

Adverbs such as obviously can be inserted in practically any position in the sentence. This suggests that their position is determined (at least partly) by pragmatic factors. Corum (1975: 33) has described the potential freedom of occurrence of some adverbs in different positions as the result of ‘niching’, a syntactic rule which inserts parenthetical elements and (modal) adverbs with reference to pragmatic and rhetorical factors. As a result of niching modal adverbs can be placed more freely than other adverbs. However certain positions may be more suitable for particular pragmatic purposes than others and therefore become conventionally used for a function. For example when the adverb was placed finally I always analysed it as associated with affective meaning and solidarity (see Section 3.5). On the other hand, initial position may be more closely associated with imposition and emphasis. In the analysis of function I have therefore also looked at the

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Table 3. Positions of obviously in different corpora. Initial Medial Final Alone

COLT

LLC

ICE-GB

29 (48.3%) 17 (28.3%) 8 (13.3%) 6 (10%)

21 (36.8%) 30 (52.6%) 6 (10.5%) –

68 (33%) 106 (51.5%) 19 (9.2%) 13 (6.3%)*

* Including positions which do not fall under any of the other categories.

osition of the adverb to see what conclusions we can draw. Moreover the posip tional data are interesting if we make a comparison across corpora. Obviously occurs in three positions: initial, medial and final where medial includes a variety of different positions. Table 3 compares the positions of obviously in the COLT Corpus, the LLC and the ICE-GB Corpus. In the COLT Corpus initial position was most frequent (48.3% of all instances) which makes this position more frequent than in LLC (36%) or ICE-GB (33%). Also end position was proportionately more frequent in COLT (COLT 13.3%; LLC 10.5%; ICE-GB 9.2%). There were also comparatively few examples in medial position. The largest difference is between COLT and the other corpora (Table 3). The positional facts can be explained as a consequence of what we mean by grammaticalization. Cf. Himmelmann (2004: 32), “from a construction-based point of view grammaticization is essentially a process of context-expansion”. The higher frequency of obviously in certain positions would be an example of what Himmelmann (2004) regards as syntactic context extension although his examples are of a different kind. Thus for example obviously is typically more frequent in initial and final position. Moreover, both initial position and final position can be regarded as end points for grammaticalization of adverbs placed closer to the verb because of their metatextual or interpersonal functions (Auer 1996).

3.2 Obviously – modal and evidential meaning Consider John is obviously at home (there is a light in his window)

According to Hübler (1983: 122), obviously and evidently belong to a group of adverbs where modality is expressed in terms of perception. In the example just given the perceptual information serves as the basis for an inference. Obviously signals that one can infer that John is at home from the observation that the light is on.


I have analysed obviously as an evidential adverb when it cooccurs with a because-clause as supporting evidence. In (1)–(3) the evidential meaning of obviously is additionally signalled by because-clause. (1) yeah Pete would have to get off with you and Charlie did it. Charlie didn’t. No but he obviously did it when you weren’t there cos that was the bet. That was the whole thing. That was the [whole thing] [No] Yes it was. No Pete ran all the tables. (42703a-06-F) (2) What do you mean you gotta buy fans? No. People go laugh on holiday. laugh People go on holiday there. cough Okay? Get the fans out. laugh laugh The next sector. Animals and plants. Animals and plants, is obviously, to do with Tertiary. Farming. farming, because, for example, you can’t keep, er strawberries, in the north pole. Because they’d die. laugh (35907a-02-M) (3) ... So y= you will accept for number two just the two word, you don’t want a sentence? Okay so long as you know. You must know what you want so if somebody just writes those two words they get two marks, you see, cos if you said, erm, answer in complete sentences they obviously wouldn’t get two marks you see? ... Are they supposed to get four marks for that [one] (40701a-04-M)

The evidence need not be marked explicitly by because. In (4), the speaker infers from the fact that one scene is really good, that they have chosen the best from the earlier film with the same name. (4) Yeah have you seen the movie The Walking when he blows up that guy and that? I saw The Loaded Weapon. Yeah, is that good? Have you seen The Loaded Weapon Two? I haven’t seen it yet. Oh it’s, I mean I expected . One scene is really good, really good, obviously they are taking the piss out of Lethal Weapon Yeah You know Lethal Weapon? (39003a-18-M)

The combinations so obviously, now obviously, well obviously, but obviously all suggest that the speaker makes an inference from evidence. The existence of evidence can for instance be deduced when obviously is placed in a so-clause expressing result. In (5), the computer Amiga has got many games so obviously he (the computer) has got pirates (a special kind of game): (5) ... Mm. ... (music in background) humming ... A good song. ... [Yeah, ] [I’ve read this ] this one, Amiga five hundred computer, with many games, so obviously he’s got pirates, with many games, Modulator Mars gonna be, box mint condition, with everything in mint condition, hundred and seventy pound. (34602a-07-M)

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The situation is treated as obvious (or clear) on the basis of what the speaker has read about the computer. We can guess that the speaker looks at the instructions and can infer what is a no answer: (6) Are you going to copy no you won’t. Put the instructions at the top. Put test instructions. Read these questions carefully and write ... Well obviously that’s a no answer You’ve gotta write down why. (40701a-01-F)

In (7) it should be obvious from the jobs already listed what the hearer has to fill in: (7) Fill in the grid below with the kinds of jobs you associate with people of different races. Some jobs have been listed to start you off. Now that’s it it obviously that gives you the clues there are lots and lots of different jobs that aren’t written down there that people might do. (38201a-0?-?)

Obviously can have a boosting function and express ‘even more compelling evidence’ than must or seem which are also evidential with the meaning certainty (Biber & Finegan 1989). In (8), the strong evidential meaning is reinforced by has got to in the same sentence: (8) Well because ... erm ... the moon here has a gravitational effect on the sea water as we can see on this side. The moon is that much further away from the sea on this side so that’d have that much less of an effect holding the sea water down on to the earth and therefore the sea water comes ... Now obviously the water from the high tide has got to come from somewhere so they’ll be some parts of the globe where there’s a low tide3 (41303a-24-M)

In (8) and (9) obviously comes close to meanings such as certainly, of course, naturally. The reason is the argumentative context. The speaker has strong evidence and wants to fend off divergent or alternative opinions. (9) Let’s say say for argument that this is the moon this here. Now that’s instead of spinning round the moon is stationary in the sky, just for the sake of this Now, the moon on this side obviously will be attracting the water on the surface of the earth so you get a bulge in the sea here. More water will be attracted and therefore you get a high tide in this region. (40701a-04-M)

3. The age of the speaker is not stated in the corpus in examples (8)–(9).


3.3 The distancing meaning (weak inferential) Certainty (or truth) can go to more certainty or to less certainty depending on the type of evidence, whether the evidence is explicit and what the speaker wants to achieve. They [obviously, clearly but not evidently] “belong to a group of adverbs whose modality is expressed in terms of perception. Provided that the context suggests such a [perceptive] interpretation the validity claim can be reduced” (Hübler 1983: 122). In this case obviously modifies probability. An element of doubt may be present when obviously is used and the context suggests that the evidence is weak (‘it seems as if ’). In addition to perception obviously can refer to what people say. This is a possible interpretation of obviously in example (10): (10) I was (Gameboy playing making it difficult to hear) we were playing this and erm they were really good because they’d obviously played before and I couldn’t and they just kept thinking it was really funny cos I kept getting like two, and getting like two thousand or whatever (42704a-0?-?)

Obviously comes close to apparently in meaning. The function of obviously is ‘distancing’, i.e. the source of evidence for inferring that they had played before is externalized or attributed (it can refer to what people say, etc; cf. it is supposed, it is said or adverbs such as apparently). Apparently like obviously fluctuates between the meaning (weak) inference from perception and hearsay. In extract (11) I could paraphrase obviously as ‘apparently’ since the evidence is perceptual (or attributed to a third person): (11) [Thank you very much dear.] [Oh well they were obviously] [very] [No] much disillusioned. [not disillusioned more discern= eh I think more of discerning.] [They’re obviously men of the world who understand that] people who [have mellowed and matured] [I’d have to say that you] (42701a-09-F)

The larger context may play a role for how we interpret obviously. Moreover, the placement of obviously in mid position after the verb may contribute to the interpretation. Greenbaum (1969: 205) used the following two sentences in an informant testing where the informants were asked to make a judgement of similarity: the students obviously understood the lecture obviously# the students understood the lecture

49% of the informants thought the two sentences very similar in meaning but 25% thought them very different (while 26% thought them somewhere between). Greenbaum (1969, ibidem) concluded that “it is possible that in the first sentence [the students obviously understood the teacher] obviously meant for many informants something like ‘it could be visibly seen that’”.

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Similarly in (12) obviously is closer to ‘apparently’ than to ‘certainty’ or ‘inferential’ since the source of the information is what seems to the speaker to be the case: (12) Cos I haven’t got another cos Lucy’s got my dark one . Erm , { mimicking Cockney accent } tape one { /} here we are . Tape three obviously hasn’t got anything in it . { nv } sigh { /nv} Parents get here now . Please come , hurry [ up ] (42705a-01-F)

I have analysed obviously in example (12) as indicating some doubt and probability rather than certainty since it is clear that the speaker is reporting something based on weak perceptual evidence. Hübler (1983:122) describes similar uses of obviously and related evidence adverbs as “variants of certainty” […] “based on a (maximum) probability assessment only. Here […] the possibility of the propositional content being false is not ruled out. Because an element of doubt creeps in here, the adverbs […] move closer to [adverbs such as seemingly, supposedly, presumably]”.

3.4 The impositive use of obviously The evidential meaning can come close to (absolute) certainty in argumentative contexts when the evidence is strong or when something is known to be true from the preceding discourse. The evidential meaning of obviously can also be exploited for rhetorical (persuasive) and manipulative purposes to express a high degree of certainty: “For some adverbs of certainty [obviously, certainly, clearly] [...] examples can even be found where, as a result of using these adverbs, the proposition content has moved closer to a presupposition” (Hübler 1983: 120). I will refer to this as the impositive or presuppositional meaning of obviously since what is obvious is based on the speaker’s assumptions rather than on evidence. Obviously has impositive meaning when a proposition is known by both the speaker and the hearer, generally known, unknown but should be known to the hearer or audience. (13) is identical with the example given in the introduction and shows how obviously is used to put some force behind the speaker’s advice to the hearer (I mean clearly, I mean of course). (13) Yeah I mean obviously you’re] not gonna instantly assume that every guy that says he fancies you is just joking no obviously you’re not gonna assume that and I understand how easy it would be to be mislead but then on the other hand it makes me think you know you know with people like Ch= you know laugh why, why are they suddenly so friendly towards you Charlotte? (42703a-01-F)


The effect of the presuppositional obviously can be patronizing or dogmatic especially if the hearer is directly involved as the clausal subject. However imposition can be softened by a tag question in which the addressee’s agreement is explicitly solicited. In (14), obviously is a way of including or involving the hearer (‘if she can do her hair then she can do a weave don’t you agree’). (14) Well she does hair. She does hair? Yeah. Oh! I thought you meant that she just done hers. Well obviously she do her hair then she can do a weave innit? On the side of mine something like that. Well you could, like Sharon did it on Eastenders at the side ... just long there and Oh. Come here. Oh. I also think that was too long. I want a side [parting down the] [Give it to me] Chanade. Give it back to [her then.] [

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