Constant linguistic effects in the diffusion of be like

Mercedes  Durham; William Haddican; Eytan Zweig; Daniel Ezra Johnson; Zipporah Baker; David Cockeram; Esther Danks; Louise  Tyler

doi:10.1177/0075424211431266

Constant linguistic effects in the diffusion of be like

Mercedes Durham, William Haddican, Eytan Zweig, Daniel Ezra Johnson, Zipporah Baker, David Cockeram, Esther Danks, Louise Tyler

Language and Linguistic Science

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

This article examines change in social and linguistic effects on be like usage and acceptability. Results from two studies are presented. The first set of data comes from a trend study with samples of U.K. university undergraduates collected in 1996 and 2006. While the effect of subject person, morphological tense, and quote content is constant in the two samples, the effect of speaker sex decreases. The second study is a judgment experiment with 121 native speakers of U.S. English, examining acceptability of be like in environments biasing direct speech and reported thought readings. The analysis reveals no interaction between age and the reported thought/direct speech contrast, suggesting no support for change in this effect on be like acceptability in apparent time. The two studies therefore converge in suggesting no evidence of change in linguistic constraints on be like as it has diffused into U.K. and U.S. Englishes.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	316-337
Journal	Journal of english linguistics
Volume	40
Issue number	4
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1177/0075424211431266
Publication status	Published - Dec 2012

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abstract = "This article examines change in social and linguistic effects on be like usage and acceptability. Results from two studies are presented. The first set of data comes from a trend study with samples of U.K. university undergraduates collected in 1996 and 2006. While the effect of subject person, morphological tense, and quote content is constant in the two samples, the effect of speaker sex decreases. The second study is a judgment experiment with 121 native speakers of U.S. English, examining acceptability of be like in environments biasing direct speech and reported thought readings. The analysis reveals no interaction between age and the reported thought/direct speech contrast, suggesting no support for change in this effect on be like acceptability in apparent time. The two studies therefore converge in suggesting no evidence of change in linguistic constraints on be like as it has diffused into U.K. and U.S. Englishes.",

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AU - Haddican, William

AU - Zweig, Eytan

AU - Johnson, Daniel Ezra

AU - Baker, Zipporah

AU - Cockeram, David

AU - Danks, Esther

AU - Tyler, Louise

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Constant linguistic effects in the diffusion of be like

Abstract

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