BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk//
X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:Discourse variation\, grammaticalisation\, and stuff like that - P
 rof Jenny Cheshire (Department of Linguistics\, Queen Mary\, University of
  London)
DTSTART:20070308T170000Z
DTEND:20070308T183000Z
UID:TALK5652@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Christopher Lucas
DESCRIPTION:The 96 adolescents we interviewed recently for a research proj
 ect based in three English cities used ‘general extenders’ (forms such
  as and stuff like that) very frequently. In this talk I first examine soc
 iolinguistic variation in the general extenders in the corpus\, showing th
 at there are regional and social class differences in the adolescents’ c
 hoice of forms\, but not in the frequency of general extenders overall. \n
 \nThe general extenders are thought to be grammaticalising from longer for
 ms such as or something like that to short forms such as or something. I n
 ext present a quantitative analysis of the grammaticalisation of the more 
 frequent general extender forms in the corpus\, focusing on four changes t
 ypical of the grammaticalisation process: phonetic reduction\, decategoris
 ation\, semantic change and pragmatic shift. The analyses show that certai
 n forms (notably and that and and everything) are more grammaticalised tha
 n others. The analysis of pragmatic shift requires a reconsideration of th
 e principal functions that previous researchers have claimed for the gener
 al extenders. In the adolescents’ speech they function in every communic
 ative domain\, often simultaneously. \n\nFinally I draw on the analysis to
  consider the extent to which a variationist approach is suitable for the 
 analysis of discourse features such as these. \n
LOCATION:GR06-7\, English Faculty\, 9 West Road (Sidgwick Site)
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR