Cambridge Books Online

Cambridge Books Online
http://ebooks.cambridge.org/
Pragmatic Markers in British English
Meaning in Social Interaction
Kate Beeching
Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139507110
Online ISBN: 9781139507110
Hardback ISBN: 9781107032767
Chapter
9 - Conclusion pp. 210-229
Chapter DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139507110.010
Cambridge University Press

9 Conclusion
9.1 Introduction
This volume aimed to investigate the functions, sociolinguistic features and
semantic evolution of six commonly occurring pragmatic markers in contem-
porary British English, well, just, you know, like, sort of and I mean. The
concluding chapter sets out to draw together the information from the separate
chapters, to compare and contrast the different markers and to contribute to the
debates in the literature raised in Chapter 1. The chapter is structured in the
following way: Section 9.2 is concerned with the ways in which the six markers
overlap and diverge from a functional point of view in contemporary British
English (Section 9.2.1), with a consideration of the extent of their polysemy in
the discussion of their D-values (Section 9.2.2). Section 9.3 reviews findings
concerning macro sociolinguistic features of the markers and the attitudes to
them revealed in the modified matched-guise questionnaire. A summary of the
way that situation, or genre, impacts on the variable use of the markers is
presented in Section 9.4. Finally, Section 9.5 reviews the semantic evolution of
the markers as a group and addresses debates in the literature with respect to
cognitive approaches to lexical polysemy, pragmatic ambiguity and semantic
change (9.5.1), the semantics-pragmatics interface and Figure-Ground shift
(9.5.2) and terms relating to grammaticalisation and pragmaticalisation (9.5.3).
The conclusion in Section 9.6 will assess the extent to which the main
hypotheses of the volume, that new meanings are forged in the course of social
interaction, can be confirmed.
9.2 Pragmatic markers and social interaction

Pragmatic markers are a feature of the spoken language and, as we saw in
Section 1.3, their functions are closely related to the nature of everyday
conversation, which is spontaneous, interactional, social, sociable and polite.
Most pragmatic markers are multifunctional, that is to say, they can fulfil a
number of these functions simultaneously, making them extremely useful in
conversation. However, the detailed analysis of them in the preceding chapters
210
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9.2 Pragmatic markers and social interaction 211
Table 9.1. The functions of the six markers, in relation to conversational factors
Spontaneous speech
(psycholinguistic/ Interactional Social Sociable Polite
processing) (turn-taking) (indexical) (friendly) (hedging)
well √ √√ – √ √
just – – – √ √√
you know √ √ √ √ –
like √ – √√ √ √
sort of √ – – √ √√
I mean √ – – √ √
has revealed some differences in the admixtures of different functions of the

different markers and these differences are charted in Table 9.1.
9.2.1 The functions of well, just, you know, like, sort of and I mean
In Table 9.1, a tick (√) indicates that the marker in question fulfils this function,
while a double tick (√√) indicates its most important function (measured by its
most frequent usage). A dash (–) indicates that the category in question does not
appear to be an important function of this marker. The ticks and dashes are the
result of a survey of the ‘Functions’ sections of the six individual chapters. In
the columns relating to ‘social’ (indexical), ‘sociable’ (friendly) and ‘polite’
(hedging), evidence from the analysis of the functions is coupled with the
results from the modified matched-guise questionnaire, in which respondents
were asked to rate how educated, direct, friendly and polite they considered a
speaker using the marker to be.
Table 9.1 cannot replicate the detailed view of the functions of the markers
given in each of the individual chapters. It does, however, give some indication
of how the markers might be distinguished in terms of their overall functions
in conversation. All are considered sociable or ‘friendly’ markers which can
engage listeners and create an informal floor – for this reason alone, according
to Wheeler (1994), they would tend to spread, as there is a built-in social
advantage for speakers to project an approachable and friendly persona. Like is,
however, highly indexical, and might be stigmatised, along with you know, if
used inappropriately. Only well and you know have been found to be useful for
turn-taking, as they appear either at the beginning or end of the turn, thus taking
up or relinquishing turns, respectively. Well occurs almost exclusively at the
beginning of a turn, except when it is being used for self-repair, while you know
can occur initially and finally (as well as in its normal position which is
medially) and can thus be used to take or relinquish turns. All of the markers,
212 Conclusion
apart from just, can be considered to serve psycholinguistic processing

requirements, allowing for hesitation, back-tracking, repair and repetition.
Meanwhile, all of the markers apart from you know can be used for mitigation
or polite hedging, toning down what might be considered over-strong asser-
tions of opinions, requests or orders. The clearest functional pressures on the
six markers are, then, the requirement to manage the spontaneity of talk, to be
sociable and polite. Turn-taking considerations and social indexicality appear
to be less strong functional pressures on these markers overall.
9.2.2 Polysemy and D-values

The notion of a ‘D-value’ (Stenström 1990:161; Aijmer 2002: 27), which
charts the discourse function of the form in question in relation to its gramma-
tical function in percentage terms, was raised in Section 2.4. Though caveats
must always be issued with respect to the feasibility of disambiguously allocat-
ing forms to a pragmatic-marking category, rather than, for example, to an
adverbial category, D-values were calculated for 100 representative examples
of the six markers under scrutiny in the BNC Sampler and in the UWE Role-
play Corpus. The D-values for the spoken demographic section and the UWE
Role-play Corpus are displayed in Table 9.2.
The D-rates in the spoken demographic section of the BNC give a
reasonably reliable picture of the use of the item in question for discourse
purposes in everyday conversation; in other words, a measure of the extent
of its pragmaticalisation in 1992. The UWE Role-play Corpus is a sample
of young undergraduate speech in 2011–2014. It is not directly comparable
(we need the release of the SpokenBNC2014 in order to compare ‘like’
with ‘like’) but it may allow us to begin to gauge the progressive pragma-
ticalisation of the markers, even though the students were engaged in role-
play, rather than in more everyday conversation. In 1992, the D-value for
like was 32 per cent whereas, in 2011–2014, it was 60 per cent. This
D-value has increased dramatically showing a massive spread in its usage
as a pragmatic marker. The D-value for just is slightly higher in 2011–2014
(45:52) – this may reflect an increase in its pragmatic marking usage or the
Table 9.2. D-values for the six markers in the BNC Sampler and UWE
Role-play Corpus
like just you know well I mean sort of
BNC Spoken Demographic (1992) 32 45 68 74 84 90

UWE Role-play (2011–14) 60 52 88 68 86 86
9.2 Pragmatic markers and social interaction 213
genre which produced a number of hedged opinions (‘I just think that. . .’)
and justifications (‘It’s just that. . .’). It is unsurprising that like and just
should have relatively low D-values, as just is highly polysemous and like
is not only polysemous but has the homonymous verb form to like, which is
unrelated historically to like (= ‘similar to’) and might be expected to be
used very commonly. Indeed, it is quite surprising that the D-value of like
is as high as it is, given the usefulness of the form for a number of
purposes. The D-value of you know increases from 68 to 88 – but well is
less commonly used as a pragmatic marker (74: 68). Aijmer mentions that
the D-item ratio for well in the LLC is 86 per cent; in other words, 86 per
cent of the time, it is used in a discourse or pragmatic marking function.
The lower ratio in the UWE Role-play Corpus may be accounted for by the
numbers of times that ‘as well’ was used, and also because of references to
the noun ‘well’ (from which one draws water) which appeared in the
students’ conversations about volunteering in Africa. Sort of and I mean
have the highest D-values and they remain relatively stable (84:86 and
90:86 respectively). In the UWE Role-play, kind of (which is much more
common traditionally in US English) has appeared in competition with
sort of. The percentages of non-pragmatic marking usage of I mean are
accounted for by expressions such as ‘what I mean is. . .’.
There is, however, considerable variability in the D-value of these items.
Table 9.3 displays the D-values for the items in the male and female speech in
the Corpus.
The differences between these values are not statistically significant and we
can thus only draw very tentative speculations as to the reasons for them. The
male speakers tended to use ‘as well’ more often than the female speakers. The
female speakers were more likely to use formulations such as ‘I just think. . .’ or
‘It’s just that. . .’ than the male speakers – indeed, as we saw in Chapter 4, the
differences between the male and female speakers are significant for just, as
they are with like (Chapter 6). On the other hand, male D-values for you know,
sort of and I mean are marginally higher than those of females.
Despite its variability, the D-value is worth pursuing for several reasons.
Firstly, it allows a broad overview of the extent to which raw occurrences of an
Table 9.3. D-values for six markers in the UWE Role-play Corpus, as
a function of gender
well-D just-D you know-D like-D sort of-D I mean-D
Male 66.22 46.83 92.06 59.13 91.45 94.44

Female 74.41 65.92 88.05 71.10 89.81 87.88
214 Conclusion
item may reflect discourse functions in a text and may indicate the progressive
pragmaticalisation of forms over time.
In conclusion, we can say that D-rates are of interest, but they are subject to
the same kind of variability that we observe in other features, namely diastratic,
diaphasic and diachronic variation. They can be used as a yard-stick for
variation, but only multivariate analysis can disentangle the predominant
factors in that variation.
9.3 Macro sociolinguistic features

Macro sociolinguistic features, such as the social class, gender and age of
the speakers who use a particular linguistic form, have been drawn upon
traditionally in variationist studies to chart the ways in which variation and
change are interlinked. There have been consistent findings with respect to
both social class, where non-standard or informal forms tend to be used by
working-class speakers and to be more gradually adopted by more middle-class
speakers, and to gender where women have tended to be in the vanguard of
change. The macro-category age, for its part, has been used to indicate ‘change
in progress’ in apparent-time studies, where different generations of speakers
show different rates of usage. Labov’s (2001) logistic incrementation model
shows that a peak in apparent time, usually in (late) adolescence, is a consistent
finding which indicates change in progress.
9.3.1 Social class

Table 9.4 brings together the rates of occurrence of the six markers in the
BNC in relation to the social class of the speakers The broad-brush corpus
approach for investigating well, just, you know, like, sort of and I mean shows
that there are a large number of significant differences between rates of usage
of the different pragmatic markers across social classes in the BNC (1992).
Apart from like, the DE group has the lowest rates of occurrence in raw
counts. Given that the D-values of the markers are generally quite high, it
gives us reasonable confidence in saying that marker-usage is not a predom-
inantly working-class phenomenon. The C2 group has the highest rates of
well, like and I mean and comes a close second for you know and sort of.
Qualitative analyses of the uses of the different pragmatic markers con-
ducted throughout the chapters in the volume reveal that they are associated
with a rather sophisticated and nuanced co-construction of conversation in
which interpersonal considerations and negotiation come to the fore. This
mode seems to be particularly associated with the C2 group, the skilled
workers, in the British English conversations recorded for the BNC in
1992. It must be stressed nonetheless that none of the forms is exclusive to
Table 9.4. Rates of occurrence of well, just, you know, like, sort of and I mean in the BNC, according to social class
well just you know like sort of I mean
Rate per Rate per Rate per Rate per Rate per Rate per
social 10,000 10,000 10,000 10,000 10,000 10,000
class/pm words Sig. p< words Sig. p< words Sig. p< words Sig. p< words Sig. p< words Sig. p<
AB 87.64 .01 46.7 .001 32.5 .001 43.76 .001 11.57 .001 23.17 .05
C1 82.91 .001 51 .001 36.37 not sig. 49.23 .05 9.70 not sig. 21.58 .001
C2 98.18 .001 44.3 .001 36.15 .001 51.86 not sig. 10.40 .001 28.14 .001
DE 82.91 39.5 30.91 50.16 6.45 20.96
216 Conclusion
a particular social class, and there is not a regular social stratification overall,
leading linearly from AB to DE, or vice versa. Despite the frequently cited
claim that pragmatic markers are stylistically stigmatised, we must conclude
that the use of the forms is not sociolinguistically stratified, or directly
indexical of a particular social class.
9.3.2 Gender
It has often been suggested in the literature (see Section 1.5.1) that women tend
to use hedging pragmatic markers to a greater extent than men, and incremen-
tation models have found that women are in the vanguard of change. Table 9.5
shows that female speakers in the BNC indeed use all the forms more than male
speakers and that these differences are significant for 4 out of the 6: well, just,
like and I mean.
These data support findings from other empirical studies, such as that of
Coates (2013:48) and Brinton (2006: 35), that markers are more typical of
women’s speech. Again, however, we must stress that the forms are far from
gender-exclusive, but are used by both sexes, it is merely a question of degree.
9.3.3 Age
Rates of occurrence according to age can reveal different, and sometimes
ambiguous or contradictory, phenomena:
– the rate at which a marker is acquired in childhood: children have to learn
how to use markers and low figures in the 0–14 age-group indicate that the
marker in question is in the process of being acquired;
– apparent-time change or incrementation – if a change is incoming and
spreading, we would expect a peak in adolescence (Labov 2001);
– age-grading: the process by which youngsters use a form (possibly indexi-
cally, possibly for discourse-pragmatic reasons) and then drop it as they
grow older.
Table 9.6 draws together the data presented in each of the individual chapters.
There are considerably significant differences in rates of usage of the six forms
across the different age-bands.
Two distinct patterns emerge from this table, which are easier to see in
Figures 9.1 and 9.2. Well, you know and I mean tend to become more frequent
with age (I mean drops back a little in the 60+ age-group). This suggests that
they are well-established in the speech community and the different uses are
acquired gradually over one’s lifetime.
Figure 9.2 reveals a rather different pattern for just, like and sort of. These
exhibit the classic incrementation pattern we would expect of forms which are
continuing to spread through a population, with a peak in the 15–24-year-old
Table 9.5. Rates of occurrence of well, just, you know, like, sort of and I mean in the BNC, according to gender
Gender/ Rate per Rate per Rate per Rate per Rate per Rate per
pragmatic 10,000 10,000 10,000 10,000 10,000 10,000
marker words Sig. words Sig. words Sig. words Sig. words Sig. words Sig.
Male 82.96 .001 44 .001 35.8 not sig. 47.92 .001 9.14 not sig. 22.14 .001
Female 89.27 47 36.35 51.69 9.53 24.36
Table 9.6. Rates of occurrence of well, just, you know, like, sort of and I mean in the BNC, according to age
Age R S R S R S R S R S R S
0–14 48.5 .001 46.86 .001 28 .001 63.93 .001 5.09 .001 9.44 .001
15–24 69 .001 59.44 .001 32.45 .001 74.66 .001 11.29 .01 21.09 .001
25–34 83.5 .001 51.03 .001 36.64 .01 52.92 .001 13.04 .001 24.47 not sig.
35–44 97.7 .05 46.77 .001 33.45 .001 45.62 .001 10 .001 23.8 .001
45–59 93.8 .001 40.72 .001 39.12 .001 39.32 not sig. 6.8 .001 30.4 .001
60+ 104.3 34.76 42.81 39.2 8.93 25.44
R: rate per 10,000 words; S: sig.p<
9.3 Macro sociolinguistic features 219
120
100
80
well
60
you know
I mean
40
20
0
0–14 15–24 25–34 35–44 45–59 60+
Figure 9.1 Increasing with age: Well, You know, I mean
80
70
60
50
just
40
like
30 sort of
20
10
0
0–14 15–24 25–34 35–44 45–59 60+
Figure 9.2 Incrementation: Just, Like and Sort of
age-group for just and like, and in the 25–34-year-olds for sort of. The recent
expansion of like is well-documented in the literature, as we have seen in
Chapter 6, but the pattern for just and sort of is less expected. Adverbial uses
of sort of are attested in the OED since the late eighteenth century, but its use as
a parenthetic qualifier developed later and appears to be still spreading, along
with the general extender form sort of thing, the first attestation of which in the
OED is not until 1935. The 34-year-olds in the BNC were born in 1958 and it
appears that sort of has expanded its usage through the twentieth century and is
220 Conclusion
continuing to expand into the twenty-first century. However, evidence from

the UWE Role-play suggests that this picture may be changing with kind of
becoming more frequent in competition with sort of (possibly an influence from
US English).The position for just is more difficult to ascertain as it has a wide
range of adverbial usages which are not pragmatic marking usages (its D-value
is low, around 50 per cent). From Figure 9.2, however, what we see is the
classic peak in adolescence which suggests that it is spreading. Detailed
analyses in Chapter 7 indicate that speakers are using it more, both to intensify
and to minimise speech acts, in other words, it is likely that it is the pragmatic
marking usage which is spreading. The findings in Section 9.3.2 also suggest
that this is a classic development, with female speakers in the vanguard of the
change. The data appear to reveal a hierarchy of ‘incomingness’ which ranges
from well, you know and I mean (well-established) to sort of, just and like (still
incoming/spreading).
9.3.4 Changing attitudes to markers

Increases in the raw frequencies of the terms are echoed in the extent to which
attitudes to them appear to be shifting. New usages are unsettling for speakers,
and are often stigmatised. Once the new usage gradually becomes more accepted,
the stigmatisation diminishes and the usage is adopted more generally across
the population, in a process known as indexical obsolescence (Eckert 2014).
The modified matched-guise test adopted as part of this study has a number of
limitations (it tested only one usage of each marker and the population of
respondents was fairly limited). When scores on ‘polite’, ‘educated’ and
‘friendly’1 (PEF) are conflated for the different markers, however, a picture
emerges concerning shifting attitudes which broadly confirms the hypothesis
that shifts in usage are reflected in differing attitudes across the generations.
Figure 9.3 displays the average PEF scores for the older and younger respon-
dents. Readers are reminded that the closer the score is to ‘0’, the more polite,
friendly and educated the speaker using the marker concerned is considered to be.
The younger and older generations are in agreement that the speaker using
well is relatively polite, educated and friendly. They disagree, to different
extents, with respect to all of the other markers, to a statistically significant
degree.2 The relative stigmatisation of these markers by the older respondents
suggests that they may be incoming forms.
1
These semantic scales were selected as revealing more positive (polite, educated and friendly) as
opposed to be negative (impolite, uneducated, unfriendly) values. The direct/indirect scale is
more problematic in these terms.
2
The 2-tailed sigs. on a t-test comparing Student versus Choir/book-group scores, equal variances
not assumed, are as follows. well: p<.221; just: p<.002; you know: p>.05; I mean, like, sort of:
p<.001.
9.3 Macro sociolinguistic features 221
4.00
3.00
well
just
Mean
you know
sort of
2.00 I mean
like
1.00
0.00
1 2
Group 1 = Students; 2 = Choir/book-group
Figure 9.3 Average attitudinal scores on ‘polite’, ‘educated’ and ‘friendly’

(PEF) for the six markers
The attitudinal data do not map entirely consistently on to the hierarchy of

‘incomingness’ charted in Figures 9.2 and 9.3 but, overall, there is a reasonable
fit, particularly with respect to well and like. Well, which is revealed as being
firmly established in the language through our apparent-time data, is well-
accepted from an attitudinal point of view by both groups. Just, you know and
sort of are less well accepted attitudinally by both groups, but particularly by
the older generation. This substantiates the suggestion made concerning data in
Figure 9.2 that just and sort of are undergoing incrementation. The fit is less
good with respect to you know and I mean which appear to have similar rates of
usage across the different age-groups and which we would therefore expect to
be relatively well accepted by both groups of respondents. Pragmatic markers are,
however, well known to be subject to stigmatisation, and Watts (1989) found
that, though his (elderly) respondents reacted negatively to you know, they used it
very frequently themselves, perhaps subconsciously. Attitudes to both you
know and I mean in the older generation may be influenced by the know what I
222 Conclusion
mean cluster, discussed in Chapter 8. I mean also shows the least systematic
pattern in Figure 9.1, with higher rates in the 45–59 than in the 60+ age-group,
which may hint at its spread being relatively recent. Finally, like is much more
accepted attitudinally by the younger group (who are most probably users of
the form) than the older group (non-users), thus confirming its place as the newest
pragmatic marker on the block.
9.4 Situational variation

In each chapter of the volume, the ways in which markers may be used variably
across different communication situations were examined, in relation to the
genres and context-governed files provided in the BNC. This yielded some
unexpected findings. We would expect pragmatic markers to appear most often
in the most colloquial and informal genres. This was found to be the case for
only two of the markers, well and like.
Well conforms to expectation by being most frequent, by a large margin, in
spoken conversation. It occurs in situations where there is a great deal of
interaction between speakers and is typically found in a turn-initial position:
in situations where there are a larger proportion of turns, there will be more
opportunities for it to appear (in other words, in fast-moving dialogual con-
versations rather than in monologues).
Pragmatic marker just is most often used to formulate polite requests, and is
found to be most frequent, not in ordinary everyday conversation, but in
consultations with doctors, in classrooms and meetings where requests such
as ‘Can I just make one suggestion?’ or hedged imperatives ‘Just press enter’
are common.
Contrary to expectation, too, you know is used less often in everyday
conversation and more often in monologues. In the BNC, it was found most
frequently in oral history interviews and in consultations and presentations in
which the speaker is characterised, paradoxically, as the one ‘in the know’ and
who uses you know to punctuate remarks and as a feedback channelling device
to maintain their interlocutor’s attention.
Like’s low D-value made a corpus- and lemma-based overview of rates
of occurrence as a means of examining the situational variation of the
pragmatic marker like somewhat hazardous. The highest rates of occur-
rence of like in the BNC were found to be in the poetry genre, where
similes are very common. The second highest rates were, however, in
spoken conversation, and as we discovered from more detailed analyses
of the spoken demographic data in the BNC and of the UWE Role-Play
Corpus, the pragmatic marking usage is extremely high in the everyday
speech of young people in contemporary Britain to the extent that it
currently indexes youth-speak.
9.5 Historical semantic change 223
One of the most surprising findings was the prevalence of both sort of
and I mean in the tutorials and lectures contained in the BNC. Spoken
conversation comes way down the frequency list for sort of at position 14.
This confirms Lin’s (2010) findings about the frequency of sort of in the
BASE Corpus of Academic English. The use of sort of in such contexts
encourages interactivity; the speaker adopts a hedged and nuanced style of
expression and presentation which aims at downplaying expertise, and
prompting reflection, questions and answers from interlocutors.
I mean, too, is very common in university tutorials, consultations and
lectures (spoken conversation is in fifth position in terms of the frequency of
I mean). I mean is useful not only for repair but also for making potentially
unclear inferences explicit, and nuancing and justifying arguments in such
contexts.
The analysis of the situational variation of the six markers makes it abun-
dantly clear that, with the exception of well and like, far from being associated
with the most informal, colloquial and mundane everyday conversations,
markers are most frequently found in conversations between unequals, tutors
and students, doctors and patients, experts and non-experts, and are used to
mitigate requests and nuance propositions, to smooth interpersonal relations
and encourage interactivity.
9.5 Historical semantic change

In Section 9.3.3, findings from the analysis of synchronic data with a shallow
time depth have been surveyed in order to gauge recent shifts in the usage and
frequency of the six markers. Comparisons were drawn between different
generations in the BNC (to gauge changes in apparent time) and between the
BNC spoken data (recorded in 1992) and the UWE Role-play Corpus (recorded
2011–2014).
This section aims to synthesise findings about the six different markers
with respect to the semantic shifts which have occurred over a far longer
historical period. The sections in each chapter devoted to historical semantic
change drew on insights from previous studies, coupled with analyses of data
from the OBC (1674–1913), which is one of the sources which allow us to get
closest to speech-like usage before the advent of recording devices.
9.5.1 Lexical polysemy, pragmatic ambiguity and semantic change

The six forms selected for analysis exhibit varying degrees of lexical
polysemy, and homonymy. The extent of their polysemy/homonymy in a
sample of contemporary spoken British English (the UWE Role-play
Corpus) is indicated in the D-values charted in Table 9.2. Just has the
224 Conclusion
lowest D-value but is arguably more polysemous than homonymous

(disregarding its adjectival use, meaning ‘fair’, which occurs rather rarely),
that is to say that its pragmatic marker uses are closely related to its
(historical) canonical uses as an adverb, meaning ‘merely’ or ‘simply’.
Like has the second lowest D-value, but is both homonymous and poly-
semous. Its frequently used verbal form (‘I like bananas’) is unrelated
semantically to its nominal, prepositional, conjunctival or suffixal forms
(‘I won’t consort with the likes of him’; ‘she is just like her brother’; ‘it
looks like it will snow’; ‘childlike’). These latter with their underlying
semantics to do with ‘similarity to’ are clearly related to the functions of
pragmatic marking like which signals approximation. In many cases, prag-
matic markers are pragmatically ambiguous or multifunctional, as we have
seen throughout the volume, and the extent to which new functions have
been encoded as new senses (in other words whether semantic change has
occurred) is a matter of some debate – a topic which we consider in the
following section.
9.5.2 The semantics-pragmatics interface, GCIs, PCIs

and Figure-Ground shift
In Section 1.6.2, questions relating to the semantics-pragmatics interface,
GCIs, PCIs and Figure-Ground shift were introduced, and in Section 7.5,
Hansen’s arguments (1998b: 242) with respect to the coded or non-coded
nature of the pragmatics/semantics of pragmatic markers were considered.
Where markers serve to flag an indirect inference or implicature in order to
mitigate an FTA, the whole point is that they are not obviously doing so. They
hint at the implicature rather than indexing it directly – it is possible that they
would no longer serve the mitigating function if they were coded as doing so.
This is, however, what appears to have happened to well, the demurral sense
of which can no longer be said to be related cognitively to the positive
evaluation historically associated with it (‘that is very well’). Through contin-
uous association with discourse situations in which speakers said ‘(that is)
well (but)’, the signifier well has absorbed the provisional nature of well and,
indeed, this sense is listed separately in dictionaries such as the OED.
Similarly, just in its sense of ‘merely’ can be attached to an FTA in order to
delimit its force, as we have seen in ‘Just a minute’, ‘Just press enter’ or ‘I just
think that. . .’. The conventional implicature involved is at the speech act level,
rather than at the level of ‘minute’, ‘press’ or ‘think’. The extent to which this
implicature is now a coded part of just is, however, debatable.
Both sort of and like have come to suggest approximation, the first in its
relation to a superordinate/hyponym relation, the second by similitude. If an
entity is but a sub-type of a larger category, a shift occurs whereby peripheral
membership is implied, and thus an approximation is suggested, either at word

or speech-act level. In the case of like, the shift from ‘similar to’ to ‘approx-
imation’ is cognitively more obvious, as if an entity is ‘similar’ but not
identical, then approximation is cognitively contiguous and a metonymous
interpretation is possible. Both pragmatic marking sort of and like appear in
syntactic positions which are impossible for type-nouns (in the case of sort of)
and prepositional usages (in the case of like) and it is perhaps on this basis,3
along with the cognitive distance between their core semantics and their
pragmatic deployment, that we can consider the ‘approximative’ usage to be
coded in the language and expect these new meanings to appear as separate
senses in dictionaries.
The hearer- and speaker-oriented markers you know and I mean appear in
syntactic positions which are different from those of their canonical forebears,
and yet they retain the residue of their component parts, the second- and first-
person pronouns you and I and the notions of ‘knowledge’ and ‘signification’.
They are distinguishable from each other on that basis in their pragmatic usage.
Because the canonical meanings of these composite forms remain cognitively
salient, these forms might be considered to be more pragmatic than semantic, in
other words, the new functions are not fully codable as new senses, even in the
more univerbated form y’know.
All of these markers can, nevertheless, be considered to have undergone
Figure-Ground shifts, whereby a sense that was backgrounded has become
foregrounded, in the manner indicated in Table 9.7.
The extent to which these shifts might be considered to be cases of gramma-
ticalisation or pragmaticalisation is considered in the following section.
9.5.3 Grammaticalisation and pragmaticalisation

The discussion of debates over the status of pragmatic markers and whether
they result from a process of grammaticalisation or pragmaticalisation in
Section 1.6.3 highlighted the fact that, if one considers Lehmann’s six criteria
for grammaticalisation, the markers in question here: well, you know, just, like,
sort of and I mean, do not tick many of the boxes. None of the items undergo
paradigmaticisation, obligatorification or fixation and only you know and sort
of might conceivably be considered to undergo attrition, condensation or
coalescence, and that is only in their univerbated forms y’know and sorta,
which are atypical, in British English at least.
3
More recent approaches (see Traugott and Trousdale 2013: 30) suggest that ‘pure’ changes, for
example, syntactic change without reference to phonology, prosody and semantics/pragmatics,
are a construct of theories and methodologies, rather than reflective of language as it is actually
used.
226 Conclusion
Table 9.7. Form-function reanalysis (after Waltereit 2006: 69)
1. Well positive evaluation demurral

2. Just merely downtone
3. Like similar to {approximation/
4. Sort of sub-type {hedge
5. You know appeal to common interpersonal
knowledge engagement
6. I mean signify ‘I say this
because’
(Thing said/ 1. Positive evaluation figure ground
heard) 2. Merely
3. Similar to; ‘along the lines of’
4. Sub-type
5. appeal to common knowledge
6. Signify
Thing meant/ 1. demurral ground figure
understood 2. downtone
3. approximation/hedge speech act
4. approximation/hedge speech act
5. interpersonal engagement
6. ‘I say this because’
More recent approaches to grammaticalisation and constructionalisation

(Kaltenböck, Heine and Kuteva, 2011; Traugott and Trousdale, 2013) have,
however, asserted that pragmatic markers do form part of the grammar and
must therefore be accounted for in grammars (regardless of whether these
are ‘thetical’ or ‘construction’ grammars). If we take a constructionalisation
approach, which regards language change as involving a form-function neo-
analysis which may include all levels of language analysis (phonology, pro-
sody, syntax and semantic/pragmatic levels), then the types of changes which
produce the approximative sort of from the type-noun a sort of result in items
which are part of the grammar and would thus constitute grammaticalisation
(albeit according to a less restrictive definition than that of Lehmann (1985)).
Pragmatic markers are not easily categorised according to generally recognised
grammatical word-classes, such as noun, conjunction or adverb, or to morpho-
logical categories such as subject-auxiliary inversion. And, though some have
suggested that pragmatic markers might be considered to be cases of
lexicalisation4 (particularly in cases of univerbation, since a new word is
coined (sorta, y’know)), the resulting items do not look like lexical forms
from a more canonical perspective.
4
For a fuller debate of the lexicalisation/grammaticalisation issue, see Brinton and Traugott 2005:
95–110.
Traugott (2010: 61) remarks that, though subjectification and intersubjecti-

fication are independent of grammaticalisation, there is a close interaction
between grammaticalisation and subjectification. She goes on to say that:
The interaction of grammaticalisation and intersubjectification is less common since the
latter largely involves expressions of politeness, and cross-linguistically, these tend to
be associated with lexical choices rather than grammatical ones.
The pragmatic markers studied here undoubtedly function as epistemic
modal expressions, flag uncertainty and can be viewed from a politeness-
theoretic viewpoint as subjective (expressing the speaker’s uncertain attitude
to a proposition, and thus protecting their own face) and intersubjective
(protecting their interlocutor’s face and engaging them in interaction). The
evolution of the epistemic modal role of pragmatic markers has involved a shift
from lexical to grammatical (‘a sort of’ to ‘sort of’), or from less to more
grammatical (similative ‘like’ to pragmatic marker like), which conforms to
Meillet’s (1912) original notion of grammaticalisation. In terms of their word
class, pragmatic markers behave most like adverbs, and like other manner-
adverbs, they are not obligatory; indeed, they are eminently omissible.
Pragmatic markers would thus appear, on a number of counts, to have under-
gone grammaticalisation.
Other researchers (Erman and Kotsinas 1993; Dostie 2004; Lauwers et al.
2012) have used the term ‘pragmaticalisation’ in their discussions of the way
in which pragmatic markers evolve their pragmatic meanings. Erman and
Kostinas (1993: 79–80) propose the following distinction between the two
terms:
In both cases, i.e. grammaticalization as well as pragmaticalization, the final result of the
process may be a function word, a dummy marker, or a cliticized morpheme which has
lost all or almost all of its original meaning. Frequently, this process is paralleled with a
phonological reduction and loss of stress. The difference between the two paths lies in
the way the affected word comes to be used, that is the referential or conversational
level.
Erman and Kotsinas (1993) consider that grammaticalisation and pragmati-
calisation can be distinguished on the basis of what results from the change.
Within a usage-based conceptualisation of language change, which focuses on
motivations for change, including motivations of a socio-pragmalinguistic sort,
pragmaticalisation refers not only to the result but also to the process of change
which involves the gradual use of a term for pragmatic, or conversational,
rather than for referential purposes. Some types of constructional change of the
sort described by Traugott and Trousdale (2013) may involve such a process of
pragmaticalisation, but the process is most obviously relevant to the develop-
ment of pragmatic markers, as we shall see in Section 9.6.
228 Conclusion
To sum up this section, by constructionalist criteria, pragmatic markers are part

of the grammar and have undergone constructionalisation/grammaticalisation
(by having evolved new conventions of Form-Meaning pairings). If pragmatic
markers have developed a new meaning,5 that meaning is specifically related to
non-referential, conversational, pragmatic usages. By the definitions outlined
above, they have thus also undergone pragmaticalisation. What is more, the
process by which such items evolve is closely related to the way that language
is used in social interaction, often for face-saving or politeness purposes, a topic
to which attention is turned in the following section.
9.6 The impact of social interaction on meaning: politeness-induced

semantic change
The volume set out to look at the ways in which six frequently occurring
markers contribute to the way that meaning is made in ordinary everyday
conversations, but also to gauge the extent to which aspects of social interaction
and conversational practice impact on the evolution of their meaning at differ-
ent time-depths.
Of the over-arching functional pressures exerted by conversational beha-
viour outlined in Section 1.3 (spontaneous, interactional, social, sociable and
polite), it is interesting to note (in Table 9.1) that the six pragmatic markers are
used most for three purposes, to manage the psycholinguistic processing
demands imposed by spontaneous speech, to be sociable and to be polite.
Turn-taking and social indexicality appear to be less important factors (except
in the evolutions of well and like).
Reviews of the literature in the field of historical pragmatics and detailed
analysis of synchronic and diachronic spoken data throughout the volume
reveal that, as Waltereit (2006:76) puts it, markers exhibit ‘traces of the
strategic use speakers made of [their diachronic] ancestors to attain an effect’.
The strategies performed by pragmatic markers pertain to interactional and
interpersonal goals, maintaining good relations and preserving face, imple-
menting both negative and positive politeness.
Over the centuries and up to the present day, speakers have used each of the
six markers for interactional and interpersonal purposes, strategically, in the
following ways:
– speakers began to use well to express positive evaluations, but because of
their strategic use of it to preserve the appearance of cooperation and to
introduce a subjective perspective without causing the addressee to lose face,
it is now used as a conventionalised way of politely rejecting or demurring in
response to an addressee’s proposal or proposition;
5
In the context of items often referred to as ‘meaningless fillers’, this is a moot point.
9.6 The impact of social interaction on meaning 229
– just (derived from French juste = exact, precise, only) began to be used
strategically to delimit the extent of an FTA, through its conventional
implicature ‘merely’;
– speakers ‘in the know’ use you know to downplay their knowledge and
promote interpersonal engagement;
– the similative preposition like began to be used as a means of suggesting
approximation, which allowed speakers to draw back from their assertions
and keep these ‘safely vague’;
– the ‘type-noun’ construction sort of was also drawn upon by speakers to
suggest approximation, and to soften a strongly voiced opinion;
– finally, speakers using I mean brought together its two core senses ‘signify’
and ‘intend’ to flag an intention which goes beyond the words uttered and to
intimate ‘I say this because. . .’.
The extent to which the pragmatic force of these strategic usages has become
coded as a new ‘sense’ of each of the terms is a matter of degree. All six
pragmatic markers have, however, undeniably, undergone a process of prag-
maticalisation. Their role as hesitation phenomena in filled pauses suggests
that, in many of their occurrences in everyday spoken interaction, the six
pragmatic markers have reached the last stage in a process of semantic bleach-
ing. And yet the forms are not interchangeable. The ‘persistence of some
degree of original lexical meaning’ (Brinton, 1996: 59) accounts for the
differences in their usages and functions in a range of communicative situa-
tions: both I mean and you know can be used to introduce repair, but you
know makes an appeal to the addressee while I mean does not. What is more,
the shifting sociolinguistic ‘indexicality’ (Johnstone, 2010: 32) of pragmatic
markers both reflects, and is reflected in, their spread through the larger speech
community: like is currently used more by the younger than the older genera-
tion in the UK, and by females than by males.
Brinton (1996: 278) notes that, while many of the Old English and Middle
English forms that she studied have disappeared, ‘the pragmatic functions
themselves are preserved’. Only time, along with rigorous analysis of corpora
of spoken interaction which have been carefully categorised according to
social and situational criteria, will tell us whether, for example, the functions
of sort of will increasingly be fulfilled by like, and whether hedging and
intersubjective forms in general will continue to rise in frequency, echoing a
shift in modes of politeness across the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

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Cambridge Books Online

Pragmatic Markers in British English

Meaning in Social Interaction

Book DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139507110

Online ISBN: 9781139507110

Hardback ISBN: 9781107032767

9 - Conclusion pp. 210-229

Chapter DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139507110.010

Cambridge University Press

9.2 Pragmatic markers and social interaction

has revealed some differences in the admixtures of different functions of the

apart from just, can be considered to serve psycholinguistic processing

9.2.2 Polysemy and D-values

like just you know well I mean sort of

BNC Spoken Demographic (1992) 32 45 68 74 84 90

well-D just-D you know-D like-D sort of-D I mean-D

Male 66.22 46.83 92.06 59.13 91.45 94.44

9.3 Macro sociolinguistic features

9.3.1 Social class

well just you know like sort of I mean

well just you know like sort of I mean

well just you know like sort of I mean

R: rate per 10,000 words; S: sig.p<

Figure 9.1 Increasing with age: Well, You know, I mean

Figure 9.2 Incrementation: Just, Like and Sort of

continuing to expand into the twenty-ﬁrst century. However, evidence from

9.3.4 Changing attitudes to markers

Figure 9.3 Average attitudinal scores on ‘polite’, ‘educated’ and ‘friendly’

The attitudinal data do not map entirely consistently on to the hierarchy of

9.4 Situational variation

9.5 Historical semantic change

9.5.1 Lexical polysemy, pragmatic ambiguity and semantic change

lowest D-value but is arguably more polysemous than homonymous

9.5.2 The semantics-pragmatics interface, GCIs, PCIs

membership is implied, and thus an approximation is suggested, either at word

9.5.3 Grammaticalisation and pragmaticalisation

Table 9.7. Form-function reanalysis (after Waltereit 2006: 69)

1. Well positive evaluation demurral

More recent approaches to grammaticalisation and constructionalisation

Traugott (2010: 61) remarks that, though subjectiﬁcation and intersubjecti-

To sum up this section, by constructionalist criteria, pragmatic markers are part

9.6 The impact of social interaction on meaning: politeness-induced

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