Cover not available
Article published In:
Functions of Language
Vol. 21:2 (2014) ► pp.210–237

That’s absolutely crap, totally rubbish

The use of the intensifiers absolutely and totally in the spoken language of British adults and teenagers

| University of Santiago de Compostela
Intensifiers in English speech have received considerable attention in the literature, due to their flexibility, ongoing changes in the system, and the grammaticalisation processes that some of them undergo. This paper looks first at differences in the use of intensifiers in the speech of adults and teenagers, before moving on to consider in detail two maximisers, absolutely and totally. These were chosen because of their relative frequency within the group of -ly adverbs, their special syntactic behaviour, and the lack of previous contrastive studies. Comparable data from COLT (The Bergen Corpus of London Teenage Language) and DCPSE (The Diachronic Corpus of Present-Day Spoken English) were used in the analysis. Findings indicate that teenagers opt for so, really and taboo words (bloody, fucking) when they want to intensify their spoken language, whereas adults prefer very and also some -ly adverbs (totally, absolutely, completely). In addition, both absolutely and totally are shown to be more flexible in the language of teenagers, in that they seem to be spreading gradually to new syntactic environments by performing new functions which are more discourse-oriented, used as emphatic, affirmative response items. This is broadly in keeping with the innovative nature of teen talk as well as with grammaticalisation and delexicalisation processes characteristic of the intensifier system.
Published online: 22 August 2014
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/fol.21.2.03pal
References (55)
Aijmer, Karin. 2011. Are you totally spy? A new intensifier in present-day American English. In Sylvie Hancil (ed.), Marqueurs discursifs et subjectivité, 155–172. Rouen: Universités de Rouen and Havre.Google Scholar
Altenberg, Bengt. 1991. Amplifier collocations in spoken English. In Stig Johansson & Anna-Brita Stenström (eds.), English computer corpora, 127–147. Berlin: Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Anderson, Wendy. 2006. Absolutely, totally, filled to the brim with the famous grouse: Intensifying adverbs in the Scottish Corpus of Texts and Speech. English Today 22(3). 10–16. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Androutsopoulos, Jannis J. & Alexandra Georgakopoulos. 2003. Discourse constructions of youth identities. Amsterdam: Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Athanasiadou, Angeliki. 2007. On the subjectivity of intensifiers. Language Sciences 29(4). 554–565. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bäcklund, Ulf. 1973. The collocation of adverbs of degree in English (Studia Anglistica Upsaliensia 13). Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis.Google Scholar
Banfi, Emanuel & Alberto Sobrero (eds.). 1992. Il linguaggio giovanile degli anni novanta. Roma: Laterza.Google Scholar
Barnfield, Kate & Isabelle Buchstaller. 2010. Intensifiers on Tyneside: Longitudinal developments and new trends. English World-Wide 31(3). 252–287. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bauer, Laurie & Winifred Bauer. 2002. Adjective boosters in the speech of New Zealand children. Journal of English Linguistics 301. 244–257. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Biber, Douglas, Stig Johansson, Geoffrey Leech, Susan Conrad & Edward Finegan. 1999. Longman grammar of spoken and written English. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Blanco-Suárez, Zeltia. 2010. Grammaticalisation and related phenomena in the evolution of the intensifier deadly in English. Unpublished postgraduate research project, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela.Google Scholar
Bolinger, Dwight. 1972. Degree words. The Hague: Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Carretero, Marta. 2010. You’re absolutely right! A corpus-based contrastive analysis of absolutely in British English and absolutamente in Peninsular Spanish, with special emphasis on the relationship between degree and certainty. In Peter Lauwers, Gudrun Vanderbauwhede & Stijn Verleyen (eds.), Pragmatic markers and pragmaticalization: Lessons from false friends. (Special issue of Languages in Contrast ) 10(2). 194–222.Google Scholar
Cheshire, Jenny, Paul Kerswill, Susan Fox & Eivind Torgersen. 2011. Contact, the feature pool and the speech community. The emergence of multicultural London English. Journal of Sociolinguistics 15(2). 151–196. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Croft, William. 2006. Typology. In Mark Aronoff & Janie Rees-Miller (eds.), The handbook of linguistics, 337–368. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Denison, David. 2001. Gradience and linguistic change. Historical linguistics 1999. In Laurel J. Brinton (ed.), Selected papers from the 14th International Conference on Historical Linguistics . (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory), 119–144. Amsterdam: Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2007. Playing tag with category boundaries. VARIENG e-Series 1. Annotating variation and change, Proceedings of ICAME 27 annotation workshop, Anneli Meurman-Solin & Arja Nurmi (ed.). Helsinki: Research Unit for Variation, Contacts and Change in English. Available at: [URL] (Accessed November 2012).Google Scholar
2010. Category change in English with and without structural change. In Elizabeth Closs Traugott & Graeme Trousdale (eds.), Gradualness, gradience, and grammaticalization (Typological Studies in Language and Communication 90), 105–128. Amsterdam: Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dürscheid, Christa & Jürgen Spitzmüller (eds.). 2006. Perspektiven der Jugendsprachforschung/ Trends and developments in youth language research (Sprache - Kommunikation - Kultur. Soziolinguistische Beiträge 3). Frankfurt: Lang. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Eckert, Penelope, 1988. Adolescent social structure and the spread of linguistic change. Language in Society 17(2). 183–207. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1998. Gender and sociolinguistic variation. In Jennifer Coates (ed.), Readings in language and gender, 64–75. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Huddleston Rodney & Pullum Geoffrey K. 2002. The Cambridge grammar of the English language. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Ito, Rika & Sali Tagliamonte. 2003. Well weird, right dodgy, very strange, really cool: Layering and recycling in English intensifiers. Language in Society 32(2). 257–279. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jespersen, Otto. 1922. Language; its nature, development and origin. London: George Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Kennedy, Graeme. 2002. Amplifier collocations in the British National Corpus: Implications for English language teaching. TESOL Quarterly 37(3). 467–487. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kerswill, Paul. 1996. Children, adolescents and language change. Language Variation and Change 81. 177–202. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lorenz, Gunter R. 1999. Adjective intensification. Learners versus native speakers: A corpus study of argumentative writing. Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar
. 2002. Really worthwhile or not really significant? A corpus-based approach to the delexicalization and grammaticalization of intensifiers in modern English. In Ilse Wischer & Gabriele Diewald (eds.), New reflections on grammaticalization, 143–161. Amsterdam: Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Macaulay, Ronald. 2005. Talk that counts: Age, gender, and social class differences in discourse. New York, NY: OUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2006. Pure grammaticalization: The development of a teenage intensifier. Language Variation and Change 181. 267–283. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Méndez-Naya, Belén (ed.). 2008a. English intensifiers. English Language and Linguistics 12(2). 213–394. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2008b. The which is most and right harde to answere. Intensifying right and most in earlier English. In Richard Dury, Maurizio Gotti & Marina Dossena (eds.), English historical linguistics. Volume II: Lexical and semantic change, 31–51. Amsterdam: Benjamins.Google Scholar
Mustanoja, Tauno F. 1960. A Middle English syntax. Helsinki: Sociètè Néophilologique.Google Scholar
Palacios Martínez, Ignacio M. 2010. It ain’t nothing to do with my school. Variation and pragmatic uses of ain’t in the language of British English teenagers. English Studies 91(5). 548–566. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Palacios Martínez, Ignacio M. & Paloma Núñez Pertejo. 2012. He’s absolutely massive. It’s a super day. Madonna, she is a wicked singer. Youth language and intensification: A corpus-based study. Text & Talk. An Interdisciplinary Journal of Language, Discourse & Communication Studies 32(6). 773–796.Google Scholar
Paradis, Carita. 1997. Degree modifiers of adjectives in spoken British English. Lund: Lund University Press.Google Scholar
. 2000. It’s well weird. Degree modifiers of adjectives revisited: The nineties. In John Kirk (ed.), Corpora galore: Analyses and techniques in describing English, 147–160. Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar
. 2003. Between epistemic modality and degree: The case of really . In Roberta Facchinetti, Manfred Krug & Frank Palmer (eds.), Modality in contemporary English, 191–220. Berlin: Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Paradis, Carita & Nina Bergmark. 2003. Am I really really mature or something: Really in teentalk. In Karin Aijmer & Britta Olinder (eds.), Proceedings from the 8th Conference on English studies , 71–86. Göteborg: Acta Universitatis Gothenburghensis.Google Scholar
Partington, Alan. 1993. Corpus evidence of language change: The case of the intensifier. In Mona Baker, Gill Francis & Elena Tognini Bonelli (eds.), Text and technology in honour of John Sinclair, 177–192. Amsterdam: Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2004. Utterly content in each other’s company: Semantic prosody and semantic preference. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 9(1). 131–156. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pujolar, Joan. 2001. Gender, heteroglossia and power. A sociolinguistic study of youth culture. Berlin: Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Quirk, Randolph, Sidney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech & Jan Svartvik. 1985. A comprehensive grammar of the English language. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Rodríguez, Félix (ed.). 2002. El lenguaje de los jóvenes. Barcelona: Ariel.Google Scholar
Romaine, Suzanne. 1984. The language of children and adolescents: The acquisition of communicative competence. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Stenström, Anna-Brita. 1999. He was really gormless — She’s bloody crap. Girls, boys, and intensifiers. In Hilde Hasselgård & Signe Oksefjell (eds.), Out of corpora. Studies in honour of Stig Johansson, 69–78. Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar
. 2005. He’s well nice — Es mazo majo. London and Madrid girls’ use of intensifiers. In Solveig Granath, June Millander & Elisabeth Wennö (eds.), The power of words. Studies in honour of Moira Linnarud, 207–216. Karlstad: Karlstad University.Google Scholar
Stenström, Anna-Brita, Gisle Andersen & Kristine Hasund. 2002. Trends in teenage talk. Amsterdam: Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stoffel, Cornelis. 1901. Intensives and down-toners. Heidelberg: Carl Winter.Google Scholar
Tagliamonte, Sali, 2005. So who? Like how? Just what? Discourse markers in the conversations of young Canadians. Journal of Pragmatics 371. 1896–1915. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tagliamonte, Sali & Chris Roberts. 2005. So weird; so cool; so innovative: The use of intensifiers in the television series Friends . American Speech 80(3). 280–300. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tagliamonte, Sali. 2008. So different and pretty cool! Recycling intensifiers in Toronto, Canada. English Language and Linguistics 12(2). 361–394. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tagliamonte, Sali & Derek Denis. 2010. The stuff of change: General extenders in Toronto Canada. Journal of English Linguistics 381. 335–368. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tao, Hongyn. 2007. A corpus-based investigation of absolutely and related phenomena in spoken American English. Journal of English Linguistics 35(1). 5–29. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Xiao, Richard & Hongyn Tao. 2007. A corpus-based sociolinguistic study of amplifiers in British English. Sociolinguistic Studies 1(2). 241–273. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (14)

Cited by 14 other publications

Núñez-Pertejo, Paloma
2023. Practically impossible: The development of an English approximator. Studia Neophilologica 95:1 ► pp. 63 ff. DOI logo
Alshaboul, Asia, Marwan Jarrah, Sharif Alghazo & Ekab Al-Shawashreh
2022. A sociolinguistic analysis of intensifiers in Ammani Arabic. Ampersand 9 ► pp. 100086 ff. DOI logo
Palacios Martínez, Ignacio Miguel
2021. Recent changes in London English. An overview of the main lexical, grammar and discourse features of Multicultural London English (MLE). Complutense Journal of English Studies 29 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Shi, Yaqian & Lei Lei
2021. Lexical use and social class: A study on lexical richness, word length, and word class in spoken English. Lingua 262 ► pp. 103155 ff. DOI logo
Unuabonah, Foluke Olayinka, Adebola Adebileje & Rotimi Olanrele Oladipupo
2021. Intensifier Usage in Nigerian English: A Corpus-Based Approach. Corpus Pragmatics 5:3 ► pp. 335 ff. DOI logo
Aijmer, Karin
2020. That’s absolutely fine. In Corpora and the Changing Society [Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 96], ► pp. 143 ff. DOI logo
Schweinberger, Martin
2020. How Learner Corpus Research can inform language learning and teaching. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics 43:2 ► pp. 196 ff. DOI logo
Schweinberger, Martin
2020. Analyzing change in the American English amplifier system in the fiction genre. In Corpora and the Changing Society [Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 96], ► pp. 223 ff. DOI logo
Schweinberger, Martin
2021. On the waning of forms – A corpus-based analysis of decline and loss in adjective amplification. In Lost in Change [Studies in Language Companion Series, 218], ► pp. 235 ff. DOI logo
Schweinberger, Martin
2021. Ongoing change in the Australian English amplifier system. Australian Journal of Linguistics 41:2 ► pp. 166 ff. DOI logo
Liu, Chen-Yu
2019. Gender and Discipline: Intensifier Variation in Academic Lectures. Corpus Pragmatics 3:3 ► pp. 211 ff. DOI logo
Palacios, Ignacio M.
2019. Vernon never called for me yesterday. English Text Construction 12:2 ► pp. 290 ff. DOI logo
Fuchs, Robert
2017. Do women (still) use more intensifiers than men?. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 22:3 ► pp. 345 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2021. On the waning of forms - A corpus-based analysis of decline and loss in adjective amplification. In Lost in Change [Studies in Language Companion Series, 218], DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 2 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.