Article published in:
Pragmatic Markers in Irish English
Edited by Carolina P. Amador-Moreno, Kevin McCafferty and Elaine Vaughan
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 258] 2015
► pp. 37–64

“I always think of people here, you know, saying ‘like’ after every sentence”

The dynamics of discourse-pragmatic markers in Northern Irish English

This chapter investigates eight discourse-pragmatic markers in a corpus of Northern Irish English, some of which are interesting on account of their absence or rarity and others because they appear to index social categories like age and sex.1 Although some of these (particularly like) have already been subject to considerable scholarly debate, others (such as och) have never been addressed. The account examines their origins drawing on the corpus as well as other data from Celtic and non-Celtic Englishes globally. The analysis also re-examines and elaborates on the functions each of these discourse-pragmatic markers are thought to perform, with respect to both their roles in interpersonal communication and in organizing discourse.
Published online: 15 July 2015
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.258.02cor
References
Adams, G. Brendan
1958 “The Emergence of Ulster as a Distinct Dialect Area.” Ulster Folklife 4: 61–73.Google Scholar
Aijmer, Karin, and Anne-Marie Simon-Vandenbergen
2009 “Discourse Particles.” In Handbook of Pragmatics 2009 Instalment, ed. by Jan Zienkowski, Jan-Ola Östman and Jef Verschueren, 223–307. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Amador-Moreno, Carolina P
2005 “Discourse Markers in Irish English: An Example from Literature.” In The Pragmatics of Irish English, ed. by Anne Barron and Klaus P. Schneider, 73–100. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2012 “A Corpus-based Approach to Contemporary Irish Writing: Ross O’Carroll-Kelly’s Use of Like as a Discourse Marker.” International Journal of English Studies 12 (2): 19–38.Google Scholar
Anthony, Laurence
2011 AntConc 3.2.2.1. Available: http://​www​.antlab​.sci​.waseda​.ac​.jp​/software​.html
Barron, Anne and Schneider, Klaus P
(eds) 2009 The Pragmatics of Irish English. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Bartlett, Joanne
2013 “A Longitudinal Study of Constituent Final Like in Tyneside English.” Newcastle Working Papers in Linguistics 19 (1): 1–21.Google Scholar
Beal, Joan C., and Karen P. Corrigan
2010 “The Impact of Nineteenth Century Celtic English Migrations on Contemporary Northern Englishes: Tyneside and Sheffield Compared.” In Festschrift for Markku Filppula on the Occasion of his 60th Birthday, ed. by Esa Pentillä and Heli Paulasto, 231–258. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Google Scholar
Binchy, James
2005 “ Three Forty-two So Please: Politeness for Sale in Southern-Irish Service Encounters.” In The Pragmatics of Irish English, ed. by Anne Barron and Klaus P. Schneider, 313–338. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Bliss, Alan J
1979 Spoken English in Ireland, 1600–1740. Dublin: Dolmen Press.Google Scholar
Brinton, Laurel
1996 Pragmatic Markers in English. Grammaticalization and Discourse Functions. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Buchstaller, Isabelle
2008 “The Localisation of Global Linguistic Variants.” English World-Wide 29 (1): 15–44. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2013 Quotatives: New Trends and Sociolinguistic Implications. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Buchstaller, Isabelle, and Alexandra D’Arcy
2009 “Localized Globalization: A Multi-local, Multivariate Investigation of Quotative Be Like.” Journal of Sociolinguistics 13 (3): 291–331. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Buchstaller, Isabelle, and Ingrid van Alphen.
(eds) 2012 Quotatives: Cross-Linguistic and Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Carter, Ronald, and Michael J. McCarthy
2006 Cambridge Grammar of English: A Comprehensive Guide to Spoken and Written Grammar and Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Chambers, J.K
2003 Sociolinguistic Theory. 2nd edn. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Cheshire, Jenny
2006 “Age- and Generation-specific Use of Language.” In Sociolinguistics: An International Handbook of The Science of Language and Society, Volume VII, ed. by Ulrich Ammon, Norbert Dittmar and Klaus J. Mattheier, 1552–63, 2nd edn. Berlin, Germany: Walter de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Cheshire, Jenny, Paul Kerswill, and Ann Williams
2005 “On the Non-Convergence of Phonology, Grammar and Discourse.” In Dialect Change: Convergence and Divergence in European Languages, ed. by Peter Auer, Frans Hinskens and Paul Kerswill, 135–167. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Clague, Marie
2009 “Crosslinguistic Discourse Markers in Manx Gaelic and English.” In Proceedings of the Harvard Celtic Colloquium, vol. 25. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Department of Celtic Languages and Literatures Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard.Google Scholar
Clark, Sandra
2010 Newfoundland and Labrador English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Columbus, Georgie
2009 “Irish Like as an Invariant Tag: Evidence from ICE-Ireland.” Paper presented at American Association for Corpus Linguistics (AACL) 2009 , Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. http://​www​.ualberta​.ca​/~aacl2009​/PDFs​/Columbus2009AACL​.pdf (Last accessed March 2013).
Corrigan, Karen P
1999 “Language Contact and Language Shift in County Armagh, 1178–1659.” Ulster Folklife 45: 54–69.Google Scholar
2003 “The Ideology of Nationalism and its Impact on Accounts of Language Shift in Nineteenth Century Ireland.” Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik 28 (2): 201–230.Google Scholar
2010 Irish English, Volume 1: Northern Ireland. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Corrigan, Karen P., Isabelle Buchstaller, Adam Mearns, and Hermann Moisl
2012 The Diachronic Electronic Corpus of Tyneside English. Newcastle: Newcastle University [http://​research​.ncl​.ac​.uk​/decte/]Google Scholar
Crowe, Eyre Evans
1829 Yesterday in Ireland. New York: J. & J. Harper.Google Scholar
Dailey-O’Cain, Jennifer
2000 “The Sociolinguistic Distribution of and Attitudes towards Focuser Like and Quotative Like .” Journal of Sociolinguistics 4 (1): 60–80. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
D’Arcy, Alexandra
2005 LIKE: Syntax and Development. Unpublished, PhD Thesis, University of Toronto.Google Scholar
2010 “Quoting Ethnicity: Constructing Dialogue in Aotearoa/New Zealand.” Journal of Sociolinguistics 14 (1): 60–88. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Dineen, Stephen S
1904 Foclóir Gaeidhilge agus Béarla. Dublin: Irish Texts Society.Google Scholar
Diskin, Chloe
2013 “Integration and Identity: Acquisition of Irish-English by Polish and Chinese migrants in Dublin, Ireland.” Newcastle Working Papers in Linguistics 19 (1): 67–89.Google Scholar
Dolan, Terence Patrick
2012 A Dictionary of Hiberno-English, 3rd edn. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan.Google Scholar
Farr, Fiona, and Bróna Murphy
2009 “Religious References in Contemporary Irish English: ‘For the love of God almighty… I’m a holy terror for turf’.” Journal of Intercultural Pragmatics 6 (4): 535–559.Google Scholar
Fraser, Bruce
1996 “Pragmatic Markers.” Pragmatics 6 (2): 167–190. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
1999 “What are Discourse Markers?” Journal of Pragmatics 31 (7): 931–952. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Gardner-Chloros, P
2010 “Contact and Code-switching.” In The Handbook of Language Contact, ed. by Raymond Hickey, 188–207. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Harris, John
1984 “English in the North of Ireland.” In Language in the British Isles, ed. by Peter Trudgill, 115–34. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
1993 “The Grammar of Irish English.” In Real English: The Grammar of English Dialects in the British Isles, ed. by James Milroy and Lesley Milroy, 139–186. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Hay, Jennifer, Margaret Maclagan, and Elizabeth Gordon
2008 New Zealand English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Hickey, Raymond
2007 Irish English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Hickey, Tina
2005 “Language Contact in the Minority Language Immersion Pre-school.” In Proceedings Simposio Internacional Bilinguismo, 1297–1318. Vigo: University of Vigo, Spain.Google Scholar
Hunston, Susan
2002 Corpora in Applied Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Joyce, Patrick Weston
1910 English as we Speak it in Ireland. Dublin: Gill. 2nd reprinted edn. Dublin: Wolfhound Press, 1988.Google Scholar
Kallen, Jeffrey L
1997 “Irish English and World English: Lexical Perspectives.” In Englishes around the World. Studies in Honour of Manfred Görlach. Volume 1, General Studies, British Isles, North America, ed. by Edgar Schneider, 139–157. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2005 “Silence and Mitigation in Irish English Discourse”. In The Pragmatics of Irish English, ed. by Anne Barron and Klaus P. Schneider, 47–72. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kallen, Jeffrey L., and John M. Kirk
2007 “ICE-Ireland: Local Variations on Global Standards.” In Creating and Digitizing Language Corpora, Volume 1: Synchronic Databases, ed. by Joan C. Beal, Karen P. Corrigan, and Hermann L. Moisl, 121–162. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2008 ICE-Ireland: A User’s Guide. Belfast: Cló Ollscoil na Banríona.Google Scholar
Kallen, Jeffrey L
2013 Irish English, Volume 2: The Republic of Ireland. Berlin and New York: De Gruyter Mouton. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Labov, William
2001 Principles of Linguistic Change: Internal Factors. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Levey, Stephen
2006 “The Sociolinguistic Distribution of Discourse Marker like in Preadolescent Speech.” Multilingua 25 (4): 413–44. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Luckmann, Kathrin
2009 “The Pragmatic Marker Like in Clause-Final Position: Its Functional and Social Distribution in Irish English.” Unpublished MA Thesis, University of Duisburg-Essen.
Macafee, Caroline
1996 Concise Ulster Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Maschler, Yael
1994 “Metalanguaging and Discourse Markers in Bilingual Conversation.” Language in Society 23 (3): 325–366. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
1997 “Emergent Bilingual Grammar: The Case of Contrast.” Journal of Pragmatics 28 (3): 279–313. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
(ed.) 2000 Discourse Markers in Bilingual Conversation. Special issue of International Journal of Bilingualism 4 (4): 437–561.Google Scholar
Matras, Yaron
2005 “The Full Extent of Fusion: A Test Case for Connectivity and Language Contact.” In Kulturelle und sprachliche Kontakte: Prozesse des Wandels in historischen Spannungsfeldern Nordostafrikas/Westasiens, ed. by Walter Bisang, Thomas Bierschenk, Detlev Kreikenbom und Ursula Verhoeven, 241–255. Würzburg: Ergon Verlag.Google Scholar
McMahon, Sean, and Joe O’Donoghue
2009 Brewer’s Dictionary of Irish Phrase and Fable. 1st edn. 2004 London: Chambers Harrap.Google Scholar
Miller, Jim, and Regina Weinert
1995 “The Function of Like in Dialogue.” Journal of Pragmatics 23 (4): 365–393. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Milroy, Lesley
1980 Language and Social Networks. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
1987 Observing and Analyzing Natural Language. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Murphy, Bróna
2010 Corpus Linguistics and Sociolinguistics: Investigating Age and Gender in Female Talk. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Ní Bhaoill, Róise
2010 Ulster Gaelic Voices. Belfast: Iontaobhas Ultach.Google Scholar
Nestor, Niamh, Caitríona Ní Chasaide, and Vera Regan
2012 “Discourse Like and Identity – Poles in Ireland.” In New Perspectives on Irish English, ed. by Bettina Migge and Máire Ní Chiosáin, 327–354. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Partridge, Angela
1984 Caoineadh na dTrí Mhuire: Téama na Páise i bhFhilíocht Bhéil na Gaelige. Baile Átha Cliath: An Clóchomhar.Google Scholar
O’Malley Madec, Mary
2001 “English Discourse Markers in the Speech of Native Speakers of Irish.” In Béalra: Aistí ar Theangeolaíocht na Gaeilge, ed. by Brian Ó Catháin and Ruairí Ó hUiginn, 260–273. Maigh Nuad: An Sagart.Google Scholar
Pichler, Heike
2013 The Structure of Discourse-Pragmatic Variation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Robinson, Mairi
1985 The Concise Scots Dictionary. Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press.Google Scholar
Robinson, Philip
2006 Ulster-Scots: A Grammar of the Traditional Written and Spoken Language.Google Scholar
Schiffrin, Deborah
1987 Discourse Markers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Schweinberger, Martin
2012 “The Discourse Marker LIKE in Irish English.” In New Perspectives on Irish English, ed. by Bettina Migge and Máire Ní Chiosáin, 179–202. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Siemund, Peter, Georg Maier, and Martin Schweinberger
2009 “Towards a More Fine-grained Analysis of the Areal Distributions of Non-Standard Features of English.” In Language Contacts Meet English Dialects: Studies in Honour of Markku Filppula, ed. by Esa Pentillä and Heli Paulasto, 19–46. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Google Scholar
Tagliamonte, Sali A
2006 Analysing Sociolinguistic Variation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2012 Variationist Sociolinguistics: Change, Observation, Interpretation. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Tagliamonte, Sali A., and Alexandra D’Arcy
2007 “Frequency and Variation in the Community Grammar: Tracking a New Change Through the Generations.” Language Variation and Change 19 (2): 199–217. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Tagliamonte, Sali A., and Rachel Hudson
1999 “Be Like, et al. Beyond America: The Quotative System in British and Canadian Youth.” Journal of Sociolinguistics 3 (2): 147–172. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Trudgill, Peter
2004 New Dialect Formation. The Inevitability of Colonial Englishes. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Vaughan, Elaine, and Brian Clancy
2011 “The Pragmatics of Irish English.” English Today 27 (2): 47–52. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Wagner, Suzanne Evans
2012 “Age Grading in Sociolinguistic Theory.” Language and Linguistics Compass 6 (6): 371–382. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Walshe, Shane
2009 Irish English As Represented in Film. Bamberg: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Weinreich, Uriel
1953 Language in Contact: Findings and Problems. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Wright, Joseph
1905 English Dialect Dictionary. Oxford: Henry Frowde.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 9 other publications

No author info given
2017.  In Discourse-Pragmatic Variation in Context [Studies in Language Companion Series, 187], Crossref logo
Corrigan, Karen P. & Chloé Diskin
2020. ‘Northmen, Southmen, comrades all’? The adoption of discourse like by migrants north and south of the Irish border. Language in Society 49:5 ► pp. 745 ff. Crossref logo
Diskin‐Holdaway, Chloé
2021.  You know and like among migrants in Ireland and Australia . World Englishes Crossref logo
Hancil, Sylvie
2021.  In Studies at the Grammar-Discourse Interface [Studies in Language Companion Series, 219], ► pp. 230 ff. Crossref logo
ILBURY, CHRISTIAN
2021. ‘Ey, wait, wait, gully!’ Style, stance and the social meaning of attention signals in East London adolescent speech. English Language and Linguistics 25:3 ► pp. 621 ff. Crossref logo
Izutsu, Mitsuko Narita & Katsunobu Izutsu
2022.  American and Irish English speakers’ perceptions of the final particles so and but . World Englishes 41:2 ► pp. 207 ff. Crossref logo
Magliacane, Annarita
2020. Erasmus students in an Irish studyabroad context. Study Abroad Research in Second Language Acquisition and International Education 5:1 ► pp. 89 ff. Crossref logo
Ní Mhurchú, Aoife
2018. What’s Left to Say About Irish English Progressives? “I’m Not Going Having Any Conversation with You”. Corpus Pragmatics 2:3 ► pp. 289 ff. Crossref logo
Schweinberger, Martin
2020. Speech-unit final like in Irish English. English World-Wide. A Journal of Varieties of English 41:1 ► pp. 89 ff. Crossref logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 14 may 2022. 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.