That’s absolutely fine
An investigation of absolutely in the spoken BNC2014
This chapter investigates the meanings and functions of the
intensifier absolutely, both synchronically and diachronically. The
research questions are asked against the background of absolutely
becoming more frequent over a short period of time as shown by a comparison of the
BNC1994 and the BNC2014. The results show that the developments undergone by
absolutely can be described as a trajectory from degree modifier to
emphasizer and to discourse marker, as absolutely increases in
subjectivity. The description of the semantic and pragmatic developments also requires a
sociolinguistic analysis of factors such as age and gender. The analysis shows that
young speakers use it less often than older speakers and that it was first used by male
speakers and only later by females.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Methods
- 3.The frequency of absolutely
- 4.The frequency of absolutely with different syntactic head
words
- 4.1Absolutely with adjectives
- 4.2Absolutely modifying a verb
- 4.3Absolutely followed by everything, all, never, nothing,
no
- 4.4Absolutely with nouns
- 4.5Absolutely before preposition phrases
- 4.6Absolutely as a discourse marker at the end of the
clause
- 5.The response marker absolutely
- 6.Discussion
- 7.Conclusion
-
Notes
-
References
-
Appendix