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Spanish in Context
Vol. 11:2 (2014) ► pp.175–201

Strategies used by English and Spanish teenagers to intensify language

A contrastive corpus-based study

The aim of the present paper is to investigate some of the strategies used by English and Spanish teenagers to intensify language. For this purpose, we have analysed data from three corpora of teenagers language. Our analysis shows the frequent use of really and so as intensifiers in English, yet a low frequency in Spanish of adverbs ending in -mente. Taboo words, such as bloody and fucking in English, and puto and jodido in Spanish, are quite commonly attested as intensifiers, although the former seem to be more grammaticalised and are much more multifunctional than their Spanish counterparts. Expletives are also a frequent resource to intensify language but while in English they bear religious connotations, in Spanish they are associated with sexuality. Finally, some other devices were considered: prefixes in English (super-, mega-, uber-), suffixes in Spanish (-ón, -azo, -orro), and a series of expressions (e.g. cool in English and a tope in Spanish). From all this, we conclude that there exist common tendencies regarding intensifying strategies used by teenagers although important differences have also been attested in each individual language
Keywords: spoken language, expletives, intensification, teen talk, grammaticalisation
Published online: 5 September 2014
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https://doi.org/10.1075/sic.11.2.02pal
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