The paper presents an analysis of speakers in Dublin, Ireland who align themselves with an authoritative interactional identity by realising a slit-t variant. A statistical analysis is first presented and then salient patterns of variation are discussed before proceeding to a qualitative evaluation. The latter highlights the discourse functions clustering around the slit-t occurrences, which indicate that a speaker will adopt a sociopragmatic position, like emphasizing a point. My interpretations characterize the interactions where slit-t tokens are found as epistemically-based, inferring how speakers position themselves and others. The conclusions include a discussion of how ethnographically informed, qualitatively-skewed mixed methods can elucidate the social meaning of linguistic variants.
