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Studies at the Grammar-Discourse Interface: Discourse markers and discourse-related grammatical phenomena
Edited by Alexander Haselow and Sylvie Hancil
[Studies in Language Companion Series 219] 2021
► pp. 229–244

Chapter 8
The final particle like in Northern English

A particle of reformulation in the context of interenunciative readjustment

| University of Rouen Normandy

The study of the use of quotative like has been the object of increasing interest from linguists over the last two decades (see Romaine & Lange 1991; Buchstaller 2002, among others) as it is a recent and global phenomenon. By contrast, final like is more established and restricted to varieties in the British Isles. It is possible to further this research by relying on the NECTE corpus (Newcastle Electronic Corpus of Tyneside English), since in Northern English, especially in Newcastle English, the particle is developing a new function of discourse marker; it is associated with semantic values of anaphor, cataphor, intensifier and filler. The final position of the marker can be held responsible for the development of a significant number of interactional forces between speaker and co-speaker, which reveal the discursive strategy of the speaker towards the co-speaker (Pomerantz 1984). The study will be complemented by the analysis of the final particle like in the light of Brown & Levinson (1987)’s politeness theory and it will be shown that its use is a combination of negative and positive politeness within the utterance.

Keywords: final particle, anaphor, cataphor, intensifier, filler, interactional forces, politeness theory
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.A preliminary study
  • 3.Data
  • 4.Theoretical background
  • 5.Semantic values of sentence-final like
    • 5.1Anaphoric value
    • 5.2Cataphoric value
    • 5.3Intensifying value
    • 5.4Phatic value
  • 6.Discourse strategy and interactional forces
    • 6.1Encouragement of the hearer’s agreement
      • 6.1.1Examples of agreement
      • 6.1.2Markers of disagreeement
    • 6.2Markers of the hearer’s attitude
  • 7.Politeness theory and sentence-final like
  • 8.Conclusion
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 3 June 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.219.08han
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Corpus

NECTE corpus (Newcastle Electronic Corpus of Tyneside English)
accessed September 2009).

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Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary
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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
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