Publications

Publication details [#31797]

Malcolm, Ian G. and Farzad Sharifian. 2003. The pragmatic marker like in English teen talk: Australian Aboriginal usage. Pragmatics & Cognition 11 (2) : 327–344.
Publication type
Article in journal
Publication language
English
Language as a subject
Place, Publisher
John Benjamins
ISBN
0929-0907
Journal DOI
10.1075/pc

Annotation

This study reports on the use of like in Aboriginal English teen talk. The analysis of a sub-corpus of 40 adolescent texts from a corpus of 100 narratives by speakers of Aboriginal English in Western Australia revealed that like is often employed by these speakers, and that it achieves a multitude of functions. In general it is observed that like may mark off a) a discrepancy between the intended conceptualization and the expressed concept, b) an attitude, feeling, or certain degree of commitment towards a lexical item, and c) a shift in some element of discourse. The results of this study support and extend the analysis carried out by Andersen (2000) on London teen talk.