The use and perception of question tags in Trinidadian English

Michael Westphal
Kiel University

Abstract

This study presents an analysis of the use and perception of variant question tags and the seven invariant forms eh, ent, nah, OK, not so, right, and you know in Trinidadian English. The analysis of use is based on four dialogue text types from the Trinidad and Tobago component of the International Corpus of English and takes a variationist approach. The analysis of the perception is based on a survey that combines a multiple-choice test, where participants were presented with different dialogue scenarios and had to select the form they found most appropriate, and an indirect language attitude test, in which participants rated the use of the eight question tags on attitudinal scales and added open comments. The usage and perception profiles of the eight forms largely overlap but there are marked differences for individual forms.

Keywords:
Publication history

Date received: 24 October 2022

Date accepted: 12 June 2023

Published online: 23 October 2023

Table of contents

Pragmatic markers come in a multitude of forms and are an integral part of spoken discourse as speakers use them to structure conversations, guide utterance interpretation, integrate other participants into a conversation, encode politeness, and express their own stance (Ajimer 2013, 4–8; Beeching 2016, 4; Brinton 2017, 2–8). In this paper, the term pragmatic marker is used as an umbrella term to describe markers that both structure discourse and express speaker stance. Despite their functional significance, they are commonly stigmatized (Schiffrin 1987, 45; Watts 1989). In addition, they are very difficult to classify in conventional categories of structural linguistics, as they are syntactically optional, only loosely connected to the syntax of an utterance, often short and phonologically reduced; they do not fit into any traditional word class, often do not change the truth-conditional meaning of an utterance, and instead fulfill a wide range of pragmatic functions. Pragmatic markers have been largely ignored in theoretical linguistics and many strands of applied linguistics have only paid more attention to them recently.

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