Exploring linguistic malleability across the life span: Age-specific patterns in quotative use. (24th August 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Buchstaller, Isabelle
• Is Part Of: Language in society. Volume 44:Number 4(2015:Sep.)
• Page Start: 457
• Page End: 496
• Publication Date: 2015-08-24
• Subjects: Sociolinguistics -- Periodicals; 305
• DOI: 10.1017/S0047404515000391
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0047-4045

Abstract

<abstract abstract-type="normal"> <title>Abstract</title> <p>This article explores the degree and kind of lability that occurs throughout the life span of the individual during ongoing rapid change in the quotative system. Two comparative analyses trace speakers' use of <italic>be like</italic> across a shorter and a longer time span. Trend data reveal that the robust change is arrested in the middle age brackets; speakers in their thirties seem to display 'retrograde movement' (Sankoff &amp; Wagner 2006) away from the community-wide change. This finding could be interpreted as incipient age-grading. A small-scale panel sample collected forty-two years after the initial interview suggests that some older speakers participate in the trend, albeit at very low frequencies. This finding, while exploratory at the moment, might be interpreted as indicative of 'life-span change' (Sankoff 2005). A conception of the change in progress in the quotative system as monotonous would thus both under and overestimate the rate of change. (Change across the life span, age-grading, retrograde change, life-span change, quotation, style, language ideologies)<xref ref-type="fn" rid="en26">*</xref></p> </abstract>