Social stereotypes, personality traits and regional perception displaced: Attitudes towards the ‘new’ quotatives in the U.K.¹

Abstract

This article investigates the attitudes of British respondents towards the quotatives be like and go. The results of a matched guise test and a social attitudes survey are presented and compared with the findings of studies on be like and go‐perception in the U.S. It is found that the perceptual load of the two quotatives on both sides of the Atlantic is similar in some respects and different in others. This effectively means that, in cases of borrowing, the stereotypes attached to linguistic items are not simply taken over along with the surface item. Rather, the adoption of global resources is a more agentive process, whereby attitudes are re‐evaluated and re‐created by speakers of the borrowing variety. It is suggested that attitudinal information presents an important backdrop to distributional studies in cases of global language trends.

Linguistic variation, identity construction and cognition

“…Both quotative and discourse particle like are discursive items associated in language ideology with youth culture in the US and the UK (Dailey-O'Cain 2000; Buchstaller 2006), making them prime potential candidates in which to observe phonetic variation that signals 'youth' as well as characteristics associated with youth culture. Though comparable work has yet to be carried out in New Zealand, conversations between girls at the school suggest that speakers of New Zealand English associate like with youth culture.…”

The localization of global linguistic variants

“…9 A locally sensitive investigation of global innovations calls for methods that can capture the linguistic processes at the two (national) levels of spatiality under scrutiny: We need to be able to shed light on the creative strategies via which speakers craft and negotiate linguistic spatiality while still taking part in global 7. Buchstaller and D' Arcy (2007) are currently exploring the global processes involved in the spread of quotative like in more localities, namely the USA, the UK, New Zealand, as well as Canada.…”

“…The only other language mentioned in the literature in which the lexeme go can have speech introductory function is Dongala (Güldemann 2001). However, the development from an approximate-comparative item (such as like) to a quotative is attested in a number of typologically unrelated languages (Underhill 1988;Meyerhoff and Niedzielski 1998;Buchstaller 2004). Therefore, an independent, parallel development in Britain and the USA cannot be ruled out.…”

“…The spread of be like and go is a global process in the sense that younger speakers of a number of varieties of English are now using these features for the introduction of verbal quotation but did not do so previously (Tagliamonte and Hudson 1999;Singler 2001;Buchstaller 2004;Tagliamonte and D' Arcy 2004). 3 Much has been written about these newcomers and their attestation in many varieties of English (such as the USA, Canada, Singapore, South Africa, the UK, etc.…”

“…In fact, the sociolinguistic literature contains a body of cumulative evidence that, in a number of ways, the two quotatives are generally used in the same way in both varieties (Ferrara and Bell 1995;Tagliamonte and Hudson 1999;Macaulay 2001;Buchstaller 2004;Barbieri 2005). 12 Two frequently adduced constraints will serve here as cases in point.…”