Discourse-Pragmatic Variation and Change in English New Methods and Insights

This volume brings together key players in discourse variation research to offer original analyses of a wide range of discourse-pragmatic variables, such as 'like', 'innit', 'you get me', and 'at the end of the day'. The authors introduce a range of new methods specifically tailored to the study of discourse-pragmatic variation and change in synchronic and longitudinal dialect data, and provide new empirical and theoretical insights into discourse-pragmatic variation and change in contemporary varieties of English. The volume thus enhances our understanding of the complexities of discourse-pragmatic variation and change, and encourages new ways of thinking about variability in discourse-pragmatics. With its dual focus on presenting innovative methods as well as new results, the volume will provide an important resource for both newcomers and veterans alike in the field of discourse variation analysis, and spark discussions that will set new directions for future work in the field.

List of figures; List of tables; Notes on editor and contributors; Acknowledgements; List of abbreviations; Introduction: discourse-pragmatic variation and change Heike Pichler; 1. Using the corpus-driven method to chart discourse-pragmatic change Gisle Andersen; 2. Practical strategies for elucidating discourse-pragmatic variation Cathleen Waters; 3. Uncovering discourse-pragmatic innovations: 'innit' in Multicultural London English Heike Pichler; 4. Innovation, 'right'? Change, 'you know'? Utterance-final tags in Canadian English Derek Denis and Sali A. Tagliamonte; 5. Antecedents of innovation: exploring general extenders in conservative dialects Sali A. Tagliamonte; 6. Quotatives across time: West Australian English then and now Celeste Rodríguez Louro; 7. The role of children in the propagation of discourse-pragmatic change: insights from the acquisition of quotative variation Stephen Levey; 8. Register variation in intensifier usage across Asian Englishes Robert Fuchs and Ulrike Gut; 9. The use of referential general extenders across registers Suzanne Wagner, Ashley Hesson and Heidi Little; 10. Constructing style: phonetic variation in quotative and discourse particle 'like' Katie Drager; Epilogue: the future of discourse-pragmatic variation and change research Jenny Cheshire.

Heike Pichler is Lecturer in Sociolinguistics at Newcastle University. She is author of The Structure of Discourse-Pragmatic Variation (2013) and has published in English Language and Linguistics, the Journal of Sociolinguistics and Intercultural Pragmatics. She is the founder of the Discourse-Pragmatic Variation and Change (DiPVaC) conference series which serves to provide a forum for exploring methodological, empirical and theoretical advancements in the quantitative, variationist analysis of discourse-pragmatic features, and she is also Chair of the DiPVaC research network (www.dipvac.org).