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The sociolinguistics of a short-lived innovation: Tracing the development of quotative all across spoken and internet newsgroup data

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2010

Isabelle Buchstaller ,
John R. Rickford ,
Elizabeth Closs Traugott ,
Thomas Wasow  and
Arnold Zwicky
Isabelle Buchstaller
Affiliation:
Newcastle University
John R. Rickford
Affiliation:
Stanford University
Elizabeth Closs Traugott
Affiliation:
Stanford University
Thomas Wasow
Affiliation:
Stanford University
Arnold Zwicky
Affiliation:
Stanford University
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Abstract

This paper examines a short-lived innovation, quotative all, in real and apparent time. We used a two-pronged method to trace the trajectory of all over the past two decades: (i) Quantitative analyses of the quotative system of young Californians from different decades; this reveals a startling crossover pattern: in 1990/1994, all predominates, but by 2005, it has given way to like. (ii) Searches of Internet newsgroups; these confirm that after rising briskly in the 1990s, all is declining. Tracing the changing usage of quotative options provides year-to-year evidence that all has recently given way to like. Our paper has two aims: We provide insights from ongoing language change regarding short-term innovations in the history of English. We also discuss our collaboration with Google Inc. and argue for the value of newsgroups to research projects investigating linguistic variation and change in real time, especially where recorded conversational tokens are relatively sparse.

Type
Research Article
Information
Language Variation and Change , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , July 2010 , pp. 191 - 219
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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