This study analyzes the use of general extenders in recorded conversations in English and Spanish between nine pairs of young adult Spanish–English bilingual friends from Southern Arizona. Building on previous studies in both languages, 325 tokens of general extenders were analyzed quantitatively according to frequency, length in words, and function (referential or non–referential), as well as the gender and language dominance of participants. It was expected that general extenders would be susceptible to borrowing in a language contact situation since discourse–pragmatic features often appear on the periphery of grammar and are detachable. However, in the speech of the same Spanish–English bilinguals, contact with English did not appear to influence the use of general extenders in Spanish. No English forms of general extenders were found in Spanish. Moreover, general extenders in Spanish were significantly longer and were used to fulfill referential functions more often than general extenders in English. As the first study to analyze the use of general extenders in English and Spanish in the speech of the same bilinguals, these results underline the ability of bilinguals to both understand and reproduce the subtleties of the use of these features in the two languages they speak.

After a brief overview of the advent of functional approaches to language in the mid– and late 1900s, stressing the importance of investigating pragmatic, i.e. implicit aspects of language use, and of simultaneously approaching language from different perspectives, this overview stresses the importance of understanding – rather than of finding some definite truth about language. The analysis of pragmatic particles (you know, like, well) in the mid–1960s showcased a plethora of challenges for investigations of language function and use that had previously not attracted scholars’ attention. This strand of research has fruitfully continued, especially so within the DiPVaC community, and constantly opens up new avenues of research. This overview lastly offers a reinterpretation of the author’s 1981 study of you know in terms of aspects of responsibility, suggesting that precisely responsibility – and its various facets – need to be given a more central task in future studies of language function and use, discourse, and pragmatics.

This study provides a real–time analysis of variation in the use of consequence markers (ça) fait (que), donc, alors and English borrowing so in two genetically related varieties of Canadian French. It is based on corpora collected in the 1970s and 2010s in Montreal, Quebec, a majority francophone environment, and Welland, Ontario, a minority francophone environment. Comparison of the two corpora reveals that Montreal and Welland French had already started to diverge in the 1970s in relation to variant inventory, variant frequency, and constraints on their use and that intercommunity divergence has intensified over time. Among the manifestations of divergence, one can mention the emergence of connector so in Welland in the 1970s and its subsequent growth, at the expense of vernacular variant (ça) fait (que). This stands in contrast with a marked increase of (ça) fait (que) and its diffusion to all social groups in Montreal over time. The evolution of standard variant alors reveals another facet of intercommunity divergence. In Montreal, it has undergone a sharp decline and is becoming obsolescent in the speech of the younger generations; however, in Welland, it evidences stability. Our study discusses some of the (extra)linguistic factors accounting for such patterns of divergence.

Sentence–final is all has received little attention in the literature. Its use is a relatively recent development since the late nineteenth century, mostly restricted to colloquial American English (Delin 1992; Follett 1998). This chapter demonstrates that is all does not appear to represent reported speech so much as to refer back to the preceding text, in line with the OED’s claim that sentence–final is all implies ‘that is all there is to be said’. The chapter demonstrates that speakers often use sentence–final is all to close a topic and to distance themselves from an unwanted interpretation of the preceding utterance. In contrast, sentence–final that BE all ranges from literal meanings to the more (inter)subjective pragmatic meanings of is all.

The second half of the chapter examines the historical development, drawing on data from various corpora. The authors argue that sentence–final is all derives from postponed independent or conjoined that BE all by processes of phonological reduction and deletion with subsequent reanalysis. A conversational implicature arose from that is all ‘do not infer anything more’, triggering the development of reduced is all toward a discourse–pragmatic marker.

This chapter aims to analyze the variation in use and functions of a broad bottom–up selection of discourse markers across four languages from different typological families, namely French and Spanish (Romance), English (Germanic), and Polish (Slavic). Such an endeavor requires that we not only overcome issues of definition and delimitation of the discourse marker category but also design an annotation model encompassing their full functional spectrum, in the perspective of spoken discourse analysis. Our study follows a corpus–based multilingual annotation scheme for functions of (spoken) discourse markers. The functional taxonomy distinguishes between four domains that may be combined with fifteen functions. This taxonomy with two independent levels has been applied to spoken unplanned dialogues in the four languages. The annotations were extracted for contrastive analyses of distribution and variation of discourse markers and their functions. The results indicate that the multilingual annotation scheme may be applied validly to the four different languages. This makes it possible to uncover both similarities and divergences in the functional and semantic distribution of discourse markers. This multidimensional and multilingual approach to discourse markers offers a fine–grained portrait of the variation and of the polyfunctionality of this category across typological families.

This chapter presents a quantitative analysis of the frequency and function of you know among L1 speakers of Irish and Australian English and L2 speakers of Polish and Chinese background, residing in Ireland. Results show no significant differences in the frequency of you know in Irish as compared to Australian English. However, you know was highly correlated with I mean in Australian English only. Among the L2 speakers, you know was significantly more frequent among the Polish group as compared to both the Chinese group and the L1 group. Proficiency in English and length of residence were not found to be significant predictors of this trend, although Poles with lower levels of education were found to use more you know. Both L1 groups used more interpersonal functions of you know as compared to the L2 groups, who favored its coherence functions. The findings indicate that the prevalence of you know may contribute to its rapid adoption by L2 speakers, but more close analysis reveals potential challenges for L2 speakers to acquire the full range of functions of discourse–pragmatic markers in spoken discourse. The study shows the importance of examining both frequency and function of discourse–pragmatic markers in language contact situations.