5.3.1 Clause- or Utterance-Final Items

General extenders (GEs), such as and stuff, or something like that and whatever, prototypically occur in clause-final position, mark the preceding referent (‘roasts’in (1)) as a member of a set (‘English food’), and contain one or more of these components: connector + modifier + generic noun/pronoun + similative + deictic (1) (Pichler and Levey Reference Pichler and Levey2011:448).

1. (1)

   I quite like the English food actually I love roasts and things like that (Cheshire Reference Cheshire2007:174)

The variability of GEs has been investigated in Reading (Cheshire Reference Cheshire2007), London (Aijmer Reference Aijmer2002; Levey Reference Levey2012; Palacios Martínez Reference Palacios Martínez2011; Secova Reference Secova2017; Stenström, Andersen and Hasund Reference Stenström, Andersen and Hasund2002), Hertfordshire (Stenström et al. Reference Stenström, Andersen and Hasund2002), and Milton Keynes (Cheshire Reference Cheshire2007) in the southern region; and in Hull (Cheshire Reference Cheshire2007), York (Denis Reference Denis2010, Reference Denis2011), Maryport (Tagliamonte Reference Tagliamonte2013), and Berwick-upon-Tweed (Pichler and Levey Reference Pichler and Levey2010, Reference Pichler and Levey2011) in the northern region. Normalised GE frequencies vary greatly across locations and social groups. In Berwick, GEs are markedly higher among (young) males. No consistent gender effects were detected among adolescents in Hull, Reading and Milton Keynes; in London, GEs are (marginally) more frequent among females. Social class and age effects are similarly varied. Frequencies are higher among working-class adolescents in Hull and among middle-class adolescents in Reading and Milton Keynes. The frequency of GEs increases with decreasing age in York and Berwick in the north, but in London it is lower among adolescents than adults and pre-adolescents. Focusing on adolescent data only (to rule out confounding age effects), we can discern no clear geographical trends in GE frequency. But we acknowledge that such trends may be masked by effects of social class and interactional context, predictors not consistently controlled across studies.

There are cross-variety similarities in the diversity and distribution of GE forms. Large numbers of individual forms (as many as 84 and 94 in multi-generational data from York and Berwick) exist across varieties, typically distributed unevenly between a small number of frequent and a large number of infrequent forms. Short and adjunctive GE forms (e.g. and that, and stuff) tend to outnumber longer and disjunctive forms (e.g. or something like that). Or something is consistently the most frequent disjunctive GE. In post-1990 datasets, the most frequent adjunctive GEs are and that, and everything, and things (like that), and stuff (like that). Among adolescents, and things may be more frequent in the south than the north.

In Reading, London, Milton Keynes, Hull, York and Berwick, the use of stuff-forms (2) sharply increases among young speakers, especially among highly gregarious adolescents and those with very diverse networks (Denis Reference Denis2011; Secova Reference Secova2017:12). They are less frequent in working-class data from Maryport and Berwick, suggesting either that these forms thrive in mainstream (rather than peripheral) varieties, or that they are innovated by middle- (rather than working-) class adolescents. Robust social class distinctions are also evidenced for and that (3): across both northern and southern varieties, and that is characteristic of working-class sociolects. In contrast to innovating stuff-forms, the widespread use of and that is a retention of a conservative dialect feature (Tagliamonte Reference Tagliamonte2013:176). In Berwick, and that is also used more by male and young speakers. In London, and that is marked for heritage background (white British), and and everything is marked for speaker sex (female). Selected GE forms are marked for region (e.g. or summat and or (n)owt (like that) seem restricted to the north).

1. (2)

   I’ve never been one to be distracted by boys and stuff but I was distracted by man (Secova Reference Secova2017:1)

1. (3)

   she normally goes there and sits on the swings and that (Levey Reference Levey2012:258)

Across southern and northern varieties, GEs with the generic things are more likely than other GE forms to occur with comparative elements and with antecedent referents that match the syntactic-semantic properties of things [+inanimate, +plural], and to perform a set-extending function (see (1) above). Across most varieties, stuff-GEs resemble things-GEs in regularly implicating a general set; they differ in that there is usually a mismatch between the properties of stuff ([+inanimate] [+mass]) and those of the antecedent referent (see (2) above). The properties of and that and and everything also differ from things-GEs in a manner consistent across varieties. They tend to be short and are more likely than other forms to perform interpersonal and textual (rather than set-marking) functions. For example, in (4) and everything functions to reinforce the preceding information about the speaker’s work on a brochure. Unlike and that, which tends to be preferred after nominal referents across most varieties (see (3) above), and everything has consistently high rates after non-nominal referents. Despite these cross-variety similarities, conclusions about the regional distribution of GE syntactic-semantic properties and their functions must remain tentative because of lack of uniformity in methods of analysis.

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   And I designed it and did the layout and everything (Aijmer Reference Aijmer2002:241)

Like GEs, grammatically dependent negative-polarity question tags (NPQTs) are frequent, multifunctional and variable across varieties in England. NPQTs consist of an auxiliary, negator and pronoun; the auxiliary and pronoun tend to match the syntactic-semantic properties of the subject and verb of their anchor clause and reverse its polarity (5).

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   It’s lush, isn’t it? (Childs Reference Childs2021:427)

   And we could baffle them, couldn’t we? (Pichler Reference Pichler2013:170)

The distribution of (a)in(t)- and isn’t it-tags is analysed across regions in BNC1994 by Anderwald (Reference Anderwald2002) and Krug (Reference Krug1998). Selected NPQTs have also been investigated in: London (Andersen Reference Andersen2001; Cheshire and Fox Reference Cheshire and Fox2009; Erman Reference Erman and Haukioja1998; Kimps et al. Reference Kimps, Davidse and Cornillie2014; Palacios Martínez Reference Palacios Martínez2015; Pichler Reference Pichler2021a; Torgersen et al. Reference Torgersen, Gabrielatos, Hoffmann and Fox2011), Reading (Cheshire Reference Cheshire1981; Cheshire et al. Reference Cheshire, Kerswill, Williams, Auer, Hinskens and Kerswill2005), and Milton Keynes (Cheshire et al. Reference Cheshire, Kerswill, Williams, Auer, Hinskens and Kerswill2005) in the southern dialect region; in Salford (Childs Reference Childs2021) in the central region; in Bolton (Moore and Podesva Reference Moore and Podesva2009) on the northern–central border; and in Hull (Cheshire et al. Reference Cheshire, Kerswill, Williams, Auer, Hinskens and Kerswill2005), York (Tagliamonte Reference Tagliamonte1998), Tyneside (Childs Reference Childs2019, Reference Childs2021; McDonald and Beal Reference McDonald and Beal1987) and Berwick-upon-Tweed (Pichler Reference Pichler2013) in the northern region.

In all varieties examined, NPQTs are multifunctional. The frequency of individual functions fluctuates across comparable studies in London, Salford, Tyneside and Berwick, but tags soliciting listener responses always predominate. In London English, the functional profile of NPQTs is unstable, possibly because of the rise and evolution of innit here. NPQTs not soliciting listener responses are on the rise in London, where selected NPQT forms also guide narrative interpretation (6).

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   We all got pizza innit. We beat up the pizza man. Then we took his bike innit, joyriding it. And the police come innit. (Pichler Reference Pichler2021a:729)

In some varieties, function conditions the choice between NPQT forms. In Tyneside English, NPQTs seeking information contain only an isolate negator (7a); those seeking confirmation contain both clitic and isolate negators (7b). Across the central and northern varieties investigated, phonetically non-reduced NPQTs (7) are linked with seeking verification, confirmation and involvement. In adolescent Reading English, ain’t-tags always solicit a listener response while in’t-tags can also convey aggression or hostility toward listeners (8). Krug (Reference Krug1998:151–2) suggests a widespread link between disyllabic NPQTs and non-response elicitation.

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   a.	She can’t come, can she not?
   b.	She can’t come, can’t she not?
   (McDonald and Beal Reference McDonald and Beal1987:53)

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   You’re a fucking hard nut, in’t you? (Cheshire Reference Cheshire1981:376)

(A)in(t)-tags are infrequent in BNC1994, especially in southern dialect regions and among younger speakers. Their low and decreasing frequency is also evidenced in London, Salford, Bolton, Hull, Tyneside and Berwick. Unlike (a)in(t)-tags, innit is increasing in frequency across England. In BNC1994, innit has a higher frequency south of Trudgill’s (Reference Trudgill1999) central-southern dialect boundary, a finding broadly supported by studies of private corpora.

Methodologically comparable studies exploring the sociolinguistic distribution of innit show regional effects on innit use. In Salford, Tyneside and Berwick in the central and northern dialect regions, innit is outnumbered by, but competes vigorously with, its presumed source form isn’t it. Here, as well as in Reading, Milton Keynes and Hull, innit is largely restricted to third-person singular neuter present tense be-anchors (9a). In London, innit has all but replaced isn’t it and come to be used across anchor contexts (9b). The functional and social profile of innit varies across individual central and northern varieties as well as across northern, central and southern varieties. In northern and central varieties, innit never guides narrative interpretation; in London, it regularly does so among adolescents (see (6) above). Outside London, innit is used more by male (adolescent) speakers and working-class adolescents. In London, male and female adolescents from all class and ethnic backgrounds use innit frequently across all anchor contexts and for all the NPQT functions; amongst those from ethnic minority backgrounds and in multiethnic boroughs, innit has virtually replaced other NPQT forms. Geographical variation in innit use may reflect its longer history in London English, with its spread in London possibly accelerated by widespread language contact in the community.

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   a.	Home’s always home, innit? (Pichler Reference Pichler2013:189)
   b.	You get dazed, innit? (Pichler Reference Pichler2021a:724)

Other phonetically reduced NPQT forms are also prevalent across England. For example, the auxiliary-negator string din(t) (for didn’t, don’t, doesn’t) (10a) has been attested in London, Salford, Bolton, and Berwick; and the reduced string wun(t) (for wouldn’t) (10b) in London and Salford. Overall, the frequency of reduced (relative to non-reduced) NPQTs varies across regions and social groups. Notwithstanding potential interviewer effects (Childs Reference Childs2019), reduced forms are more frequent in Salford than in Tyneside and Berwick, among male than female Tynesiders, and among younger than older Londoners.

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   a.	You went all weird, dint you? (Moore and Podesva Reference Moore and Podesva2009:470)
   b.	You just fail, wun you? (Pichler Reference Pichler2021a:757)

Non-standard weren’t-tags (11) occur across most dialect areas in BNC1994 but with vastly differential frequencies – highest in East Anglia and lowest in the north-west Midlands. Other studies show that in central and northern England, non-standard weren’t-tags are more frequent in Bolton and York than in Tyneside and Berwick. In York and Outer London, their use is associated with young females, but only in Outer London is weren’t it regularly attached to anchors that do not contain third-person singular neuter subjects and/or past tense forms of be (11b).

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   a.	He was shorter and stockier, weren’t he? (Tagliamonte Reference Tagliamonte1998:164)
   b.	Cos I stopped bunning, weren’t it? (Cheshire and Fox Reference Cheshire and Fox2009:25)

Finally, Tyneside English and Berwick English have NPQTs with divn’t (for don’t) and the isolate negator no (for not) (12), which are not typically found outside the north(-east) of England (or Scotland).

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   a.	I mean, you get drugs everywhere, divn’t you?
   b.	I think kecks really is underpants, is it no?
   (Pichler Reference Pichler2013:183)

Invariant tags (IVTs) occur across anchor types (13a), and some also occur in pre-finite position (13b, 13c). Here, we focus primarily on their use in clause- or utterance-final position.

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   a.	it was more like a rifle, it hadn’t got a stand, you know, more like a rifle butt, you know (Beeching Reference Beeching2016:111)
   b.	This geezer from Bedlam yeah got stopped the other day in his car yeah (Stenström et al. Reference Stenström, Andersen and Hasund2002:172)
   c.	In that episode right she gets pregnant (Stenström et al. Reference Stenström, Andersen and Hasund2002:181)

Although IVTs occur throughout England, their distribution has not been widely investigated. Beeching (Reference Beeching2016) examines you know in BNC1994 but without considering regional effects. Selected IVTs have been studied in Reading (Cheshire and Williams Reference Cheshire and Williams2002), Liverpool (Herat Reference Herat2018), Hull (Cheshire et al. Reference Cheshire, Kerswill, Williams, Auer, Hinskens and Kerswill2005), Tyneside (Bartlett Reference Bartlett2013; Beal Reference Beal, Kortmann, Schneider, Burridge, Mesthrie and Upton2004; Bueno-Amaro Reference Bueno-Amaro2022), and Maryport (Tagliamonte Reference Tagliamonte2013). Several studies analyse (adolescent) data from London (Andersen Reference Andersen and Pichler2016; Erman Reference Erman2001; Pichler Reference Pichler and Pichler2016, Reference Pichler, Beaman, Buchstaller, Fox and Walker2021b; Oxbury Reference Oxbury2021; Stenström et al. Reference Stenström, Andersen and Hasund2002; Torgersen et al. Reference Torgersen, Gabrielatos, Hoffmann and Fox2011; Torgersen, Gabrielatos and Hoffmann Reference Torgersen, Gabrielatos, Hoffmann and Friginal2018). Their variable distribution across London boroughs suggests that IVTs are susceptible to geographical variation. As such, they warrant discussion here.

Despite reported drops in frequency, you know remains (one of) the most frequent IVT form(s) among London working-class adolescents. The functions of final you know may vary across social groups (e.g. Erman Reference Erman2001). In BNC1994, it typically evokes consensual truths or seeks agreement, depending on intonation, and is correlated with unskilled working-class speakers and speakers aged 60+. The age correlation may be widespread; it is discernible in working-class data from Berwick (Pichler and Levey Reference Pichler and Levey2010) and tallies with our informal observations of working-class data from London, Salford and Tyneside. Other IVT forms with you+know, specifically (do) (you) know what I mean and (do) you know what I’m saying, are increasing in London working-class speech, with females, those of white British heritage and those from Outer London in the lead. If you know what I mean is also significantly more frequent in Outer than Inner London.

Other IVT forms that differentiate Inner and Outer London – and possibly other – varieties are: (do)/(if) (you) get me, (do)/(if) you get what I mean, (do)/(if) you get what I’m saying (14). These (you) get (me)-forms are negligible in Outer London. In Inner London, they are innovated by male adolescents from ethnic minority backgrounds, with selected (you) get (me)-tags increasingly adopted by female adolescents from ethnic minority backgrounds and adolescents of white British heritage with highly ethnically diverse friendship networks.

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   I don’t care bruv.. you get me? (Torgersen et al. Reference Torgersen, Gabrielatos, Hoffmann and Friginal2018:181)

   that’s how I see it if you can’t stick up for your mum then you’re worth nothing do you get what I mean? that’s how I see it (Andersen Reference Andersen and Pichler2016:38)

The rise of long you know-tags in Outer London and of (you) get (me)-tags in Inner London affects the frequency and distribution of more long-standing IVTs in London English, such as yeah, right, okay and eh (see (13b) above). Although among the most widely used IVTs in London, use of yeah is falling in some areas. It is used more by adolescents who are male, working class and from Outer London. Right and okay are now the least frequent IVTs in London adolescent speech. Both are ethnic minority features; the former is also more frequent among working-class adolescents and in Inner London. Overall, the use of IVTs in London English is markedly higher among adolescents than other age groups. Only the form eh occurs more frequently among adults.

Qualitative analyses of IVTs in London English tend to include innit, on the basis that – like other IVTs – it lacks syntactic-semantic usage constraints in this variety. These analyses reveal that individual IVT forms are not fully interchangeable. For example, okay – unlike innit, yeah, eh and right – is not used to signal uncertainty or solicit extended listener responses; eh – unlike innit, yeah, okay, right – is not used to guide narrative interpretation; and innit performs functions not performed by yeah, right, okay, and vice versa (see Stenström et al. Reference Stenström, Andersen and Hasund2002:184). London male adolescents’ choice of IVT form may also be determined by the story worlds and stances they create and adopt in narratives (Pichler Reference Pichler, Beaman, Buchstaller, Fox and Walker2021b).

We noted earlier that some IVT forms are positionally flexible. They can occur after clause-initial PPs and subject or left-dislocated NPs (13b,c, and 15), where they take narrow scope over the preceding PP or NP and request corroboration of its activation (and identification). For innit, this flexibility has been noted in London English but not in comparable analyses in northern varieties.

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   Cos the export people, innit, they sprayed the spray yeah. (Pichler Reference Pichler and Pichler2016:72)

Clause-final like broadly functions as an emphatic device with declaratives and as a signal of interest or surprise with interrogatives (16). It is typically associated with traditional dialects and with north-east England (and Scottish and Irish) varieties, but it is also prevalent in Liverpool and Maryport. In Liverpool and Tyneside, clause-final like is most frequent among young males; across England, it indexes working-class masculinity (Beeching Reference Beeching2016:155). While not exclusive to central and northern varieties, it is generally rare in the south of England and London (e.g. Levey Reference Levey2006:425).

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   This shit is pretty new to me, like. (Herat Reference Herat2018:101)

   Do you know what I mean, like? (Bueno-Amaro Reference Bueno-Amaro2022:17)

Final but is noted in Tyneside and southern regions in BNC1994 (Hancil Reference Hancil, Hancil, Haselow and Post2015). In Reading, middle-class male adolescents use both final but and final so more often to focus on referential meanings, and females on affective meaning. Final still is used by adolescents in London (and perhaps more widely in the south) to emphasise or express speaker stance towards preceding propositions.

5.3.2 Clause- or Utterance-Initial and Stand-Alone Items

Initial or stand-alone discourse-pragmatic items such as those in (17) tend to broadly function as focus markers, backchannel responses or attention signals. They have been studied in BNC1994 (Beeching Reference Beeching2016), in London in the south (Andersen Reference Andersen2001; Ilbury Reference Ilbury2021; Oxbury, Hunt and Cheshire Reference Oxbury, Hunt and Cheshire2023; Pichler Reference Pichler and Pichler2016; Sebba and Tate Reference Sebba and Tate1986; Torgersen et al. Reference Torgersen, Gabrielatos, Hoffmann and Friginal2018), and in Bradford (Sebba and Tate Reference Sebba and Tate1986) and Teesside (Snell Reference Snell, Moore and Montgomery2017) in the north of England.

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   a.	and I you know they are doing some really amazing things out there (Beeching Reference Beeching2016:101)
   b.	B:	if it was up to them they wouldn’t let no – this would be a strictly white school
   	A:	you know?
   	(Sebba and Tate Reference Sebba and Tate1986:171)

In BNC1994, you know occurs regularly in initial position (17a), where its rightward scope over following propositions draws listeners’ attention to new information. Our own observations suggest that initial you know is not restricted either socially or geographically (though frequencies may vary). This may not be the case for stand-alone you know (what I mean), which was first recorded in the 1980s in creole and non-creole varieties of English spoken by British-born, Caribbean-heritage adolescents in London and Bradford. These tokens scope over and signal agreement with previous speakers’ propositions (17b). Given its origins, we assume that stand-alone you know (what I mean) with agreement-signalling function may be widespread in areas of England with high proportions of Caribbean-descendent residents.

In London, you get me, is it and innit have recently developed into stand-alone items with scope over previous speakers’ propositions, suggesting perhaps a more general capacity for items originally used as IVTs to develop positional, scopal and functional flexibility. In stand-alone or initial position, you get me functions as a general backchannel (18a), is it conveys surprise (18b), and innit signals agreement (18c). Stand-alone is it and innit are limited to working-class adolescents in London and are more frequent among ethnic minority speakers. In the 1990s, they were not found in Hertfordshire, but in the mid-2010s, stand-alone innit was recorded among adolescents in Manchester (Drummond Reference Drummond2018). Perhaps stand-alone innit is now more widespread – at least in multiethnic urban centres in England. Because of the tendency to analyse individual discourse-pragmatic items in isolation, it remains unclear to what extent stand-alone innit competes with or has replaced agreement-signalling uses of stand-alone you know (what I mean).

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   a.	Roshan:	he buns it down with man
   	Robert:	no
   	Roshan:	you get me
   	(Torgersen et al. Reference Torgersen, Gabrielatos, Hoffmann and Friginal2018:192)
   b.	Charlotte:	You know what, she’s probably a lesbian.
   	Orgady:	Is it?
   	(Andersen Reference Andersen2001:150)
   c.	Truno:	He’s he’s smart. That man is smart.
   	Josie:	Innit. When he takes the man’s face he puts it ah it was so bad!
   	(Andersen Reference Andersen2001:139)

In London, (ethnic minority) adolescents strategically recruit innit and selected phonetically reduced NPQTs (e.g. in he) to clause- or utterance-initial position in order to draw attention or secure the conversational floor before presenting propositions to be confirmed by (inattentive) interlocutors (19). This recent innovation may not be widespread geographically. It has not been identified in comparable studies of innit and other NPQTs in contemporaneous data from central and northern varieties.

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   They always target (.) innit, they always target everyone around here. (Pichler Reference Pichler and Pichler2016:69)

Instead of the established Cockney form oi, male adolescents in east London use ey (pronounced [ʌɪ]~[eɪ]) to attract attention and deploy a dominant or confrontational stance that exerts authority over or displays solidarity with others (20). Other London innovations include utterance-initial and stand-alone wallah(i), originally Arabic and used in a west London multiethnic area by young people of Muslim heritage to express high commitment to propositions. Here, and also in east London, adolescents use I swear, swear down and (on) X’s life in a similar way (21a); in east London, I swear also expresses low commitment. In both locations, say swear and say mums challenge or ask for clarification, as does say wallah in west London. Say wallah and wallah also occur as adjacency pairs, with say wallah giving addressees the option of continuing the talk or replying wallah to close the sequence (21b).

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   ey you stepped on man’s huarache’s cus (Ilbury Reference Ilbury2021:625)

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   a.	Chantelle:	mother’s life he did, he picked up the white ball (ennit) (Oxbury et al. 2023:829)
   b.	Ali:	they moved and they came back cos the house BURNT. but they fixed it
   	Khadir:	say wallah
   	Ali:	wallah
   	(Oxbury et al. 2023:835)

More established discourse-pragmatic items in initial position include howay, a directive meaning ‘come on’ and limited in use to working-class speakers in north-east England, specifically Teesside and Tyneside.

5.3.3 Clause-Internal Items

Most studies of intensifiers analyse adverbials that scale up the meaning of following adjectival heads (22). We therefore focus on these here.

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   They were extremely good (Ito and Tagliamonte Reference Ito and Tagliamonte2003:258)

In the south, intensifiers have been investigated only in London, as far as we know (Núñez-Pertejo and Palacios Martínez Reference Núñez–Pertejo and Palacios Martínez2018; Paradis Reference Paradis and Kirk2000; Stenström Reference Stenström and Kirk2000; Stenström et al. Reference Stenström, Andersen and Hasund2002); in the north, they have been investigated in Manchester (Drummond Reference Drummond2020), York (Ito and Tagliamonte Reference Ito and Tagliamonte2003), and Tyneside (Barnfield and Buchstaller Reference Barnfield and Buchstaller2010; Bueno-Amaro Reference Bueno-Amaro2022; Childs Reference Childs2016; Pearce Reference Pearce2011).

In York and Tyneside, the same three intensifiers are the most frequent: really, very and so. In both locations, really has overtaken very relatively recently, but it entered the intensifier system in different ways. In York, its use spread across a gradually increasing number of semantic categories of adjective before becoming the most frequent intensifier overall. In Tyneside, really occurred with all semantic categories of adjective from the outset but, until 2007 at least, it was the most frequent intensifier with only three categories. By 2017–19, however, really had become the most frequent intensifier for Tyneside teenagers with all categories of adjective. Comparison of BNC1994 and BNC2014 suggests that the rapid replacement of very by really and the increase in the use of so may be country-wide (Aijmer Reference Aijmer, Brezina, Love and Aijmer2018:65). In Outer London, however, the second most frequent intensifier for adolescents is well (23a); very is rarely used. Intensifiers currently attested only in London are enough and bare, the former used only by female speakers from multiethnic communities in Inner London, mainly as nuff (23b). Bare is increasing in both Inner and Outer London, as is well. Both well and totally may be increasing in England more generally (see Aijmer Reference Aijmer, Brezina, Love and Aijmer2018, Reference Aijmer2021, Reference Aijmer, Peterson, Hiltunen and Kern2022 for a comparison between BNC1994 and BNC2014; Bueno-Amaro Reference Bueno-Amaro2022 for Tyneside).

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   a.	she was like “oh yeah that boy’s well nice” (Núñez-Pertejo and Palacios Martínez Reference Núñez–Pertejo and Palacios Martínez2018:129)
   b.	his mum looks nuff different though (Fox Reference Fox, Bergs and Brinton2013:2027)

Stratton (Reference Stratton2020), one of the few studies to analyse discourse-pragmatic items in BNC2014 in terms of region, finds proper occurring throughout England. It is very frequent amongst working-class teenagers in Outer London and also occurs, though less frequently, in multiethnic areas of Inner London. For Tyneside teenagers, it is the fourth most frequent intensifier, after really, so and very. Super and fucking increased in BNC2014 relative to BNC1994; in BNC2014, both are used more often by younger speakers, and slightly more often by females (Aijmer Reference Aijmer, Brezina, Love and Aijmer2018). Totally and fucking are also slightly more frequent amongst female working-class teenagers in Manchester.

Intensifiers are well known to be subject to constant change and renewal; those that have declined in use include real (already noted by Britain Reference Britain and Britain2007) and dead.

Characteristically north-eastern intensifiers are geet (or git) (24a) and canny (24b). Canny as an intensifier is a recent development, used more frequently by young males, perhaps reflecting the covert prestige of the traditional north-east dialect where it has long been used as an adverb and adjective. Canny is rare, however, among Tyneside teenagers, who claim to also use it as a downtoner.

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   a.	your songs on here are geet good (Pearce Reference Pearce2011:4)
   b.	I’m canny happy he did do that (Childs Reference Childs2016:239)

The overall frequency of intensifiers in England is higher among younger than older speakers, and among female than male speakers. In Tyneside, male teenagers use intensifiers and downtoners at about the same rates, but females use intensifiers far more often than downtoners. These sociolinguistic differences in the overall frequency of intensifiers could suggest more general potential differences in discourse style, both across time and across the country.

Like as a discourse-pragmatic item is extremely flexible in its position, but younger speakers, in most locations, use it more frequently clause-internally (25). It has been studied in the southern dialect region in Reading (Cheshire et al. Reference Cheshire, Kerswill, Williams, Auer, Hinskens and Kerswill2005), London (Andersen Reference Andersen2001; Levey Reference Levey2006; Cheshire and Secova Reference Cheshire and Secova2018:222–3), and Milton Keynes (Cheshire et al. Reference Cheshire, Kerswill, Williams, Auer, Hinskens and Kerswill2005); in the central region in Liverpool (Herat Reference Herat2018); and in the northern region in Hull (Cheshire et al. Reference Cheshire, Kerswill, Williams, Auer, Hinskens and Kerswill2005) and Maryport (Tagliamonte Reference Tagliamonte2013).

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   I got like a scar under my eyebrow (Levey Reference Levey2006:414)

Studies comparing overall frequencies across real or apparent time in England show a dramatic increase within the last few decades. For most speakers in Liverpool, like is the most frequent discourse-pragmatic item overall. It is more frequent among adolescents in Hull than in Reading or Milton Keynes, perhaps reflecting its well-established use in clause-final position in northern varieties (see (16), section 5.3.1). The age distribution in BNC1994 indicates that the rapidly increasing frequency represents a language change rather than age-grading (Beeching Reference Beeching2016:144). In Outer London, 7–8-year-olds use like just as often as 10–11-year-olds.

There are no clear sociolinguistic patterns across varieties with either social class or speaker sex. In BNC1994, clause-internal like is used more often by 15–24-year-old middle-class females. In Outer London, pre-adolescent boys use like more often before NPs where it can alert listeners to the introduction of a new referent (25), perhaps reflecting a more general orientation for boys to attend more to referential meanings in the construction of talk, whereas girls use like, with other discourse-pragmatic items, to negotiate interactional alignments and establish solidarity. In Liverpool, on the other hand, like occurs more often as a focuser in female speech, as well as a ‘metonymic exemplifier’ and quotative.

Be like (26) and other quotative expressions have, to our knowledge, been analysed only in London (Cheshire et al. Reference Cheshire, Kerswill, Fox and Torgersen2011; Fox Reference Fox, Buchstaller and van Alphen2012) in the south; and York (Tagliamonte and Hudson Reference Tagliamonte and Hudson1999; Durham et al. Reference Durham, Haddican, Zweig, Johnson, Baker, Cockeram, Danks and Tyler2012) and Tyneside (Buchstaller Reference Buchstaller2011, Reference Buchstaller2015; Pearce Reference Pearce2011) in the north. These studies show a recent dramatic increase overall in the frequency of be like across real and apparent time, although Buchstaller (Reference Buchstaller2015) finds a move towards more conventional quotative forms in Tyneside as speakers approach middle age. Her nuanced analysis of change across the lifespan of individuals takes account of social and ideological factors associated with the use of be like.

The widespread emergence of be like is presumably influenced by the equally rapid increase in the use of clause-internal like. Older speakers in London and Maryport who use discourse-pragmatic like relatively infrequently, albeit in all clause positions, do not use be like at all.

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   And I’m like “Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!” (Tagliamonte and Hudson Reference Tagliamonte and Hudson1999:157)

In the early 2000s, overall frequencies of be like in both London and Tyneside were lower than in York. This may reflect a social class difference: in London, the speakers analysed were working class, while in York they were university students; and in Tyneside, young middle-class speakers used be like more than twice as often as working-class speakers of the same age. Female speakers used be like more often in the earlier York study and in Inner London, whereas in Tyneside and Outer London young male speakers were in the lead.

Quotative go (27) was frequent in Tyneside in the 1990s but had declined by the 2000s, probably in response to the rise of be like. In York, however, be like mainly usurped only say; go occurred at the same rate as be like in the earlier study and had declined only slightly by 2006. In Outer London and, especially, Inner London, go is robust for young working-class speakers.

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   She goes “I might not wear them” (Buchstaller Reference Buchstaller2011:59)

Be like is not the only innovation to have entered the quotative system in England. Git/geet in north-east England occurs not only as an intensifier (see above) but also, less frequently, with a function comparable to discourse-pragmatic like (28) and in the quotative expression be git/geet (29), prompting Pearce (Reference Pearce2011) to suggest that be geet may have developed by analogy with be like.

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   I was geet working it out in my head (Pearce Reference Pearce2011:5)

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   I was geet “ehhhhh” (Pearce Reference Pearce2011:5)

Another recent localised quotative is this is + speaker (30), found by Cheshire et al. (Reference Cheshire, Kerswill, Fox and Torgersen2011) in multiethnic areas of Inner London. It was used more frequently by female speakers, and often to quote direct speech at particularly dramatic peaks in performed stories (Fox Reference Fox, Buchstaller and van Alphen2012). It is not attested in subsequent London studies (e.g. Oxbury Reference Oxbury2021) and seems, therefore, to have been a short-lived innovation. Still more fleeting is give (it), mentioned in Harris (Reference Harris2006:114) and occurring just once in Cheshire et al.’s (Reference Cheshire, Kerswill, Fox and Torgersen2011) Outer London data.

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   this is my mum “what are you doing? I was in the queue before you” (Cheshire et al. Reference Cheshire, Kerswill, Fox and Torgersen2011:172)

Some researchers explain the recent emergence of new quotatives as resulting from changes in narrative style. For be like, the reporting of narrators’ inner thought processes (26) may have created a niche in the quotative system that be like then filled to create a more dramatic effect than think or say (Tagliamonte and D’Arcy Reference Tagliamonte and D’Arcy2007). This would account for the widely attested initial preference for the use of be like in first-person contexts to quote reported thought. Fox (Reference Fox, Buchstaller and van Alphen2012) suggests that as be like comes to introduce reported speech as well as thought, a new quotative is needed to highlight dramatic peaks in narratives. In Tyneside, the need was met by the resurgence of quotative go, which was latent in the system, while in Inner London the brand-new quotative this is + speaker emerged. The functions of geet as intensifying adverb and adjective (see above) may similarly make it appropriate for quoting moments of high drama in performed narratives.

In Tyneside, the addition of two new quotative expressions sparked off more subtle changes to the system. In the 1960s Tyneside corpus, say was the main quotative, used in a wide range of tenses. By 2000, however, adolescents used say mainly in the conversational present tense, with be like and go now used mainly in the simple past tense. Furthermore, young people used be like and go more often in narratives, reserving say for other contexts, when the speech they were reporting was not part of a story. Older speakers continued to use say in all types of context.