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Be like and the quotative system of Jamaican English: Linguistic trajectories of globalization and localization

How global linguistic innovations are spread into and adopted by local speech communities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2014

Ksenija Bogetić
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Extract

One of the most striking linguistic changes to affect the English language in recent decades is the ongoing spread of be like, shown in (1), as a new member of the quotative system (Ferrara & Bell, 1995; Macaulay, 2001; Buchstaller & Van Alphen, 2012). The opportunity to study language change ‘in action’ (Tagliamonte & D'Arcy, 2004: 493) brought by this innovation has spurred a vast body of research on quotation in American English, where the new form is presumed to have originated (Ferrara & Bell, 1995).

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Research Article
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English Today , Volume 30 , Issue 3 , September 2014 , pp. 5 - 12
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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