“It ain't Nothing to do with my School.” Variation and Pragmatic Uses ofain'tin the Language of British English Teenagers

Abstract

The negative form ain't has been regarded as one of the most typical non-standard features of modern English. Although traditionally highly stigmatised, it is widely present in most geographical and social varieties, both in British and in American English. In fact, the linguistic changes that this contracted negative has undergone have been extensively researched; however, its variation and use have received much less attention. This paper is concerned with the analysis of ain't in the speech of British English teenagers on the basis of the COLT corpus. It starts by considering its origin and development. It then describes not only the syntactic functions that ain't fulfils in teenagers' language but it also considers the sociological factors that condition this grammatical feature and its pragmatic meanings.

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