“I always think of people here, you know, saying ‘like’ after every sentence”

Abstract

This chapter investigates eight discourse-pragmatic markers in a corpus of Northern Irish English, some of which are interesting on account of their absence or rarity and others because they appear to index social categories like age and sex.1 Although some of these (particularly like) have already been subject to considerable scholarly debate, others (such as och) have never been addressed. The account examines their origins drawing on the corpus as well as other data from Celtic and non-Celtic Englishes globally. The analysis also re-examines and elaborates on the functions each of these discourse-pragmatic markers are thought to perform, with respect to both their roles in interpersonal communication and in organizing discourse.

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