You know and like among migrants in Ireland and Australia

Abstract

This study investigates the use and adoption of the discourse-pragmatic markers you know and like among L2 speakers of the Expanding Circle (Poland and China) who move to Inner Circle countries (Ireland and Australia) as migrants. Adopting a quantitative analysis, findings show that rates of use of you know are commensurate between both L1 (Inner Circle) groups, despite speaking different varieties of English. No significant differences in the rates of use of you know and like are found between L1 and L2 speakers, although when broken down by nationality, Polish L1 speakers use more you know than any other group. Having an all-Chinese social network is not found to be an inhibiting factor towards the use of you know among the migrants in Australia. In Ireland, migrants with a length of residence of more than six years approach, but do not attain, L1 speaker levels of use of clause-final like in particular.

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