Articles

Gender specific Variation of English Intensifiers: A Corpus based Study

Expand

Online published: 2020-07-25

Abstract

Resting on the framework of variationist sociolinguistics, the present study attempts to explore gender related tendencies of variation in collocations “intensifier+adjective”, based on data from the Ottawa English Corpus and the London English corpus. The findings indicate that the frequency, selection, and patterning of intensifiers have exhibited, to some extent, significant differences between men and women. The results also manifest significant interactions between gender and other social variables and emotional adjectives. And comparatively speaking, the gender specific variation of intensifers is mirrored in their frequency and categories in Canadian English, as opposed to the striking gender identity of specific intensifiers in British English.

Cite this article

GUO Hongjie, GUAN Xinchao . Gender specific Variation of English Intensifiers: A Corpus based Study[J]. Contemporary Foreign Languages Studies, 2016 , 16(06) : 30 -39 . DOI: 10.3969/j.issn.1674-8921.2016.06.006

References

Alsaeed,B,J-P.Horrigan,E.Leishman,J.Lohmuller,A.Ramsthel,S.Tusner & M.Zeryck. 2015. You're really so very pretty: Intensifiers in Oregon [OL]. [2015-9-1]. http://lingtools.uoregon.edu/pdfs/Wi2015-Group3-AdjIntensification.
Bäcklund,U. 1973. The Collocation of Adverbs of Degree in English [M]. Uppsala: Almqvist&Wiksell.
Bailey,L.A. & L. Timm. 1976. More on women's- and men's- expletives [J]. Anthropological Linguistics 18 (9):438-449.
Barbieri,F. 2008. Patterns of age-basedlinguistic variation in American English [J].Journal of Sociolinguistics 12 (1): 58-88.
Bradac, J., A. Mulac & S. Thompson. 1995. Men's and women's use of intensifiers and hedges in problem-solving interaction: Molar and molecular analyses [J]. Research on Language and Social Interaction 28 (2): 93-116.
Brinton,L. J. & L. K. Arnovick. 2006. The English Language: A Linguistic History [M]. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Chambers,J.K. & P. Trudgill. 1998.Dialectology[M]. Beijing: Peking University Press.
Cheshire,J. 2002. Sex and gender in variationist research[A]. In J.K. Chambers,P.Trudgill & N. Schilling-Estes (eds.).The Handbook of Language Variation and Change [C]. Malden & Oxford: Blackwell.423-443.
Holmes,J. 1995. The Wellington corpus of spoken New Zealand English: A progress report [J]. New Zealand English Newsletter(9): 5-8.
Hosman,L.A. & S. A. Siltanen.2006. Powerful and powerless language forms: Their consequences for impression formation, attributions of control of self and control of others, cognitive responses, and message memory [J]. Journal of Language and Social Psychology 25: 33-46.
HoyeL. 1997. Adverbs and Modality in English [M].Halow: Addison Wesley Longman Limited.
Ito,R. & S. A. Tagliamonte. 2003. Well weird, right dodgy, very strange, really cool: layering and recycling in English intensifiers [J]. Language in Society 32: 257-279.
Jespersen,O.1922.Language: Its nature, Development, and Origin [M]. London: George Allen & Unwin.
Johnson,D.E. 2009. Getting off the GoldVarb standard: Introducing Rbrul for mixed effects variable rule analysis [J].Language and Linguistics Compass 3 (1): 359-383.
Kennedy,G. 2003. Amplifier collocations in the British national corpus: Implications for English language teaching [J]. TESOL Quarterly 37 (3): 467-87.
Kennedy,C. & L. McNally. 2005. Scale structure, degree modification, and the semantics of gradable predicates [J]. Language 82: 345-81.
Labov,W. 1972.Sociolinguistic Patterns [M]. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Labov,W. 1984.Field methods of the project on linguistic change and variation [A]. In J. Baugh & J.Sherzer (eds.). Language in Use [C]. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall. 28-53.
Labov,W. 1990.The intersection of sex and social class in the course of linguistic change [J].Language Variation and Change 2 (2): 205-254.
Labov,W. 2001.Principles of Linguistic Change(Volume 2): Social Factors [M]. Oxford: Blackwell.
Labov,W. & J. Waletzky.1967. Narrative analysis. [A]. In J.Helm (ed.). Essays on the Verbal and Visual Arts [C].Seattle: University of Washington. 12-44.
Lakoff,R. 1975. Language and Women's Place [M]. New York: Harper and Row.
Lorenz,G. 2002. Really worthwhile or not really significant? A corpus-based approach to the lexicalization and grammaticalisation of intensifiers in modern English [A].In I.Wischer & G.Diewald (eds.). New Reflections on Grammaticalization [C]. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: Benjamins. 143-62.
Macaulay,R. 2006. The Social Art.Language and its Uses [M]. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Méndez-Naya, B. 2003.On intensifiers and grammaticalization: The case of SWIPE [J]. English Studies 84: 372-391.
Mustanoja,T. A. 1960. Middle English Syntax [M]. Helsinki: SociétéNéophilologique.
Mustonen,M. 2010. I Mean Like Sheila'sFriends are Quite Sort of Glam and Sheila'sVery Glamorous-A Multivariable Corpus Study on Intensifiers in British English [D]. Unpublished MA Thesis.University of Eastern Finland.
Paradis,C. 2000. It's well weird. Degree modifiers of adjectives revisited: The nineties [A]. In A-B Stenström (ed.). Trends in Teenage Talk Corpus Compilation, Analysis and Findings [C]. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.147-160.
Partington,A. 1993.Corpus evidence of language change: The case of the intensifier [A]. In M. Baker,G. Francis & E.Tognini-Bonelli(eds.). Text and Technology: In honour of John Sinclair [C]. Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.177-192.
Peters,H. 1994. Degree adverbs in early modern English [A]. In D.Kastovsky (ed.).Studies in Early Modern English [C]. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.269-288.
Quirk,R., S. Greenbaum, G. Leech & J. Svartvik.1985. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language [M]. London: Longman.
Rasekh,A. E. & F. Saeb.2015. Gender differences in the use of intensifiers in Persian [J]. International Journal of Applied Linguistics & English Literature 4 (4): 200-204.
Recski,J. 2004. ‘It'sreally ultimately very cruel...'.Contrasting English intensifier collocations across EFL writing and academic spoken discourse [J]. D.E.L.T.A 20 (2): 211-234.
Rickford, J.R., I. Buchstaller, T. Wasow & A. Zwicky. 2007. Intensive and quotative all: Something old, something new [J]. American Speech 82: 3-31.
Stenström,A-B., G. Andersen, I. K. Hasund. 2002. Trends in Teenage Talk: Corpus Compilation, Analysis and Findings [M]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Stewart,D. 2010. Semantic Prosody: A Critical Evaluation [M]. New York: Routledge.
Stoffel,C. 1901. Intensives and Downtoners [M]. Heidelberg: Carl Winter.
Tagliamonte,S. A. 2008. So different and pretty cool! Recycling intensifiers in Toronto, Canada[J].English Language and Linguistics 12 (2): 361-394.
Tagliamonte,S.A. & C. Roberts. 2005. So weird; so cool; so innovative: The use of intensifiers in the television series Friends [J]. American Speech 8 (3): 280-300.
Trudgill,P. 2000. Sociolinguistics.An Introduction to Language and Society [M].Hammondsworth: Penguin.
Van Herk,G.& The Ottawa Intensifier Project (OIP). 2006. That's so tween: Intensifier use in on-line subcultures [R]. Paper presented at New Ways of Analyzing Variation (NWAV) 35. November 9-12. The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio.
Wolfram, W. & N. Schiling-Estes.1998. American English [M]. Malden & Oxford: Blackwell.
Xiao,R. & H. Y. Tao.2007. A corpus-based sociolinguistic study of amplifiers in British English [J]. Sociolinguistic Studies 1 (2): 241-273.
郭熙.2013. 中国社会语言学 (第 3 版)[M]. 北京:商务印书馆.
孙金华.2009. 拉波夫的语言变化观[M]. 南京:南京大学出版社.
孙汝建.1997. 性别与语言[M]. 南京:江苏教育出版社.
吴立红.2006. 现代汉语程度副词组合研究[D]. 博士学位论文. 暨南大学.
徐大明. 2006. 语言变异与变化[M]. 上海:上海教育出版社.
徐大明、陶红印、谢天蔚.1997. 当代社会语言学[M]. 北京:中国社会科学出版社.
邢福义.2016.“语言事实”的从众观[J]. 语言战略研究(4):1-4.
曾炜.2007. 变异视角下的语法研究[J]. 广西师范大学学报(1):84-90.
赵蓉晖. 2003. 语言与性别:口语的社会语言学研究[M]. 上海:上海外语教育出版社.
郑庆君.1997. 说说汉语的“很”话[J]. 汉语学习(5):44-46.
郑群、李玉.2013. 中国学习者形容词强化语really和very使用情况分析[J]. 读与写(8):19-21.
Outlines

/