I is one of the most frequently occurring words in casual spoken
English. As such, its usage gives sufficient evidence of occurrence
patterns in corpora. We see that, amongst long I clusters, the differences
145
are marginal - with the one exception of the phrase You know what I
mean.
You know what I mean appears to be a set, fixed phrase in
English, being the most frequent long I cluster in SCO, MAC and BNC/C.
It appears particularly favoured by SCO informants, in whose speech it
appears over three times more frequently than amongst MAC sources.
When SCO and MAC are compared, you know what I mean appears to be
set (nesting) amongst different words in its use as well.
When we look at I collocates, we notice that, while the proportional
frequencies between SCO, MAC and BNC/C may be similar, the order (or
rank) of their occurrences are different. A SCO speaker would use know
as the most likely collocate with I, while the collocate preferred by MAC
or BNC/C speakers appears to be it. Therefore, the collocate know has
higher attraction to the target word I in SCO than in MAC. When we
turn our attention to the proportional frequency of use on the other hand,
we see that know is, proportionally, about as frequent in SCO as it is in
MAC. I with yeah, like and just are clearly more frequently used in SCO
compared to MAC. These collocates are all used in a more prominent way
in Scouse than UK-wide English. Had we seen widely differing use of I
between the corpora at all times that could have been seen as evidence
that one corpus reflects either a different language
95.
95 With the search chunk have a Glenn Hadikin also used the SCO corpus in a comparison to BNC/C and his own corpora of Korean L2 English speakers. He, too found that SCO and BNC have a high degree of proportional similar use. (Hadikin, G.: Lexical Priming in L2 English: a comparison of two Korean communities: presentation given at UoL School of English PG seminar, 28/05/09)
146
We found that I tends to cluster widely and therefore that 2w clusters
are most appropriate for comparison. Here, we have seen that all the
most frequent SCO 2w I
clusters diverge in their proportional
frequencies significantly from their use in MAC. On the other hand, the
most frequent MAC 2w I clusters are used in a similar way in SCO. It is
only amongst the medium-high frequency clusters that occur more often
in MAC, in cluster like I said or I can and, in particular, but I, that
significant divergence is apparent.
Overall, the available data does support the notion of lexical priming.
There is some difference and these indicate that is variety. It does not,
however, show the kind of difference that support the view that there is
such a strong difference between SCO and MAC that the former could be
classed as a dialect. There are some noticeable variations in use, but, on
the whole, both corpora use the term in very similar ways.
At the same time, MAC has a higher proportional frequency of
clusters like I know, I mean, I mean I and I think that hint at a stronger
assertiveness in the tone of the speakers. In MAC we also see a much
higher occurrence of frequent I repetition (e.g. I - I - I).
It is, to sum up, in these noticeable differences that evidence of
priming can be traced: SCO speakers tend to have a set of words and
phrases they are more likely to both use and expect in the vicinity of I in
a number of cases. This can be seen as a social strategy, and, one may
conclude, the choices of language that SCO speakers appear to be primed
147
to make reflect at times what can be called strategic hedging. Speakers
tend to avoid definitive statements or assertiveness (i.e. strong single-
word repetition). This is a way of being cautious with utterances in order
to protect the speaker from being countered. Given the historical
development of the city of Liverpool – immigrants from all over the UK
and Europe; casual labour where different people would work together
from one day to the next; the conflict of Catholics versus Protestants – it
can be seen why strategic hedging might have become internalised by
speakers in Liverpool.
148
2w cluster
MAC total
MAC %
SCO total
SCO %
Ratio with entries normalized to MAC=±1
log
likelihood
I DON'T
3,811
10.26
282
8.7
1. | : | 0.847953
0.10
I MEAN
3,663
9.9
249
7.7
1. | : | 0.777778
1.00
I'VE
3,272
8.8
230
7.1
1. | : | 0.806818
0.21
AND I
2,717
7.4
225
6.9
1. | : | 0.932432
3.51
I WAS
1,683
4.5
205
6.3
1. | : | 1.4
42.93
I THINK
3,326
9
197
6.1
1 | : | 0.677778
8.11
WHAT I
1,187
3.2
157
4.8
1. | : | 1.5
42.96
I KNOW
2,728
7.4
148
4.6
1. | : | 0.621622
12.93
I - I
3,302
8.9
148
4.6
1. | : | 0.516854
38.15
YOU KNOW
2,613
7.04
143
5.31
1. | : | 0.754261
11.72
I JUST
504
1.44
119
3.7
1. | : | 2.56944
104.03
I SAID
2,014
5.4
102
3.1
1. | : | 0.574074
13.98
WHEN I
1,265
3.4
97
3.0
1. | : | 0.882353
0.27
I CAN
1,821
4.9
96
3.0
1. | : | 0.612245
10.23
BUT I
1,809
4.8
92
2.8
1. | : | 0.583333
12.30
SO I
999
2.7
83
2.5
1. | : | 0.925926
1.36
I LIKE
487
1.41
81
2.5
1. | : | 1.77305
39.21
I GOT
625
1.7
76
2.2
1. | : | 1.29412
15.82
YEAH I
842
2.1
47
1.50
1. | : | 0.714286
3.31
KNOW WHAT I
269
0.73
51
1.89
1. | : | 2.58904
31.71
I I I
946
2.55
42
1.56
1. | : | 0.611765
11.30
YEAH I KNOW
259
0.699
15
0.56
1. | : | 0.800114
0.77
YOU KNOW I
390
1.05
26
0.966
1. | : | 0.92
0.18
I DON'T KNOW
1312
3.53
116
4.3
1. | : | 1.21813
3.95
I DON'T THINK
588
1.58
39
1.45
1. | : | 0.917722
0.30
I SAID I
530
1.43
20
0.67
1. | : | 0.468531
10.14
I MEAN I
1238
3.34
20
0.74
1. | : | 0.222156
75.79
I WAS LIKE
0
0
19
0.6
n/a
n/a
Table 13: “I” 2w and 3w clusters,
149
In document
Portugalete y el Batallón Rosa Luxemburgo. Mayo 2018.pdf
(página 39-50)