Like as Discourse Particle and Quotative Marker, Origin, and Linguistic Attitude it Creates

Like As a Discourse Particle and Quotative Marker.
Institution:
Course:
Instructor:
Name:
Date:
Like As a Discourse Particle and Quotative Marker.
Every language has its rules that govern its possibilities and impossibilities as well as its structure. The rules vary from one language to the other. Language changes are natural processes and occur at different levels. According to Antieau and Tamasi, (2014), changes are inevitable and any change in language should not be perceived as decay or undesirable. Instead, language change should be viewed as a sign of a health language that has the capability of serving its users’ needs, from one generation to the other. One of the salient features of modern vernacular English is the discourse like. It is often associated with young people and stigmatized as a meaningless interjection that can be used just anywhere in a sentence. Mostly, people believe that there is only one like that can be recycled repeatedly and can just be used to show the absence of articulacy. The paper examines the usage of like as discourse particle and quotative marker, its origin, and the linguistic attitude it creates in the English language.
Popular stereotypes surrounding the discourse like are that it is used more by women than men, began with the Valley Girls, only used by young people, and can be used anywhere in a sentence. D'Arcy suggests that there is evidence to support the use of like among young people, but there is no proof that it is predominantly with women or the United States (D'Arcy, 2006). Additionally, D’Arcy says that the usage of the word like depends on which function it is used for, either as a discourse particle or a quotative. Although there exists to concrete support or evidence, it is believed that vernacular uses like originated from the American English by subcultural groups in New York City and California (McWhorter, 2016). Today, the use of like as a discourse particle can be traced in over 70-year-old speakers in North America. In the real sense, the frequency of using like among those aged between 70 and 90 is similar to that of speakers aged between 10 and 30. Speakers aged 40 to 50 rarely use it (D'Arcy, 2005). Generally, usage of like can be applied to everyone. Vernacular use of like as a discourse marker has been part of the English langue for more than hundred years. Previous studies suggest that there are at least three vernacular forms of like with different functions and histories.
Consider the following two sentences, “Like they hated him,” and “It is like a love affair.” In the first sentence, like appears clause-initially as a discourse marker and clause-internally as a discourse particle (D'Arcy, 2006). When used with the verb to be, like becomes a quotative marker that functions to report a speech or a though as used in, “Then he was like ‘What do you mean’”. Also, like can be used as an approximate adverb when preceding numerically quantified phrases, for example, “She ate like seven donuts today”. Although there are several other vernacular uses and forms of like, modern studies mainly focus on the use of like as a discourse particle and as quotative marker.
Discourse lik...