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An Age-Based Analysis of Stance Adverbials in Spoken British English: Exploring Collocational Patterns
Dalarna University, School of Language, Literatures and Learning.
2023 (English)Independent thesis Basic level (degree of Bachelor), 10 credits / 15 HE creditsStudent thesis
Abstract [en]

One of the main reasons behind language choices is to express personal stance (e.g., thoughts, attitudes and style), according to Keisling (2009). Stance may be expressed by applying stancemarkers, for example stance adverbials, which are most common in conversation according to Biber et al. (1999). This study attempts to analyse the use of stance adverbials by different agegroups in spoken British English. It aims to compare the frequencies between different agegroups so as to identify possible differences in the use of stance adverbials. The study also analyses the collocational behaviour of a selection of stance adverbials to identify possible patterns in the selected age groups. The selected stance adverbials for this step of the analysis were chosen based on the frequency results that are found in this study. The data in the study is derived from the spoken part of the BNC 2014. Two age groups (younger group 15-25, older group 35-60) were created based on previous research (Barbieri, 2008). The data was analysed using Sketch Engine, which includes tools that create word lists and word sketch differences. The analysis showed that, although there are similarities between the two age groups, the differences that are found may indicate that age influences the use of stance adverbials in conversation. It was found that younger speakers appear to focus on a number of adverbials and use them repeatedly while older speaker use a wider range of stance adverbials. It is possible to conclude that stance adverbials exhibit different collocational behaviour across different agegroups. Stance adverbials collocate with different word classes and display different frequencies. The results of the study may help provide a better understanding of language structure and how age influences language use.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2023.
Keywords [en]
Stance Adverbials, Spoken British English, Age, Collocations
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Specific Languages
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:du-46311OAI: oai:DiVA.org:du-46311DiVA, id: diva2:1775899
Subject / course
English
Available from: 2023-06-27 Created: 2023-06-27

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CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • chicago-author-date
  • chicago-note-bibliography
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf