Vague Language in Spoken Scottish English:

Implications for Language Teaching

joan.cutting@ed.ac.ukThe University of Edinburgh

23 April 2013

Vague Scot

Aim of this talk• To describe vague language in spoken part of The

Scottish Corpus of Texts and Speech, in answer to research questions

– Is the vague language in the corpus mainly Scottish Standard English or mainly Scots?

– How is vague language used textually? – What are its social functions?

• To consider whether findings should be taught in EFL classes? If so, how?

SCOTTISH ENGLISH CONTINUUM- Scottish Standard English

• Components - ‘English lexis, and English grammatical and syntactic structures’ (Douglas 2003: 25-6)

• Social dimension - ‘the language variety used by the Scottish middle classes’ (Douglas 2003: 26); ‘the characteristic speech of the professional class and the accepted norm in schools’ (McClure 1994: 79-80)

Scottish English Continuum- Scots

• Components - ‘Scots lexis, Scottish grammatical and syntactic features, and Scottish pronunciation’ (Douglas 2003: 25-6) - The wee lassie didnae ken

• Geographical dimension - Broad Scots or dialect Scots - localized vernaculars, Southern, South, West and East Central, Northern, Highland and Insular (Kirkpatrick 2007: 49)

• Social dimension - ‘those in the highest [socio-economic] groups are less likely to speak in Scots than any other group’ (Scottish Government 2010)

Scottish English Continuum - Scottish Corpus of Texts and Speech

• ‘The SCOTS project is the first large-scale project of its kind for Scotland’

• 4.5 million words, 23% spoken• Over 1,100 written and spoken texts, 1945 – 2007

(spoken texts since 2000)• Range of varieties, genres (correspondence, fiction,

interview, conversations), registers, locations, ages, genders, occupations

• Excellent corpus – accessible, many tools(http://www.scottishcorpus.ac.uk)

VAGUE LANGUAGE- Definition

• general, imprecise language

• low semantic content, heavily dependent on shared contextual knowledge for meaning

• can be contrasted with a more contentive expression rendering the same proposition

• intentionally, purposely, unabashedly vague

• meaning arises from intrinsic uncertainty(Channell 1994)

Vague Language- Forms

• Semantically empty nouns • general nouns

- thing, place and person • colloquial general nouns

- thingymajig, thingummy

Vague Language- Forms

• Vague modifiers • vague quantifiers

- about, roughly, lots of• vague epistemic modifiers

- a bit, sort of, kinda, wee• General extenders

- or something, and so on, an that

Vague Language- Functions

• Informality– VL makes ‘an important contribution to

naturalness and the informal, convergent tenor of everyday talk’ (McCarthy 1998: 108-118).

• Politeness– VL protects face of self and others, used to claim

common ground, show solidarity, in-group membership, high involvement

RESEARCH DESIGN

• To answer ‘Is the vague language in the corpus mainly Scottish Standard English or mainly Scots?’, SSE VL and Scots VL instances counted and converted to frequency per million (quantitative)

• To answer ‘How is vague language used textually?’, concordances of VL examined to find collocations of immediate co-text (qualitative)

• To answer ‘What are its social functions?’, surrounding discourse surveyed to find interactional features (qualitative)

QUANTITATIVE RESULTS- VL mainly SSE

Quantitative Results- VL is more SSE than Scots

• Eight times as many SSE VL forms as Scots VL forms• Most frequent SSE VL forms– general nouns e.g. people, thing, stuff – epistemic modifiers e.g. sort of, a bit

• Most frequent Scots VL forms– epistemic modifiers e.g. kinna, a wee

bit

QUALITATIVE RESULTS FOR SSE VL- semantically empty nouns• General nouns– 5,800 words per million (6 Scots wpm)– People (2,218 wpm)• Rarely modified. + vague quantifiers

there’s a lot o people come intae the area• More non-inclusive meaning ‘them’

you don’t get pestered by peoplethan inclusive meaning ‘us’people from m-my background

Qualitative Results for SSE VL- semantically empty nouns– Thing (1,889 wpm)• + other VL forms, e.g.

Cause eh, they do a big // thing up on eh, what do you call it? Arthur's Seat• in semantically empty filler expressions, e.g.

Erm, so, as with all things in life

Qualitative Results for SSE VL- semantically empty nouns– Stuff (839 wpm)• + pre-head modifiers supplying meaning

the kitchen cooking stuff• + general verb do e.g. We had people... to do stuff with the kids• to be dismissive with emotion or humour

No till aboot October, but got ages yet! I'll have loads of stuff. I'll have knitted loads

Qualitative Results for SSE VL- semantically empty nouns• Colloquial general nouns– thingy (40 wpm)• refers to a person

thingy lives upstairs from me• used unsuccessfully by children

F1136 I want to go and get a erm one of the thingies on it.

F1135 What thingies?F1136 That thingies.F1135 I don't know what you're speaking about.

Qualitative Results for SSE VL- vague modifiers• Vague quantifiers– 1,344 per million (64 Scots wpm)– A lot of (904 wpm), lots of (223) loads of (49)• + general nouns

they do a lot of good stuff• A lot of + negative emotions, e.g. There’s a lot of bastards that have got into high places• Lots of and loads of + positive emotions

she got loads of nice summer clothes

Qualitative Results for SSE VL- vague modifiers• Epistemic modifiers – 2,555 per million (889 Scots wpm)– sort of (wpm 1,328)• + hesitation phenomena, negative feature

sort of er drunk and loose and bad• When speaker unsure of choice of wordthings like that, ehm [tut] ehm. We, we sort of

latch on we la-, we, we latch on to words occasionally, which we like the sound of

Qualitative Results for SSE VL- vague modifiers– kind of (269 wpm)• protects hearer’s face, e.g. reformulating

interviewee’s words without offending themSo they kind of got made into something kind of bad? //Are you left-handed, I

mean?//• protects speaker’s face mitigating strength of

opinion showing speaker in good light er I mean I've always kind of been quite musical, er

Qualitative Results for SSE VL- vague modifiers– A bit (958 wpm)• + negative adjectives

a bit dodgy, a bit grungy, a bit snooty• + ‘of + a + negative noun’ to hedge strong

opinions, potentially intensify them a bit of a drama, a bit of a waster • + neutral adjectives, to mean ‘too much’

It’s a bit formal, people get a bit emotional

Qualitative Results for SSE VL- general extenders• Disjunctive– Or something (359 wpm), Or something like that (60

wpm) and Or whatever (66 wpm)• speaker is searching for words or ideas

‘catching forty winks’ or something like that would be the the slang for that

• Adjunctive– And so on (98 wpm) and etcetera (55 wpm)

• And so on in clusterThere was an awful lot of a- atmospheres and so on and so forth

Qualitative Results for SSE VL- general extenders– And stuff (96 wpm) and and things (88 wpm)• + other general extenders

Uh-huh shells and stuff and harps and all that– And that (41 wpm) and and all that (41 wpm)• to mitigate a claim, observe the modesty maxim

And then ehm. Like I did quite well in school and that

QUALITATIVE RESULTS FOR SCOTS VL- semantically empty nouns• Colloquial general nouns • Bittie/bitty/bitties (101 wpm)• Aberdeen mother-and-child conversations,

local dialect affectionate baby-talk• Bittie means specific inanimate entity

just listen tae fit we’re sayin and put your bittie an aa

Qualitative Results for Scots VL- vague modifiers• Epistemic modifiers– kinda / kind o / kinna / kin’o’ (403 wpm) • to mitigate a reprimand or a disagreement

You're kinda too old tae be usin that word• to soften an indelicate expression

- I kinda thought er this is a wee bit kind of er, you know, taking the piss po- possibly you know

- you know, it's kinna, it's not quite your kinna Parkhead or your Easterhouse or whatever, you know?

Qualitative Results for Scots VL- vague modifiers– Sorta and Sort o (216 wpm)• + verbs, to soften a personal expression

if eh there was a dance an ye had a young man that ye sorta kinda fancied, ye hoped he would take ye to the sitootery

– a wee bit (198 wpm) a bittie (72 wpm)• softens an insult

he used to think you were a wee bit daft• softens an order (to show affection) do up this bittie a wee bittie

Qualitative Results for Scots VL- general extenders• Adjunctive– An aa (55 wpm) an that (48 wpm) An everything / an

awthing (20 wpm)• clusters

we washed aw the walls doon an awthing // an that • mitigates personal actions

- we had this kinda recalcitrant boy, and I was tryin tae get him on side an everything

- I'll get a clootie and we'll wipe this window an aa

CONCLUSION- Summary• VL is a SSE phenomenon• Most frequent - SSE general nouns people, things,

stuff, place add to informality and involvement • Second most frequent – epistemic modifiers SSE sort

of, kind of and Scots kinda/kind o/kinna/kin’o’, sorta/sort o save face

• SSE a bit mitigates negative stance; Scots a wee bit and a bittie shows affection

• Vague quantifiers SSE a lot of, lots of express stance• General extenders - more SSE than Scots

Conclusion- Applications• ESL students in Scotland could be given exercises

based on the findings of the SCOTS corpus study:– notice pragmatic functions of Scottish English

words– ‘reflect on what resources the standard and local

ELF varieties have to accomplish these pragmatic functions and to recognize that different speech communities will accomplish these functions in different ways’ (Anderson and Corbett 2010: 420-1).

Conclusion- Applications• This ‘will help to indicate the level of a speaker’s

desire to affiliate with that particular community’ (Anderson and Corbett 2010: 420-1)

• Roberts (2003: 118)

– VL and in-group knowledge is associated with social differences and the assertion of power.

– Knowing how to use and interpret a particular cue means you are a ‘belonger’

– Failure to pick up on a cue sets the minority linguistic speaker apart

Conclusion- Applications• ESL students in Scotland or planning to go could be– trained to work with the SCOTS corpus itself,

picking out SSE and Scots VLs items and noticing speakers’ informal, polite and involved interactional intentions

– reassured to know that informal BrE words that they already know are central to these Scottish English

– made aware of the social complexity of producing the Scots VL inappropriately

Bibliography

• Anderson, W. (2006) ‘Absolutely, totally, filled to the brim with the Famous Grouse’: intensifying adverbs in SCOTS. English Today: Vol.22/3.pp.10-16.

• Anderson, W. and Corbett, J. (2010) Teaching English as a friendly language: lessons from the SCOTS corpus. English Language Teaching Journal Vol. 64/4.pp.414-423.

• Channell, J. (1994) Vague Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.• Cutting, J. (2007) (ed) Vague Language Explored. Basingstoke:

Palgrave Macmillan.• Douglas, F. (2003) The Scottish Corpus of Texts and Speech:

Problems of Corpus Design. Literary and Linguistic Computing, Vol. 18/1.pp.23-37.

Bibliography

• Kirkpatrick, A. (2007) World Englishes: Implications for International Communication and English Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

• McCarthy, M. (1998) Spoken Language and Applied Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

• McClure, J. D. (1994) English in Scotland. In Burchfield, R. The Cambridge History of the English Language, volume v. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.pp.23-92

• Scottish Government (2010) Public Attitudes Towards the Scots Language. www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2010/01/06105123/0

• SCOTS Project (2011) www.scottishcorpus.ac.uk/about/background/

THANKS AN AA THE REST O IT!