Lexical Variation in Intensifiers Newfoundland

Lexical Variation in Intensifiers

Newfoundland English Intensifiers

Lexical variation of intensifiers in Newfoundland and other forms of Canadian English

Some of the most common intensifiers in English include 'so,' 'pretty,' 'some,' and 'right.' The extent to which the use of these variables has permeated Standard English vs. how they are used in regional variations can be seen in a comparison between different forms of Canadian English, most particularly in its rural vs. urban incarnations. Intensifiers are an area of frequent linguistic change. "Often in the history of English, new intensifiers have entered in to common usage, in many cases supplanting previous dominant forms, only to be supplanted in turn" (Bulgin et al. 2008: 105). Many different 'Englishes' exist, and many different ways of using English can be found manifest in the English-speaking world. Canada is a vast, sprawling territory and within its outreach are numerous areas which are relatively isolated from the general developmental patterns manifested in Canada's most densely-populated areas. One such a region is Newfoundland.

Previous research

Intensifiers, or words which affect the 'intensity' to which a word is expressed, are of great interest to linguistics because they undergo such rapid change and often reflect regional and demographic eccentricities. In English, they are particularly variable. Bulgin (et al. 2008) conducted a study specifically concerned with the use of intensifiers by members of the Newfoundland population in Canada. 3000 'tokens' of identifiable intensifiers were collected through online forums such as Facebook of a varied nature to give a random sampling of how such grammatical constructions were used.

Using online sources as a method of collecting linguistic artifacts is increasingly popular amongst linguists, given that the format often forces persons to 'articulate' or demonstrate their gender, regional affiliation, and other characteristics. The authors collected data from social networking sites that force users to identify themselves by gender and location, although the authors did acknowledge that providing a varied socioeconomic picture of language use might be difficult using an Internet sampling (given that the ability to access the Internet presumes a certain level of affluence) and this was also true of also age, given that social networking sites tend to skew young (Bulgin et al. 2008: 103).

According to Bulgin (et al. 2008) "despite its frequency in the Newfoundland corpus, so has not yet reached the same level of grammaticatization as the popular and widespread intensifiers very and really. So's limited distribution is not a reflection of intensifier choice, but also of its grammatical restrictions which are not shared with other frequently-used intensifiers" (Bulgin et al. 2008: 114). However, the authors found that while 'so' is often more used by rural and urban females, 'very 'and 'really' tend to be used more often by rural males, indicating that grammatical utility alone may not necessarily explain patterns of modifier use, but may also be rooted in cultural factors. In general, women tend to use 'so' more frequently overall (twice as much as men), regardless of location, although the favoring of 'so' is particularly manifest amongst rural females, while men (particularly rural men) tend to prefer 'very' almost exclusively.

Amongst rural users, there was a more gendered use of the word 'fucking,' with males using this term more frequently than females if they came from rural backgrounds. The authors also suggested that the connotative use of 'fucking' may vary from rural to urban locations, with rural dwellers tending to see 'fucking' as a swear word, while urban dwellers tending to view it more casually, with humor, as just another modifier. Similarly, the intensifier 'right' may vary contextually, depending on the meaning invested the term -- it can be used either sarcastically (as in 'yeah, right') or sincerely (as in a 'right action').

These findings confirmed previous studies which suggested that women tend to be more apt to use more novel intensifiers, given that 'so' is a more novel or younger intensifier in the history of English, while 'very' is older (Bulgin et al. 2008: 109). Of greater import may be the fact that the word 'so' conveys a greater emotional intensity than does 'very.' Thus, women are more apt to use these linguistic tropes which convey emotional intensity beyond that of an impersonal sense of degree. The gendered division regarding 'fucking' and the more explicitly gendered divisions amongst rural posters likewise suggests the extent to which culture affects linguistic patterns.

The fact that rural women tended to be the most enthusiastic users of 'so' while urban women tended to use 'so' less frequently in relationship to their male counterparts may be due to cultural factors in which urban dwellers wish to assume a more 'masculine' persona for various social and professional reasons, or the greater social cross-pollination between the genders. The fact that rural males were least inclined to use 'so' relative to urban males suggests less interaction on a friendly basis between women and men in rural areas and a greater pressure upon male dwellers to seem masculine (Bulgin et al. 2008: 109-110). Older intensifiers in the most rural areas of Newfoundland were particularly stubborn in terms of eradication, reflecting the geographic isolation of the area, perhaps, and its insular culture (Bulgin et al. 2008: 110).

It is interesting to compare the Newfoundland-based study of Bulgin (et al. 2008) with studies of more purely urban dwellers. According to Tagliamonte (2007), a study of Canadian linguistic patterns in Toronto revealed that "very is quickly moving out of favour and really has expanded dramatically. Moreover, there is evidence to suggest that other intensifiers are on the rise -- so and pretty." Tagliamonte has compared linguistic patterns amongst residents of more rural York in Canada, versus residents of Toronto, and compared them both with the use of intensifiers in the American sitcom Friends (Tagliamonte & Roberts 2005). Once again, she justified her focus upon intensifiers and mediums of linguistic change, and noted that women tend to use intensifiers more often. However, it is also noteworthy that young people, particularly adolescents, tend to be enthusiastic consumers of intensifiers regardless of gender (Tagliamonte 2006). Still, her comparative research found that while " York English represents an earlier stage in which very was dominant, but Toronto English is more advanced along the trajectory of change with really in an advanced position in the system and so rising…. The American television series Friends: it represents a striking 44.1 per cent of the intensifiers used….this heightened use was indicative (i) of the rise of so as the new favourite intensifier in North America and (ii) that the medium of television was mirroring this trend while at the same time pushing it forward" (Tagliamonte 2008).

Additionally Tagliamonte noted that 'so' tended to be favored by young people, but there was also a notable gendered division in regards to some intensifiers that were not necessarily relegated to young people. She was puzzled: "why would young Canadian males use pretty while their female counterparts use so? This polarization of the sexes in Toronto is (to my knowledge) entirely beneath consciousness. Yet these particular choices seem somewhat surprising given the 'girlish' associations of pretty deriving (at least in part) from its adjectival meaning as 'attractive' or 'good-looking', a use still robust in Canadian English" (Tagliamonte 2008). However, this may be an overly literal reading of the word, and the notion that 'so' conveys greater emotional rather than factual intensity may be at the heart of this phenomenon

In comparing the different research on intensifiers, questions still which remain unexplored such as the extent to which context (speaking vs. online) use might affect adjectival constructions. Most of Bulgin's work was online; Tagliamonte's work focused upon a combination of spoken constructions and observed interactions on television. The question remains unanswered if people are more apt to use novel intensifiers in written or spoken English as well as the extent to which location may influence their speech, along with gender

Expected results of a survey, based upon a literature review

A survey of rural vs. urban residents of Newfoundland vs. Toronto would likely find greater gendered use of intensifiers amongst female vs. male residents, and greater favoring of novel and more emotive intensifiers by females.

Review of survey results

In the survey, 236 individuals from Newfoundland were assessed: 113 males and 123 females. This nearly 1:1 ratio was selected given the 'gendered' nature of the use of intensifiers, a topic of particular concern in the literature review. In contrast to previous studies, which focused upon gender and location regarding the different trends of intensifier use, this study focused upon age. The use of intensifiers was compared, based upon the decade in which the survey participant was born.

As can be seen in the first chart, regarding the use of the word 'pretty,' this intensifier was most commonly used by persons born in the 1960s, by a striking 90%. It has been noted before that 'pretty' has tended to be favored by males, and is considered less emotive than other comparable intensifiers, suggesting a favoring of a more 'factual' approach to the use of intensifiers amongst members of this particular demographic group (Tagliamonte 2008).

The second chart refers to the use of the intensifier 'so.' As has been noted in the literature review, 'so' is perhaps one of the most controversial choices of intensifier, given that it is associated with a more female, expressive style of speech (Bulgin et al. 2008: 114). Previous literature indicates that women use 'so' overwhelmingly more than males, and that women from more traditional, gendered socioeconomic situations (living in rural areas, versus urban areas like Toronto) are far more apt to use 'so.' In this instance, the use of the world 'so' was favored by persons born in the 1970s. The reasons for this may be that persons born during this time period grew up in an era where using more emotive language was far more acceptable, versus their counterparts from the 1960s.

However, in comparing the more factual 'pretty' with the more emotional 'so,' it is noteworthy that the youngest demographic groups use both intensifiers with far less frequency than either persons born during the 1960s or 1970s. This could be explained by several possible hypotheses, the first and most obvious of which is that young people today are using different types of identifiers than 'pretty' or 'so,' compared with persons in the past. Language inevitably exhibits generational shifts, and such a shift may be occurring today in the use of both grammatical constructions.