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Chapter 2. She said “I don’t like her and her don’t like me”

Complex interpersonal relations expressed through personal pronoun exchange in the Black Country dialect
  • Lyndon Higgs
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The Pragmatics of Personal Pronouns
This chapter is in the book The Pragmatics of Personal Pronouns

Abstract

In the regional variety of English spoken in the Black Country (an area of central England), the object pronoun her is sometimes found in subject function. In a corpus of recorded informal conversations with Black Country dialect speakers, both the Standard English subject pronoun she and its dialect equivalent, her, regularly occurred. This pronoun exchange is not random, but depends on several factors, such as the speaker, the listener, the situational context, the topic, and, most importantly, the speaker’s relation to the referent of she or her. These social and relational concepts bear similarity to those found in the French tu/vous second person binary politeness distinction, since factors such as solidarity, respect and disrespect affect the choice of pronoun.

Abstract

In the regional variety of English spoken in the Black Country (an area of central England), the object pronoun her is sometimes found in subject function. In a corpus of recorded informal conversations with Black Country dialect speakers, both the Standard English subject pronoun she and its dialect equivalent, her, regularly occurred. This pronoun exchange is not random, but depends on several factors, such as the speaker, the listener, the situational context, the topic, and, most importantly, the speaker’s relation to the referent of she or her. These social and relational concepts bear similarity to those found in the French tu/vous second person binary politeness distinction, since factors such as solidarity, respect and disrespect affect the choice of pronoun.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Chapter 1. Personal pronouns 1
  4. PART I. Personal pronouns beyond syntax: Competing forms in context
  5. Chapter 2. She said “I don’t like her and her don’t like me” 27
  6. Chapter 3. Free self-forms in discourse-pragmatic functions 45
  7. Chapter 4. Sex-indefinite references to human beings in American English 69
  8. PART II. First and second person pronouns across genres: Advertising, TV series and literature
  9. Chapter 5. ‘ Loquor, ergo sum’ 95
  10. Chapter 6. ‘You’ and ‘I’ in charity fundraising appeals 105
  11. Chapter 7. Breaking the fourth wall 125
  12. Chapter 8. How do person deictics construct roles for the reader? 147
  13. PART III. Referring to the self and the addressee in context of interaction
  14. Chapter 9. First and second person pronouns in two mother-child dyads 173
  15. chapter 10. Pronouns and sociospatial ordering in conversation and fiction 195
  16. Chapter 11. Referring to oneself in the third person 215
  17. PART IV. The pragmatics of impersonal and antecedentless pronouns
  18. Chapter 12. Interpreting antecedentless pronouns in narrative texts 241
  19. Chapter 13. The infinite present 259
  20. Chapter 14. Pragmatic and stylistic uses of personal pronoun one 275
  21. Chapter 15. Impersonal uses of the second person singular and generalized empathy 311
  22. Index 335
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.171.02hig

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Chapter 1. Personal pronouns 1
  4. PART I. Personal pronouns beyond syntax: Competing forms in context
  5. Chapter 2. She said “I don’t like her and her don’t like me” 27
  6. Chapter 3. Free self-forms in discourse-pragmatic functions 45
  7. Chapter 4. Sex-indefinite references to human beings in American English 69
  8. PART II. First and second person pronouns across genres: Advertising, TV series and literature
  9. Chapter 5. ‘ Loquor, ergo sum’ 95
  10. Chapter 6. ‘You’ and ‘I’ in charity fundraising appeals 105
  11. Chapter 7. Breaking the fourth wall 125
  12. Chapter 8. How do person deictics construct roles for the reader? 147
  13. PART III. Referring to the self and the addressee in context of interaction
  14. Chapter 9. First and second person pronouns in two mother-child dyads 173
  15. chapter 10. Pronouns and sociospatial ordering in conversation and fiction 195
  16. Chapter 11. Referring to oneself in the third person 215
  17. PART IV. The pragmatics of impersonal and antecedentless pronouns
  18. Chapter 12. Interpreting antecedentless pronouns in narrative texts 241
  19. Chapter 13. The infinite present 259
  20. Chapter 14. Pragmatic and stylistic uses of personal pronoun one 275
  21. Chapter 15. Impersonal uses of the second person singular and generalized empathy 311
  22. Index 335
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