3 Lookit – the story of a pragmatic marker in Irish English
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Raymond Hickey
Abstract
Full clauses with the verb look developed into pragmatic makers in the past few centuries in English. The initial clauses contained a pronominal direct object, e.g. look at it. In the course of pragmaticalisation, the phrase was univerbated to lookit and from then on took on a new role as a pragmatic marker, typically in the left periphery, and occasionally in the right periphery of an utterance. Although it is common colloquially in Irish English, lookit (sometimes written with a space, i.e. look it) is not recorded in texts from the nineteenth or the first half of the twentieth century. Present-day fiction does afford a few instances: there are a few examples from two novels by Roddy Doyle. For the present study examples collected during fieldwork in different parts of the Republic of Ireland in the period 2014-2020 form the data base. This data confirms that in present-day Irish English lookit is used to get the interlocutor to agree with the speaker, either in a mild form, as an appeal, or in a strong one, as a demand. In addition, lookit, is used as an exhortation to an interlocutor to accept a situation. What is common to these various usages is the request by the speaker that a situation be accepted and not be (further) discussed or contested.
Abstract
Full clauses with the verb look developed into pragmatic makers in the past few centuries in English. The initial clauses contained a pronominal direct object, e.g. look at it. In the course of pragmaticalisation, the phrase was univerbated to lookit and from then on took on a new role as a pragmatic marker, typically in the left periphery, and occasionally in the right periphery of an utterance. Although it is common colloquially in Irish English, lookit (sometimes written with a space, i.e. look it) is not recorded in texts from the nineteenth or the first half of the twentieth century. Present-day fiction does afford a few instances: there are a few examples from two novels by Roddy Doyle. For the present study examples collected during fieldwork in different parts of the Republic of Ireland in the period 2014-2020 form the data base. This data confirms that in present-day Irish English lookit is used to get the interlocutor to agree with the speaker, either in a mild form, as an appeal, or in a strong one, as a demand. In addition, lookit, is used as an exhortation to an interlocutor to accept a situation. What is common to these various usages is the request by the speaker that a situation be accepted and not be (further) discussed or contested.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- 1 An introduction to sociopragmatic variation 1
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Part 1: Investigating sociolinguistic variables
- 2 The sociopragmatics of now in corpora of Irish English and Scottish English 11
- 3 Lookit – the story of a pragmatic marker in Irish English 31
- 4 ‘Er, yeah, no, bummer’: An exploration of the ‘new’ discourse pragmatic marker Yeah, No in contemporary Irish English fiction 45
- 5 New speakers of Irish English: Pragmatic and sociophonetic perspectives 69
- 6 Pragmatic markers in Ulster Irish and Irish English 87
- 7 Boring much? Semantic determinants of constructional attraction in Irish English 107
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Part 2: Metapragmatic structures: Identities, styles, and media
- 8 ‘Oh wait and I tell you . . .’: Narratives, pragmatics, and style in ICE-Ireland 133
- 9 Irish identities in a fictional TV series: Mediatised performance of Derry English in Derry Girls 155
- 10 Salutation and leavetaking formulae in 18th-century varieties of English 173
- 11 Automatically detecting directives with SPICE Ireland 205
- 12 Concluding remarks and future directions in studies on sociopragmatic variation 235
- Index 241
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- 1 An introduction to sociopragmatic variation 1
-
Part 1: Investigating sociolinguistic variables
- 2 The sociopragmatics of now in corpora of Irish English and Scottish English 11
- 3 Lookit – the story of a pragmatic marker in Irish English 31
- 4 ‘Er, yeah, no, bummer’: An exploration of the ‘new’ discourse pragmatic marker Yeah, No in contemporary Irish English fiction 45
- 5 New speakers of Irish English: Pragmatic and sociophonetic perspectives 69
- 6 Pragmatic markers in Ulster Irish and Irish English 87
- 7 Boring much? Semantic determinants of constructional attraction in Irish English 107
-
Part 2: Metapragmatic structures: Identities, styles, and media
- 8 ‘Oh wait and I tell you . . .’: Narratives, pragmatics, and style in ICE-Ireland 133
- 9 Irish identities in a fictional TV series: Mediatised performance of Derry English in Derry Girls 155
- 10 Salutation and leavetaking formulae in 18th-century varieties of English 173
- 11 Automatically detecting directives with SPICE Ireland 205
- 12 Concluding remarks and future directions in studies on sociopragmatic variation 235
- Index 241
