"All of youse guys is gonna have to take a little test." : Strategies of Pluralizing the 2nd Person Plural Pronoun you
Liedes, Jenna (2022)
Liedes, Jenna
2022
Englannin kielen ja kirjallisuuden maisteriohjelma - Master's Programme in English Language and Literature
Informaatioteknologian ja viestinnän tiedekunta - Faculty of Information Technology and Communication Sciences
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Hyväksymispäivämäärä
2022-08-18
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202208026157
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-202208026157
Tiivistelmä
The purpose of this Master’s thesis is to investigate the types of linguistic strategies speakers of English use to distinguish the singular second person pronoun you from the plural, and the different functions and meanings that have been developed for the pluralized variants of you. Previous studies have identified two main strategies of expressing explicit plurality with you: morphological (e.g. suffixation with the plurals) and analytic (i.e. adding a plural element to the pronoun like in you all) strategies.
The hypothesis for the study was that plural forms of the pronoun you have been grammaticalized, meaning they do not only mark plurality but other grammatical functions, such as possessives, too. Furthermore, it was hypothesized that pluralized forms of you also have various pragmatic functions, e.g. expressing the speaker’s evaluation of the addressee, or a close relationship between the speaker and the addressee. In addition to the grammatical and pragmatic functions of plural forms of you, their occurrences in different varieties of English were studied to find out, which pluralization strategies and forms of pluralized you are preferred in different regions and varieties.
The study was conducted as a corpus study, utilizing The Movie Corpus and The TV Corpus, which consist of subtitles from TV shows and movies. The data was analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively to answer the research questions as thoroughly as possible.
The results of the study proved the hypotheses to be true: the forms y’all and youse can be said to have grammaticalized to a certain point, as they also function as possessive forms. In addition to that, all pluralized forms of you had important pragmatic functions in e.g. expressing politeness or as in-group or out-group markers.
Geographically, pluralizing strategies and the preferred forms of pluralized you proved to be in line with previous research: analytic strategies occurred more frequently in Northern American varieties of English while suffixed forms were more common in varieties of English in Australia, New Zealand, and the British Isles.
The hypothesis for the study was that plural forms of the pronoun you have been grammaticalized, meaning they do not only mark plurality but other grammatical functions, such as possessives, too. Furthermore, it was hypothesized that pluralized forms of you also have various pragmatic functions, e.g. expressing the speaker’s evaluation of the addressee, or a close relationship between the speaker and the addressee. In addition to the grammatical and pragmatic functions of plural forms of you, their occurrences in different varieties of English were studied to find out, which pluralization strategies and forms of pluralized you are preferred in different regions and varieties.
The study was conducted as a corpus study, utilizing The Movie Corpus and The TV Corpus, which consist of subtitles from TV shows and movies. The data was analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively to answer the research questions as thoroughly as possible.
The results of the study proved the hypotheses to be true: the forms y’all and youse can be said to have grammaticalized to a certain point, as they also function as possessive forms. In addition to that, all pluralized forms of you had important pragmatic functions in e.g. expressing politeness or as in-group or out-group markers.
Geographically, pluralizing strategies and the preferred forms of pluralized you proved to be in line with previous research: analytic strategies occurred more frequently in Northern American varieties of English while suffixed forms were more common in varieties of English in Australia, New Zealand, and the British Isles.