You're like `why not?' The quotative expressions of Glasgow ...

QUOTATIVES IN GLASGOW 11
Table 5: Distribution of quotatives according to person of subject the ®gures
in parentheses refer to plural subjects)
The skewed distribution of forms makes gender comparisons hazardous,
since the girls produce three-quarters of the quotatives in the sample. There is
also the dubious status of forms such as be like that and go like that, since there
is no reference to such quotatives elsewhere. It is, however, possible to look at
be like alone. There are some interesting social class and gender implications in
the use of go and be like, as can be seen in Figure 2, which shows the proportion
of these quotatives produced by each group of adolescents. It can be seen from
Figure 2 that be like without that) is predominantly a middle-class form among
the Glasgow adolescents with the middle-class girls using it more than any
other form 56%) and the middle-class boys choosing it 21 percent of the time,
though their preferred form is go. The working-class girls, who are responsible
for 59 percent of all the quotatives in the sample, choose be like only 11 percent
of the time. All the examples of be by itself are given by girls with equal
numbers from the two social class groups, but since the working-class girls
produce three times as many quotatives, the proportion of be quotatives is
higher for the middle-class girls.
# Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2001
say go be/go like that) be
% N % N % N % N
1st person 34 20 3824 2) 36 23 2) 50 4
2nd person 3 2 2 1 5 3 12 1
3rd person 62 37 2) 60 381) 59 37 4) 38 3
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
be like go
Working-class girls
Middle-class girls
Working-class boys
Middle-class boys
Figure 2: Percentage of be like and go by gender and social class adolescent
sample)