The Book of Tells (Peter Collett)[unlocked]

CONVERSATION TELLS
the inaccuracy of the statement, and they suggest that
there's something peculiar about whatever they're
describing. In the United States most educated people
prefer 'kind of and 'sort of to 'rather', although 'rather'
is often favoured by upper-class people in the north-east
- presumably because of its exclusive, English
associations. 'Kind of is generally preferred to 'sort of,
but 'sort of enjoys a lot of popularity in the southern
states. 18
For a long time it was held that the expression 'you
know' is a sign of powerlessness, and that is why women
use it more often than men. There is now some doubt
whether women do use the expression more frequently.
It's also becoming clear that 'you know' performs several
different functions, depending on where it appears in an
utterance, whether it's preceded by a pause, and whether
it's spoken with a rising, falling or level intonation. Janet
Holmes, who has made a special study of 'you know' in
everyday speech, has discovered that women don't
use the expression more frequently, but that men
and women often use it for quite different purposes -
while women use 'you know' to underline their
confidence in what they're saying, men use it to express
uncertainty and to show that they're being imprecise. 19
'You know' can be used as a form of 'back-calling' - in
other words, as a means of eliciting back-channel and
support from the listener, and enabling the speaker to
continue. When it's used as a 'verbal filler' it can perform
the same task as expressions like 'sort of, 'you see' and
'I mean', which speakers use to keep speaking and to discourage
other people from trying to take the floor. When
it appears at the end of an utterance, 'you know' can be
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