Variations in

in the use casually

of spoken
English
Michael TL Pace-Sigge
 “I”- some facts
• “I” is one of the most frequent spoken English items in all
corpora
• Deictic reference is a communicative practise based on a
figure-ground structure joining a socially defined indexical
ground, emergent in the process of interaction, and a
referential focus articulated through culturally constituted
schematic knowledge. The horizon of schematic knowledge
that practise presupposes, is also produced in the practise.
(Hanks 1990: 515)
• Fasulo and Zucchermaglio (2002) claim that utterances with
“I” have four discursive functions:
Four basic classes were identified on the basis of their
semantic and pragmatic meaning:
Epistemics, Decisionals, Operatives, and Impersonals.
Corpora and occurrence of “I”

Total
Item Relation Total “I” Corpus (Tokens)
I (MAC) 1.13% 37,127 3,300,000
I (BNC/C) 3.28% 132,397 4,022,428
I (COLT) 2.90% 14,868 511,834
I (LTT) 2.60% 323 12,406
I (SCO) 2.26% 2,693 119,079
I (WSC) 2.27% 27,691 1,218,957
I (SEC rec.) 2.42% 1,343 55,561
Table 1: I use in different spoken corpora
Top 10 collocates MAC & BNC/C
MAC Col. % total BNC/C Col. % total
IT 21.0 7,627 TO 18.1 23,984
YOU 18.0 6,684 IT 17.5 23,231
AND 15.8 5,860 THE 17.4 23,099
TO 14.1 5,224 AND 17.3 22,895
KNOW 13.5 4,987 YOU 17.1 22,660
THE 13.2 4,882 KNOW 15.4 20,386
THAT 12.3 4,578 A 13.9 18,389
DON'T 11.9 4,399 DON'T 12.9 17,130
THINK 11.4 4,215 THAT 12.5 16,488
A 10.9 4,042 THINK 12.3 16.262
T a b le 2: 10 most frequent collocates of I in MAC and BNC/C

Though rankings are different,

proportional frequencies are similar in both corpora.
 Contrasting corpora: COLT & LTT
COLT Word Total LTT Word Total
KNOW 2870 LIKE 89
YOU 2597 WAS 83
DON'T 2224 AND 79
IT 2154 DON'T 53
AND 2113 KNOW 51
TO 2017 TO 43
THE 1785 THE 38
WAS 1561 A 34
YEAH 1527 THINK 33
THAT 1498 JUST 29
Table 3: 10 most frequent collocates of I in two London Teen corpora
•Rankings as well as preferred collocates
show clear divergences.
•This can be seen as reflection of different primings
 Diverse corpora, diverse “I”
collocates
SCO Word Total WSC Word Total SEC Word Total
KNOW 480 AND 6928 THE 331
AND 478 THE 6374 IN 242
TO 453 TO 5674 TO 238
THE 451 IT 4917 AND 230
IT 444 THAT 4830 WAS 187
YOU 405 WAS 4527 A 177
A 381 KNOW 4347 YOU 149
THAT 344 THINK 4327 THINK 142
WAS 312 YEAH 4280 OF 134
DON'T 308 YOU 4276 THAT 124
T a b le 4: 10 most frequent collocates of I occurring in Liverpool (SCO), New Zealand
(WSC) and in radio interviews (SEC).
Different rankings and only “THE” is a collocate found in all corpora.
 Convergence: 2w “I” clusters
rank SCO freq. MAC freq. BNC/C freq.
1 I DON’T 282 I DON’T 3,811 I DON'T 15,982
2 I MEAN 249 I MEAN 3,663 I MEAN 15,258
3 AND I 225 I THINK 3,326 I THINK 14,228
4 I WAS 205 I, I 3,302 AND I 10,704
5 I THINK 197 I KNOW 2,728 I I* 9,846
6 I KNOW 148
6 I-I 148 (* no comma in BNC/C concordance )
Table 6: Most frequent 2w clusters (chunks) with I in SCO, MAC and BNC/C.
 Areas of divergence in “I” 2w
clusters
COLT Freq. LTT Freq. WSC Freq. SEC Freq.
I DON'T 1995 I WAS 75 I THINK 3348 I WAS 113
I KNOW 1578 AND I 54 I DON'T 3185 I THINK 81
I MEAN 1157 I DON'T 43 I MEAN 2958 I SUPPOSE 62
I WAS 1021 I THINK 26 AND I 2900 I DON'T 60
YEAH I 996 I KNOW 25 II 2493 AND I 60
Table 7: Top 5 2w clusters in COLT, LTT, WSC and SEC.
•We find “I DON’T” in all corpora, yet it is found ranking 1st only in main UK corpora.
•First indication of different occurrence patterns in different corpora.
•Apart from “I SUPPOSE” no differences seen in SEC.
 Into detail: What lies behind
similar 2w clusters
item SCO tot. SCO % MAC tot. MAC %
I CAN’T 51 1.6 902 2.4
I’M NOT 78 2.4 867 2.2

I'M NOT cluster comparison

I’M NOT SURE

10
I’M NOT I’M NOT 8 BUT I’M NOT
6
4
2
SCO
NO I’M NOT 0 AND I’M NOT
MAC

I’M NOT GONNA I’M NOT KIDDING

I’M NOT IN
Clear
Cleardifferences:
differences: Long clusters
long clusters.
MAC Occ. COLT Occ. WSC Occ. SEC Occ
I DON’T KNOW 1412 I DON'T KNOW 674 I DON'T KNOW 1571 I THINK THE 22
I MEAN I 1238 YEAH I KNOW 324 I DON'T THINK 459 I WANT TO 22
III 946 I DON'T THINK 240 YOU KNOW I 357 I DON'T THINK 18
I THINK I 742 NO I DON'T 160 DON'T KNOW I 333 WHEN I WAS 13
I KNOW I 614 YOU KNOW I 160 I DON'T KNOW I 319 I DON'T KNOW 12

•“I DON’T KNOW” is clearly a feature of casual speech

•Less so for pre-planned speech - see SEC

•Long clusters present a clear pattern of different

primings reflected in the different corpora.
Different primings: the case of
I don’t really
•“I DON’T REALLY” is a phrase
Corpus Freq. %
that appears to be corpus-specific.
•Very high use in LTT. BNC/C 213 0.16
•Barely recorded in MAC. MAC 21 0.06
•Not in use in the COLT 30 0.20
pre-planned speech of SEC. LTT 5 1.55
•Found with similar proportional
SCO 6 0.20
frequencies in all other corpora.
WSC 90 0.33
SEC 0 0.0
T a b le 10: Occurrence of I don’t really in 7 corpora. (% of total I occ.)
 Longest available “I” clusters
Corpus 5w cluster Freq. %
BNC/C YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN 326 0.25
•I shows clear preference
DO YOU KNOW WHAT I 101 0.08
to appear with KNOW and
YOU SEE WHAT I MEAN 45 0.03
MAC YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN 153 0.43 MEAN
I DON T KNOW I DON'T 100 0.27 •Obvious preference for use
MEAN I SOMETIMES I MEAN 64 0.17 of one phrase
COLT YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN 81 0.54
I KNOW I KNOW I 42 0.28
KNOW I KNOW I KNOW 33 0.22 •Stark exception:
WSC I DON'T KNOW I DON'T 83 0.3 the long phrases of SEC.
DON'T KNOW I DON'T KNOW 48 0.17
YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN 45 0.16
SEC I WANT TO GET THROUGH I 6 0.45
I KNOW I THINK YOU'D 6 0.45
EVEN WORSE WHILE I WAS 6 0.45
Table 11: Top 3 occurring I 5w cluster in BNC/C, MAC, COLT, WSC and SEC.
 - Long clusters incorporating
constituent parts -
LTT Frq. % SCO Frq. %
I WAS LIKE 47 14.6 WHAT I MEAN 61 2.4
AND I WAS 31 KNOW WHAT I 51
AND I WAS LIKE 27 YOU KNOW WHAT 49
WAS LIKE OH 6 YOU KNOW WHAT I 48
LIKE OH MY GOD 5 KNOW WHAT I MEAN 47
AND I WAS LIKE OH MY GOD 5 1.5 YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN 46 1.7
Table 12: appearance of constituent parts in longest meaningful clusters in LTT and SCO.

Note the difference between the corpora’s

proportion of incorporating the short
phrase into a longer one.
 Conclusions
• “I” appears to have most collocates and 2w-clusters with similar
proportional frequencies where corpora are similar (i.e. UK speakers).
• The similarities are less pronounced where corpora are different
(i.e. a UK corpus compared to a New Zealand or recordings corpus)
• There are starker differences visible, however, the longer the clusters
compared are.
• Even similar figures for 2w clusters may hide clear divergencies where
these are part of longer, frequent, clusters.
• Different prominent clusters in different corpora can be
interpreted as results of different primings.
• These primings are most prominent in SEC - showing careful-
preplanned speech patterns;
• also prominent in LTT, showing direct, short-term
priming based on recordings taken within a very
short period of time, of a very local and select group.
 Thank you!
Michael T.L. Pace-Sigge
scouse@liverpool.ac.uk