Grammar Girl here.
I'm Mignon Fogarty.
And today I'm here with Sally Taglamanti from the linguistics department at the University of Toronto and a self-described language detective.
And you are just going to love hearing about her work today.
Sally, welcome to the Grammar Girl podcast.
It's great to be here.
So happy to have you.
So we have so much to talk about, but I want to start with your work on teens and teen conversation and the words they use.
First, I'm so curious how you even do this research because I keep imagining the Steve Buscemi meme like hello, fellow kids.
So how do you get past that?
That's not how you do it.
That's not how you do it.
The simple and very straightforward answer is well, first of all, I'm a language scientist, so language antennae always, always working.
But the great thing about being a language scientist is when you have five children.
So as my kids were becoming pre-adolescent adolescents, I found myself in a whole new world of interesting new linguistic phenomena.
That was right at my breakfast table.
I had, previous to that, done a lot of work on rural dialects and older people, because that's where interesting linguistic phenomena live that are dying and we want to catch them before they're gone.
But when my kids became teenagers, it was like, whoa, something is cool going on here.
And so what you do in order to study that is you do nothing.
You do not say to your children anything that would let them think that you were listening to them, right?
You just say nothing.
And so for a good long time, I said absolutely nothing.
And I would volunteer to take kids to soccer practices and, you know, music lessons and anything.
And I put all the kids in the back, all their friends, anybody who needed a ride, and then I would listen.
And I discovered a lot of interesting phenomena which I then took to my research lab and said OK, let's go interview adolescents.
And that's how I got started with the research that eventually became my book Teen Talk.
I mean, my kids will not let me analyze their language.
That would be a little bit too invasive.
But I knew what to look for.
And I also knew I could go back to my kids and get confirmation of what I was noticing, what I was thinking about, what I thought was going on.
And sometimes they said, oh, mom, you're off.
You're way, way off.
And other times they were all, really?
That is so cool.
And in some of my research papers, I even cite my kids.
And, you know, some of them have willingly provided me with interesting examples.
And so it's a question of using your linguistic antennae to see what's available and to find interesting things right before your very eyes or ears, as the case may be.
What were some of the most interesting things that your kids said that was maybe validated by your research or that you really followed up on in your research?
Okay, I have two stories about that.
The first story was way back in the early days of instant messaging.
And what I heard was, you know, at the keyboard, it was, when did my kids learn to type that fast?
Yeah.
I mean, there was more to it.
There was more going on there than just, you know, I'm typing my history paper.
It was like rapid fire stuff and it would stop and then rapid again.
And I was like, okay.
So I was the proverbial, you know, parent over the shoulder.
And of course, what immediately happened was like, get lost, mom.
I'm talking to my friend.
So I was like, OK, now what's going on there?
Right.
And so that's when I when I did the big study on MSN communication.
But that is a very dated research project, because you can't study MSN anymore, because it doesn't exist.
Nobody uses it.
And the other thing is all the devices have changed.
So I can't really do what I did then anymore.
Right.
No, there's no tic-tac on the keyboard.
They're doing their thumbs on the phone.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's a different venue and you can't ever really tell whether someone's on a keyboard or a smartphone or what they're doing.
They couldn't even be using audio, right?
Talking into their phone.
So the study I did then was, you know, sadly of its time, but it was great fun because I found out a lot about technology, what kids were doing on instant messaging.
Of course, the uproar at the time was that they were just bastardizing the language and they were screwing it up, and you know all this stuff.
Well, you know, they were using a lot of funky wings of spelling things and using the keyboard to emphasize things with capitalization and reduplication and all kinds of whatever they could do to embellish the language, because that's what creative kids do.
But they really weren't changing the grammar.
They can't because...
They've got to be able to communicate their message.
So it was kind of an interesting story.
So the paper that came out was entitled, LOL, you know, this is not happening.
LOL for real?
No.
There's no change in grammar.
I mean, we still need ways to show laughing online.
And so you know, I think your findings are still completely applicable because you know, you found that you know texting isn't ruining kids' ability to use language.
And I thought the part about formal versus informal places to use was very interesting.
Yeah.
Yeah, it really is.
And you know social media picked up on that, even televisions, and that you'd see this kid.
And they have the kid typing all this wacky stuff.
And even you have the kids like correcting their own grammar by putting in the informal thing that they think is cool, right.
I'm like, I think they really know the grammar.
They're just playing around, because you can't play around with grammar unless you know what the grammar is right.
So it was fun.
And they understand.
They understand where they need to use formal language and where they don't.
Well, yeah.
Were there any other big myths that you feel like you dispelled in your research?
Well, that big myth that the young people are destroying the language.
I mean, I cannot tell you how many times someone says to me, oh, I just hate it when...
And I'm talking about lots of educated people will say that to me.
Oh, I just hate it when young people say, you know, like, oh, it's so stupid.
You know, I just like I hate it.
Right.
Well, you just used it, man.
So, yeah, let's talk about like because that's another thing that you've studied.
And I do think it's fascinating.
Yep.
It is.
I mean, we first started studying it.
It was a huge project.
So I said to my PhD student at the time, Alice Darcy, who's written a considerable amount unlike herself, I said well, I can't do this.
It's too big.
But it's a great dissertation project.
And so she took it on and she did a great job.
And her book 800 Years of Light pretty much encapsulates what she found, which is that, Whether we like it or not, like is here to stay.
And it'll be interesting to see what happens.
You know two, three generations from now, because everybody's using it.
And the only people who don't use it are old people.
So let's see what happens.
Yeah, it's not really kids anymore.
No, it's not kids anymore, because the people that started, you know, bringing it into the grammar closer and closer to the core of syntax.
Yeah, have done it incrementally.
One thing I find interesting about like and maybe there's a name for this, I'm not sure, because when someone says he was like, I'm angry.
And she was like, no way.
The people say that's a substitution for said, but it's really not, because I feel like you're sort of implying.
They said something like I'm angry and something like OK, it's not the same as said.
And is there a name for the using like that way that sort of leads into a quotation?
But.
The implication is that it's not exactly what they said, like a normal quotation would be.
Well, that's the use of like as a quotative frame.
And there too, like has taken over.
So we've been following a single woman for the past 25 years.
And it's called the Clara Silife Project.
That's a pseudonym.
And she was one of the highest users of quotative be like when she was a teenager.
And she's gone on to higher level education.
She's gotten an advanced post-secondary degree.
She works in a very established and important profession.
And her rate of be like as a quotative has not changed since she was 16.
So her rate of be like at 16 is the same as her rate of be like now as she's entering her 40s.
So that use of like, whether you think it's replaced say or not, it's the dominant form today.
So it has to be doing more than just replacing say, right?
Because it used to be say was the, you know, say and think or something was, and also zero.
You could usually say, sometimes say go if you wanted to, or like other things.
Yeah, and then he went, I'm angry, and she went, no way.
Yeah, it's the same.
Right.
So, be like has taken over.
Now, here's the question.
What's next?
You know now that be like is used pervasively by just about everyone, even my specialist doctor, on whatever they're using be like as a quotative.
So it's not like it's a dumb person's thing, as everyone once thought.
It is.
Just it's.
It's the way the new generations frame quoted it.
That's just the way they do it.
So now what are the next generations going to do?
Are they going to keep using like or are they going to come up with a new one?
Who knows?
I keep watching, but so far it's just be like, which of course, drives all the older people crazy, because they hear like like like like like like, like and they think it's some kind of idiotic phrase.
But it's not.
It's just the way young people talk.
That's a great lead into another piece of work you did on interesting age differences with the intensifiers.
Oh, yeah.
So can you talk me through that?
Well, intensifiers are so fun because, you know, the whole idea about intensifiers is that they are supposed to change rapidly.
So it's a great way to tap into linguistic change and progress and to focus in on generational differences, because one of the most pervasive comments you get about language is oh, my kids don't sound like it.
They're terrible.
And then the old people say, oh, the kids are terrible.
And the young people say, oh, those old people, they sound awful.
So there's real commentary.
Nobody's happy with the opposing sides of the age continuum.
So if you look at intensifiers, this is great because you find all kinds of things that point to differences in, Because no one can tell you.
If I said to you or talk to people on the street oh, how can you tell if someone's old if you didn't see them.
And nobody can really tell you.
But if you say, hey, old people use intensifiers that are old.
They say things like.
Oh, that's very nice.
Or it's a very nice day.
Or I'm very happy today.
We're talking about words like so and very and really that make something more intense.
Exactly.
If you want to make something intense, like it's cold today, it's hot today.
Well, how about if it's really cold or super hot or, you know, something like that?
Well...
Young people will typically not say vary.
At least, well, there's a bit of a news story about that.
But you know, the whole idea when I first did the intensifier study was that it was supposed to recycle quickly and that the standard intensifiers vary.
And I first did this by looking at a friend's television show. which was so much fun.
I was so sick of watching Barney the Dinosaur with my kids, you know, and then they started liking Friends.
So, hey, yeah.
And then I noticed that there was something going on.
The guys were using, you know, one type of intensifier and the girls were using another.
So the guys were saying, really, really pretty.
And then, you know, the girls were saying, so, so really.
And I'm thinking...
So?
And pretty.
Interesting.
So we did a study of the friends' interactions over a period of I think it was eight years, and we discovered that, sure enough, the women were using more so.
And as the popularity of the show increased, they were using even more so, and even more so, and even more so.
So I thought, well...
That means that the incoming new intensifier must be so.
So then I studied it in my corpus of Toronto English, and I discovered that you could see Mary going down you know old person's thing and really going up.
But so was so, you know, so pretty, so warm, so wonderful.
Yeah.
Was not rising too, as was seen in Friends?
Yeah, it was rising too.
So I hypothesized at the time, this was back in 2008, okay, so it's going to keep creeping up there.
That's me saying that.
And I was wrong.
It has not overtaken the main intensifier, which is in North American English, and it's really...
Really?
Yeah, it is.
Yeah.
If you want to say it's really cold, you say it's really cold.
And most people will say that.
Now, other intensifiers have come in like super.
There are like the odd creative ones like, oh, it's crazy hot out or something like that.
You can always tell a journalist or someone who's a grammar queen that they will try to be more flowery about language and use things that other people don't.
That's how you can tell someone who's a language person.
Fascinating.
But very is coming back.
You were talking about what's the new thing before and you found that young people are starting to use very again, which was really fascinating.
So here is this is the current dilemma.
So my students and I teach an undergraduate sociolinguistics class.
Third year, you know, learn how to be a language detective, train the students.
We do it by doing a project, you know, go out and interview a couple of friends, male and female.
Let's see what intensifiers they're using.
And we did that for, I think, six years.
And we discovered that over the six year period, I thought so was going to keep going up.
And I was wrong.
What happened was very was going up.
So this paper just came out recently in the last six months.
It's in a journal called Language Variation and Change.
And we make the argument that vary has come back and we provide some argumentation about why that's true.
So now...
Next thing I'm doing is we have a corpus where we have people that we interviewed in 2002 and we have people we interviewed in 2018.
We're checking those materials to see if it's really true that over the course of the two timeframes, vary has actually increased.
And we haven't got all the data processed on that, but hopefully we will soon.
That's interesting.
Well, when you send your students out to do field research like that, what are some of the big things that you tell them to make sure they do or watch out for?
That's a big question.
I mean the capacity that young people have to talk to another person, and get them to tell them stories is a skill.
And you have to learn how to do it.
It's even harder when you have to sit down and get a stranger to talk to you.
Because most kids these days never talk to strangers.
I mean, stranger danger.
Don't go talking to strangers, right?
Part of what I teach students to do is to Do what you do.
Interview someone effectively so that what you eke out of them is their.
You know, whatever you're after their oeuvre, their main findings
But to do sociolinguistic work, what you really want is just that person to tell you stories.
What is their experience in life?
What are the things they think about?
What do they care about?
And so what I tell students to do is be an honest listener.
Sit down and say, hey, tell me a story about your life.
I mean, don't say that right away.
Where were you born?
And where did you grow up?
What kind of games did you used to play when you were a kid?
What was your street like?
Who was your best friend?
Did you ever get blamed for something you never did?
Everybody has, right?
There's always a story about what you got blamed for that you never did.
And so what comes out of those kinds of interviews, or just, you know, informal conversations is people tell you stories.
And when they do, they tend to use intensifiers and quotatives and all the apparatus of language that language scientists like to study.
Yeah.
So you're not asking them about their language.
You're getting them to talk and then observing their language, recording it.
Yeah, because if you ask someone about their language, they'll just not tell you about their language, right?
They will, like, make up stuff.
Oh, I never use, like, oh, soul as an intensifier.
No, I'd never do that.
Begin with telling the emotional story.
Yes, yes.
I mean, falsely accused, you get some intensifiers.
Exactly.
Which is exactly why you know, in real detective interrogation they just keep interviewing someone and they ask them the same questions over and, over and over again.
Right.
So that's not what we do.
You know, we have a pleasant conversation with people.
Right.
I say to people, what is a sociolinguistic conversation like?
It's like a trip down memory lane.
It's usually very cathartic for people because they've never sat in front of another person and had that person intently listen to them.
And my students tell me, many years after having studied with me, that that's one of the things, one of the courses they took, that has held them in the best stead for the rest of their lives.
Because everywhere they go, they just pull out their skills for doing a sociolinguistic interview and they can interact with anyone anywhere.
Family supper.
Great Aunt Susan is beside you.
What the heck do I say to her?
Oh.
You know, where were you born, Aunt Susie?
You know, you go to a cocktail party and your boss turns up and you're like oh yeah hey, where are you from anyway.
You know?
So students tell me it's like the best skill they ever learned how to do.
That's wonderful.
It's like a course not only in linguistics, but just in good conversation.
It's.
You know, it's simple, but it also opens up this huge, amazing and wonderful world of linguistic variation that just comes out.
It's there.
You can't stop it.
You know, we all have it.
You just have to have someone in front of you that's willing to listen, like you're listening to me, even though you have a plan right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, it reminds me I always, before the holidays, I try to tell people, you know the things they can talk about with their relatives.
I said, you know, ask your grandparents why they call the couch a Chesterfield, for example.
Exactly.
You know, we do familects at the end of the Tuesday show, the family dialects, and it's like...
It's a great time to ask your parents and grandparents, why do we say this weird thing?
And you're likely to get not only an answer to the language question I guess that's a little bit more of a direct language question but also a wonderful family story.
That is absolutely true.
So you're right on to what are the best ways of tapping into?
Well language yes, but human nature too.
And the stories that make up the best parts of being human.
Right.
And it could be something simple.
Yeah.
Now, speaking of humans.
Now I want to like change gears a little bit, because you've also done some work on essentially non-human language, because you've looked at chat, GPT and to see if it can talk like a human.
So can you tell us a little bit about that research and what you found?
Well, it's very difficult to talk about that research because it's only an idea about research, right?
Because I haven't done it yet.
I think it would be a great new vista for studying language variation because, of course, ChatGPT and CLOD and all of those big language learning models are being scraped from.
We have no idea where.
And so what does it represent?
I know that language actually is keyed intimately and importantly to time and place and social relationship and social standing and everything else that makes us a human in the social world.
But these big language models, they don't do that to my knowledge.
But that's an empirical question we have to find out.
I mean, I know you can play with the latest systems and you can say oh, I want it to be more formal.
I want it to be more this.
I want it to be more that.
But according to which time and place, according to which society?
You know, there's a very big difference between how someone writes a letter of reference in the United States versus how someone writes a letter of reference in Great Britain.
They're very different.
The styles are completely different.
I didn't know that, but it makes sense.
Exactly.
And that's just a small contrast.
So when we ask ChatGPT or Claude, I want this letter to be more formal.
I want it to be more friendly.
I want it to be more this.
I want it to be more that.
We don't know how anyone who receives that is going to interpret it because...
It's not keyed in any way to something real in the universe, like in the secular world.
Now I don't know what those big LLMs are doing and really no one does, because there's no accountability yet.
But it's easy to find out.
You just keep asking them the same questions that I, you know.
Ask other people and let's see what we can find out without the possibility that we're fooling ourselves and we're just in a big circular wheel of LLM-produced language.
So it's going to be tough to be a language detective to try to figure out what they're doing.
But I'm interested.
I would imagine just in the last month or so I've heard people start saying that they feel like they are starting to naturally write the way LLMs write because they're spending so much time reading LLM output.
And I would imagine, as a sociolinguist, you would say that that is...
Oh, yeah.
I can't tell you how many people say to me.
I know the meeting's being recorded so I have to be very careful about how I formulate my questions so that the AI will pick up on the right things to summarize for the meeting.
Wow.
Right?
Wow.
I've heard that.
Kids are starting to know that if they are interacting with AI, it's very important how they phrase their questions in order to get the right answer, or the answer they're seeking or the result they're looking for.
So yeah, it's going to change a lot about how we do things.
Everybody's using AI, but the question is how?
And I have no answers yet, but maybe like in a year or two, I might have some answers.
Yeah.
Well, it's going to be an interesting area of future research.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And you've done such fascinating research already.
Just more exciting stuff ahead.
Sally Teglamonte, thank you so much for being here.
For our Grammarpalusians, we're going to have a whole additional segment.
Sally has done so much amazing research.
We have another whole show we're going to do about her work.
So look for that in your feed if you're one of our Grammarpalusians, one of our supporters.
And thank you.
If you're not, you can sign up now at patreon.com slash grammar girl.
Or, you know, if not, we appreciate your listening here today.
Sally, where can people find you if they want to know more about your work?
Just Google me.
That's T-A-G-L-I-A-M-O-N-T-E.
Sally, S-A-L-I with an I. Sally Teglamonte.
Thank you so much for being here.
Oh, this was so much fun, Miguel.
Thank you.
