Quotative like, on the other hand, can enquote gestures, facial expressions and sounds. It provides speakers and even computer users with a means for producing a wide range of demonstrative effects, according to the researchers. For example, "I thought wow," when read aloud, doesn't include the same intonations as "I was like, 'Wow!'" "In particular, we see that the young speakers we study use standard forms, such as 'say' and 'think,' when they want to establish factual matters, and 'be + like' when they want to call attention to a speaker's attitude or demeanor," explained Jones, who contrasted the statement "She said, 'Hi'" with the statement "She was like, 'Hi.'" When spoken, the latter would probably include some intonation in the utterance. That extra meaning may then carry over to an individual who reads the sentence in an IM. In their paper, which has been accepted for publication in the journal Language & Communication, Jones and Schieffelin determined this usage of "like" has dramatically increased in IMing over recent years. In 2003, speakers used it 75 percent of the time while communicating face-to-face but only 6 percent of the time in IM's. By 2006, usage in IM's had jumped to 50 percent, and is believed to still be increasing. John Singler, a professor of linguistics at NYU who did not work on the study, told Discovery News that the "utter rapidity" of the way that "be + like" has spread is "remarkable," and it hasn't just happened among Americans. He pointed out that speakers and IMers in the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, Ghana and "who knows where else" have also been bitten by something akin to the quotative like bug. Singler added, "Language is always changing, but it's virtually unprecedented for it to change this fast."
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