[Edling] Why do people, like, say, ‘like’ so much?

[Francis M. Hult via Edling]

The Guardian

Why do people, like, say, ‘like’ so much?

When Michael Gove was education secretary in 2014, he used an update to the
national curriculum to require students to speak in “standard English”,
even in informal settings, in all British schools. This reinforced the idea
that there was only one right way to speak English. By 2019, one primary
school head in Bradford, Christabel Shepherd, said she banned the word
because, “When children are giving you an answer and they say, ‘Is it,
like, when you’re, like…’ they haven’t actually made a sentence at all.
They use the word all the time and we are trying to get rid of it.” Nick
Gibb, then schools minister, praised the decision and said others should
follow suit...

Carmen Fought, professor of linguistics at Pitzer College...adds that
although the debate around “like” can be fun, when it comes to teachers
punishing children for saying the word there are more serious impacts.
“There’s nothing more non-conducive to learning and contrary to the purpose
of education than constantly shutting kids down because of how they talk.
If you want to teach a kid to practise having different language styles,
that’s fine. But to demean and criticise the way someone speaks in any
situation is very, very harmful.”

Full story:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/may/15/why-do-people-like-say-like-so-much-in-praise-of-an-underappreciated-word
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/edling/attachments/20220519/d06b7223/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------


_______________________________________________
Edling mailing list
Edling at lists.mail.umbc.edu
https://lists.mail.umbc.edu/mailman/listinfo/edling