Learning to be (un)hip in panel data

Abstract The quotative system is a highly dynamic domain characterised by competing traditional variants ( say, think ) and newcomers ( be all, be like ) ( Buchstaller 2013 ). Trend and apparent time studies have focused on be like , describing its expansion across the English-speaking world and reporting incrementation amongst the younger age-brackets ( D’Arcy & Tagliamonte 2003 ; Gardner et al. 2021 ). “Information on speakers’ loyalty to be like across their lifespan is conflicting”, however ( Buchstaller 2015 : 460). We report on a dynamic panel corpus to assess malleability in the quotative system across the adult lifespan. Our findings suggest that the grammar underlying be like remains largely stable across the lifespan. And while most socio-demographic factors do not significantly influence speakers’ quotative choices, we seem to witness the development of socially niched retrenchment in the middle age brackets, turning one of the most vibrant changes in the English language into a gender-differentiated and age-graded pattern.