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 chapter 9

General extenders in learner language

Karin Aijmer
University of Gothenburg

The aim of the paper is to study how general extenders are used by Swedish
learners of English in comparison with native speakers. The study is based on a
corpus of Swedish learners’ spoken English compiled within the international
LINDSEI project. The analysis is both quantitative and qualitative. It is shown
that the Swedish learners do not use general extenders in the same way as native
speakers; in particular, they ’underuse’ and ’overuse’ certain forms and use fewer
variants. The qualitative analysis shows that the function of general extenders is
also linked to aspects of speaking fluently. Comparisons are also made with the
use of general extenders by French, Dutch and German learners on the basis of
other spoken learner corpora. The analysis shows that learners’ use of general
extenders is affected both by the resources available in the native language and by
the social norms and values regarding how the extenders should be used.

1. Introduction

I don’t know I’ve always liked university and things or studying and so on and .
been thinking about what to do and I can’t really think of anything it’s like teacher
maybe but eh which would be interesting but I . like I’ve done . bit of substitute
teaching for: grades seven to nine and it’s basically keeping order on the kids and
not so much about . the actual subject or . whatever so and that’s what interests
me I don’t really . like . sort of being an extra father for some teenagers so so then
yeah obviously you have to go . a bit further and . I like the environment here and
everything so . I wouldn’t mind staying on (LINDSEI- SW: Swedish
component of the Louvain
International Database of
Spoken English Interlanguage)

DOI 10.1075/scl.73.10aij
© 2015 John Benjamins Publishing Company
212 Karin Aijmer

‘Final tags’ such as and things, and everything, or whatever have interested scholars
concerned with variation since Dines (1980) in a pioneering study drew attention
to their formal and social variation. Dines (1980) used Labov’s model of varia-
tion analysis to show that and stuff like that and variants (or something like that,
and things, etc.) could be regarded as a discourse variable whose realisations were
‘differentially distributed’ in the discourse community.
Not surprisingly, utterance-final tags beginning with and and or have
been  studied from many different perspectives. There is, however, no consis-
tent  terminology. The term ‘general extender’ (which will be used here) has
been more common in recent work to describe “phrase- or clause-final con-
structions which exhibit extensive variability” (Pichler & Levey 2011: 442).1
However, general extenders are ‘slippery’ since they can be realised in many
different ways. They are multifunctional and are used differently depending on
who the speakers are, whether they know each other or not, the discourse type,
formality, etc.
More recently, learner corpora have made it possible to study how non-native
speakers use general extenders and to compare native and non-native speakers’
use of general extenders. The extract above, for example, illustrates how a Swedish
learner uses general extenders. The data from learner corpora can show if learners
overuse or underuse the extenders and if they use them like L1 users do.
The aim of this paper is to study how general extenders are used by (Swedish)
learners of English in comparison with native speakers. The analysis will be both
quantitative and qualitative and will address the following questions: do native
and non-native speakers use the same general extenders and with the same fre-
quencies? Are there any differences in how they are used?
We can expect that learners’ use of general extenders is affected both by the
existence of similar resources in their native language and by cultural and social
norms and values specific to that language. The extenders used by Swedish learn-
ers, for instance, are not the same as those used by learners with other mother
tongues. We also need to distinguish between ‘the corpus as a whole’ and how
individual learners use general extenders.

1. The term ‘general extender’ has for instance been used by Overstreet (1999) and by
Cheshire (2007). In some recent work (Evison et al. 2007; O’Keeffe 2004, 2006) the general
extenders are referred to as Vague Category Markers (VCMs). Other terms which have been
used are ‘generalized list completer’ (Jefferson 1991), ‘extension particle’ (Dubois 1993), ‘set-
marking tag’ (Dines 1980; Ward & Birner 1993). However these terms seem to identify the
general extenders with a single function (cf. Overstreet 1999).

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 Chapter 9. General extenders in learner language 213

2. Previous work

Tagliamonte and Denis (2010) describe general extenders as a unique opportunity

to study social and linguistic influence on discourse pragmatic variation.
They demonstrate how variability can be correlated with locality (Toronto) and
with the age of the speaker. General extenders have also been studied in dialects
(Pichler & Levey 2011), in several major varieties of English (Aijmer, 2013), and in
adolescent language (Cheshire 2007; Stenström et al. 2002). The frequency and use
of general extenders can also be related to the norms of the discourse type, for
example whether it is accepted to be implicit only.
Some interesting work on general extenders has been carried out by O’Keeffe
(2004, 2006; cf. also Evison et al. 2007). The focus in these studies is on how
general extenders (referred to as ‘vagueness markers’) are indexically associated
with speakers and their identities, professional roles, and their relationship to the
hearer. A key to their function is ‘underspecification’. General extenders should
not be regarded as vague, uninformative and sloppy but rather represent “the
creative forefront of language use and the collaborative use of meaning” (Evison
et al. 2007: 142). Speakers construct an identity and a social relationship with the
hearer by signalling that the hearer will be able to fill in the missing informa-
tion. For example, in an informal conversation general extenders “draw on what
is given and shared within the participation framework” (O’Keeffe 2004: 5). How-
ever, there are differences between discourse types. In an informal conversation a
speaker who ‘says everything’ may be regarded as pedantic or a bore. On the other
hand, explicitness is valued in a business transaction or in the courtroom.
What is ‘given’ information also depends on who the speakers are and the
type of discourse. In a corpus study of an Irish radio phone-in show, for exam-
ple, O’Keeffe (2004) found that the general extenders projected a high degree of
knowledge specific to the Irish community. The speakers used general extend-
ers to refer to certain ‘common denominators’, for example, social practices and
responsibilities, thereby identifying themselves as a socially-aware middle class
group.
The speakers in my study were university students who were interviewed
by a native speaker. The interviewees were encouraged to talk on certain topics
(see Section 3). As a result, what O’Keeffe (2006) refers to as the (socio-cultural)
reference domain is to some extent pre-determined. However, while O’Keeffe
(2004) emphasises ‘speaker-addressee interdependence’ and the ‘co-construction
of meaning’, learners may use general extenders in new and different ways. They
may, for instance, use general extenders because they cannot think of a word,
because they are uncertain or because they think that a certain extender sounds
English.

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214 Karin Aijmer

3. Data

This study is made possible by the availability of learner corpora. In order to study
Swedish learners, I have used the Swedish Component of the Louvain Interna-
tional Database of Spoken English Interlanguage Corpus (LINDSEI-SW) (Gilquin
et al. 2010). The Swedish corpus consists of 50 interviews with a native speaker
interviewer totalling 95,164 words. For the present study, I have only included the
learners’ turns (= B turns), amounting to 67,822 words. The non-native speakers
are advanced level, i.e. they have studied English for three or four years. The inter-
view proceeds as follows. The interviewee is asked to talk on a set topic. This could
be a film or play which the interviewee thought was good or bad or (most often) a
country they visited which impressed them. A large part of the interview consists
of free discussion. At the end of the interview, the interviewee is asked to describe
a cartoon representing a young girl who has had her portrait painted by an artist
but is not happy with the result.
The Swedish learner data will be compared with data from a corpus of compa-
rable interviews with adolescent native speakers compiled according to the same
principles as the learner subcorpus: the Louvain Corpus of Native English Con-
versation (LOCNEC). The LOCNEC Corpus contains 125,666 words, or 71,853
words if only B-turns are counted. Differences in frequency between the groups
can therefore be explained as being due to the type of speaker (native or non-
native). In addition, comparisons will be made with other spoken learner corpora
compiled within the LINDSEI project. I have, for instance, made a comparison
with the French, Dutch and German components of the LINDSEI Corpus.

4. General extenders and frameworks

General extenders “are recognizable chunks of language” (O’Keeffe 2006: 130) or

“recurrent sequences of words” (De Cock 2004: 226). They can be described as
‘collocational frameworks’ (Renouf & Sinclair 1991)2 which differ depending on
whether they are introduced by and or by or. The head noun can be thing or stuff.
Some main patterns of general extenders are presented in Figure 1; in patterns 3
and 4 we have a quantifier followed by a comparative (like that).

2. Renouf and Sinclair’s (1991) examples of collocational frameworks consist of pairings of

grammatical words such as ‘a * of ’ where both the choice of word-class and the collocate need
to be specified.

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 Chapter 9. General extenders in learner language 215

that sort thing

Pattern 1 and of
this kind stuff
Pattern 2 and things like that
all that
Pattern 3 and like
everything this
something
Pattern 4 or like that
anything

Figure 1. Four patterns of general extenders

To some extent, general extenders are variable and flexible. Speakers can, for
example, choose between and that (sort of thing) and and this (sort of thing). The
connective can be deleted (Ø things like that). There is also variation between
short forms (and things) and the longer forms to which they are related (and things
like that). In addition to extenders which are flexible, there are extenders with a
fixed form such as or so, or whatever, and so on, et cetera.

5. General frequencies

Previous research suggests that general extenders are used less frequently overall
by learners than they are by native speakers. This is in line with earlier observa-
tions that learners underuse pragmatic markers generally (Gilquin 2008). To take
just one example, Hasselgren (2002: 118) found that “and things/everything/stuff
that and like were virtually unused” by Norwegian 14–15 year-old learners of Eng-
lish. Advanced Swedish learners, however, do use general extenders, although not
as frequently as native speakers. There are also differences depending on whether
the extender is introduced by and or by or (see Tables 1 and 2). Table 1 shows the
different patterns with and found in the native and non-native speaker corpora,
while Table 2 does the same thing for or patterns.3 The method used to collect the
examples of general extenders from the two corpora was to search for combina-
tions with and and or and words they are known to frequently co-occur with. The
paradigms include examples where there is no connective (and things like that-
>things like that).The Log Likelihood Calculator 〈http://ucrel.lancs.ac.uk/llwiz-
ard.html〉 was used to compare frequencies in the native and non-native speaker
corpus.

3. Where normalised frequencies are referred to in Tables (‘norm.’) in this Chapter, these are
per 100,000 words.

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216 Karin Aijmer

Table 1. The distribution of and-extenders in the non-native and native speaker corpora
LINDSEI-SW LOCNEC

tokens norm. tokens norm.

1 and stuff 38 56 34 47
2 and so on 17 25*** 2 3***
3 and things 12 18*** 52 72***
4 and things like that 12 18** 29 40**
5 and everything 12 18*** 45 63***

6 and stuff like that 18 27 17 24

7 and all that 5 7 3 4
8 things like that 2 3*** 23 32***
9 and all 2 3 – –
10 and (yeah) everything like that 1 1 – –
11 and all this 1 1 2 3
12 and all these 1 1 – –
13 Ø everything like that 1 1 – –
14 and all the rest (of it) 1 1 3 4
15 and everything else 1 1 – –
16 and eh whatever 1 1 – –
17 and all that stuff – – 1 1
18 and all that kind of stuff – 1 1
19 and all that kind of thing – 3 4
20 and all things like that – 1 1
21 and that sort of thing – 2 3
22 and all these things – 1 1
23 Ø that sort of thing – 8 11
24 et cetera – 2 3
25 and places like that – 4 6
26 and that kind of thing – 9 13
Total 124 183*** 242 337***
**indicates that the difference is significant at p<0.001
***indicates that the difference is significant at p<0.0001

Both native and non-native speakers use a large number of patterns. The
and-patterns were particularly productive both in LINDSEI-SW (16 different
patterns) and in LOCNEC (21 different patterns). The most frequent patterns were

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 Chapter 9. General extenders in learner language 217

represented in both corpora. Less frequent patterns (especially those represented

only once) were distributed unevenly over the two corpora. Some patterns were
‘creative’ and unique to the learners (e.g. and all this, and all these, or some place, or
whatever you wanna call it, or maybe something like that).
We can observe that learners on the whole used fewer and-extenders than
did the native speakers, which is in line with earlier observations that learners in
general use fewer pragmatic markers (cf. Gilquin 2008; Hasselgren 2002). Native
speakers used and things and and everything significantly more often than non-
native speakers did. And things was more than four times as frequent in the native
speaker corpus as in the LINDSEI Corpus and and everything was roughly four
times as frequent. On the other hand, non-native speakers ‘overused’ and so on
(cf. Section 9). Many of the patterns occur only in one of the corpora or are used
only once.

Table 2. The distribution of or-extenders in the non-native and native speaker corpora
LINDSEI-SW LOCNEC

tokens norm. tokens norm.

1 or something 72 106* 57 79
2 or anything 14 21 25 35
3 or something like that 12 18 11 15
4 or whatever 11 16 21 29
5 or so 8 12 8 11
6 or anything like that 6 9 4 6
7 Ø something like that 4 6 11 15
8 or whatever you wanna call it 1 1 – –
9 or things like that 1 1 1 1
10 or some place 1 1 – –
11 or maybe something like that 1 1 – –
12 or somewhere – – 3 4
13 or someone or other – 1 1
Total 131 193 142 198
*significant (p < 0.05)

In the LOCNEC Corpus, or–extenders were less frequent than and-extenders

while the Swedish learners used or-extenders more often. In the London-Lund
Corpus, on the other hand, the disjunctive (or) form has been found to be roughly
twice as frequent as the adjunctive (and) form (Aijmer 2002). The difference may
be explained as due to the type of discourse or to the formality of the London-Lund

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218 Karin Aijmer

Corpus. Although or-extenders were more frequently used by native speakers in

LOCNEC, the difference in terms of normalised frequency is slight (LINDSEI-
SW 193 instances per 100,000 words vs LOCNEC 198 instances). However, there
are interesting differences when we look at the patterns used. Or something was,
for example, more frequently used by learners. The reason for this may be that
Swedish learners are more informal when they speak English. Cheng (2007), on
the other hand, found that Hong Kong speakers of English used or something less
frequently than native speakers and suggested as a possible explanation that Hong
Kong speakers avoid patterns with or something and that “the difference could be
a product of formal school teaching, which does not cover patterns such as these”
(Cheng 2007: 177).
There are also differences when we consider the ranking of the most popular
extenders. In the learner corpus, or something had the highest rank followed by
and stuff and and stuff like that. In the LOCNEC Corpus, on the other hand, the
rank order was and things, or something, and everything. It is also interesting to
make a comparison with the ranking provided by Biber et al. (1999), which is
based on a much larger database (see Table 3).4

Table 3. Rank ordering of the top three general extenders in LINDSEI-SW, LOCNEC
and Biber et al. (1999)
Rank order LINDSEI-SW LOCNEC Biber et al. (1999)

1 or something and things or something

2 and stuff or something and everything
3 and stuff like that and everything and things (like that)

As Table 3 shows, in LOCNEC and in Biber et al. (1999), the top three extend-
ers are the same although the rank order differs. In the Swedish learner corpus and
stuff (like that) replaces and things (like that) while and everything is not among
the top three.

4. Biber et al. (1999) based their frequencies on the Longman Spoken and Written English
Corpus (LSWE), which consists of 40 million words of British and American English repre-
senting four different registers: conversation, fiction, news, and academic prose. We can also
make a comparison with data from Overstreet and Yule (1999: 7), who found the ordering or
something, and stuff, or anything in their (American) data for face-to-face conversation and
telephone conversation.

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 Chapter 9. General extenders in learner language 219

6. Short and long forms

General extenders vary with regard to length. We find and things like that as well as
and things. Both learners and native speakers use a mixture of short and long forms,
with a preference for the short forms. Table 4 compares and things (stuff) with their
long forms; Table 5 does the same thing for or something and its longer forms.

Table 4. Short and long extenders with and compared

LINDSEI-SW LOCNEC

tokens percentage tokens percentage

(and) things/stuff like that/this 32 34% 46 35%

and things, and stuff 62 66% 86 65%
Total 94 100% 132 100%

Table 5. Short and long versions of or something compared

LINDSEI-SW LOCNEC

tokens percentage tokens percentage

(or) something like that/this 14 16.5% 11 15.7%

or something 71 83.5% 59 84.3%
Total 85 100% 70 100%

The figures shown in Tables 4 and 5 show striking similarities in terms of

the preferences for short forms over long forms expressed as a percentage across
learners and native speakers. This is interesting when one considers the similari-
ties between learners and native speakers in terms of the most frequently used
extenders as indicated in Table 3.

7. Correct uses and mismatches

We can distinguish between general extenders which have a canonical or ‘correct’

form and mismatches. In the canonical form, the head noun (e.g. thing or stuff)
has the same syntactic and semantic properties as a noun in the preceding context
to which it is anaphorically connected. In the following example ‘stuff ’ refers back
to a non-count noun:
(1) I like sort of writing short stories and poetry and stuff (abbreviated from
LOCNEC)

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220 Karin Aijmer

However both and stuff and and things can refer anaphorically to different syntac-
tic types (verbs, clauses) and they can refer ‘incorrectly’ to persons.
In example (2) there is a clash between ‘lepers’, which is [+HUMAN], and
‘things’, which is [–HUMAN]. The example therefore represents a mismatch:
(2) I wanted to give to people who really were like crippled or lepers or things
like that (abbreviated from LINDSEI-SW)

In example (3) there is a mismatch between [+PLURAL] and [– COUNT]:

(3) and cows and sheep and stuff. in in Scotland mainly yeah. mostly so
(abbreviated from LINDSEI-SW)

In both corpora and things and and stuff were sometimes used ‘incorrectly’. In par-
ticular they were used not only with noun phrases but to refer to “states, actions
and events” (Evison et al. 2007: 144):
(4) er London is a bit too big it’s nice to be there like a couple of days or
something. it’s too big and is er people are stressed and things em Brighton is
a bit more relaxed. (LINDSEI-SW)

Table 6 compares how learners and native speakers use and stuff (like that); no
distinction is made between short and long forms of this extender here.

Table 6. The use of and stuff (like that) with expected NP and in other environments
including an NP which is semantically incompatible
LINDSEI-SW LOCNEC

tokens norm. tokens norm.

‘Correct’ NP 7 10 7 10
NP 26 38 17 24

VP 8 12 6 8
clause 12 18 19 26
Other (adverbial, prepositional phrase) 3 4 4 6
Total 56 82 53 74

In the LOCNEC corpus, 7 out of 53 examples were used ‘correctly’ (15%).

We can compare this with the LINDSEI -SW corpus, where 7 examples out of 56
(12.5%) were used correctly. Native speakers used and stuff more frequently to
refer to a state or an event than an example of a larger set of things.
In example (5), from LOCNEC, a clause is referred to anaphorically.
The interviewee is talking about a friend of hers who was an au pair in New York.

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 Chapter 9. General extenders in learner language 221

She was with a difficult family who would not let her have time off (and made her
work very hard, etc.):

(5) and she’s moved now so she’s okay they were really demanding and like we
went over to stay. and she would they wouldn’t let her have time off and stuff
so that was a bit [ unfair (LOCNEC)

And stuff refers to a preceding verb phrase in (6):

(6) B: you stay on for an extra. half hour or an hour

A: uhu
B: (clears throat). to clean and stuff
A: uhu
B: so sometimes you worked all day through from eleven to . eleven
(LINDSEI-SW)

When we consider and things the number of matching anaphoric nouns [+PLU-
RAL, +COUNT] is larger for both learners and native speakers, as indicated by
Table 7. However, native speakers use and things more frequently to refer to a
preceding clause indicating that learners are more aware of the function of the
extender to refer to a set.

Table 7. The use of and things (like that) with expected NP and in other environments
LINDSEI-SW LOCNEC

tokens norm. tokens norm.

‘Correct’ NP 11 16 61 85
NP 7 10 17 24
VP – – 8 11
Clause 8 12 18 25
Other – – – –
Total 26 38 104 145

And things most often refers back to a NP in both the native and non-native
speaker data. In LINDSEI-SW, 42.3% of the examples were used ‘correctly’, with a
plural inanimate noun, and in LOCNEC 58.7% were ‘correct’.
Turning to the extender or something (like that) (see Table 8), this co-occurred
most frequently with a noun phrase. It could also refer to a measure phrase, as
shown in (7).
(7) eh it was because my: boyfriend he studied there in Auckland so after two-
and-a-half months or something like that I: visited him (LINDSEI-SW)

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222 Karin Aijmer

As with the short and long forms discussed in Section 6 above there was little
difference between native speakers and learners.

8. Variation between learners

In addition to the global perspective on (Swedish) learners as a group, we need

to look at individual competencies “because the corpus-as-a-whole average
may at times mask an amazing spectrum of individual competencies across
the learners in a learner corpus” (Mukherjee 2009: 215). In summary, in 10
of the 50 interviews no general extenders were found at all. In 6 interviews,
learners used general extenders between 10 and 20 times, and in 6 interviews
an extender occurred only once. The learner who used general extenders most
frequently (20 tokens) had spent a long time in an English-speaking country.
However, for the other speakers there was no correlation with any time spent
abroad.

9. Comparison with other learner corpora

The standard methodology in learner corpus studies is to compare learners

with native speakers. The outcomes of such comparisons are important since it
must be an aim for foreign language teaching that learners improve their com-
municative competence and come close to native-like proficiency. By compar-
ing several learner populations, we can differentiate between forms which are
shared by several learner groups and forms which are specific to a particular
learner group and therefore dependent on the speakers’ L1 (cf. Granger 2002).
The methodology of making comparisons across several learner corpora was
explored by Aarts and Granger (1998) who compared Dutch, French and Finn-
ish learners. Their aim was to look for distinguishing features of learner writing
by studying the top ranking linguistic patterns (what they referred to as ‘syn-
tactic trigrams’). They showed for example that there were striking differences
in the way learners and native speakers begin their sentences. In this section,
a comparison will be made on the basis of the Swedish, French, German and
Dutch learner corpora which are part of the LINDSEI-corpora. The data from
the LOCNEC Corpus has been added for the purposes of comparison. Table 8
compares the use of the most frequent extenders (only those occurring more
than once) introduced by and in the Swedish, French, Dutch and German com-
ponents of LINDSEI.

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 Chapter 9. General extenders in learner language 223

Table 8. The use of and-extenders by native speakers (LOCNEC) compared to Swedish

(SW), French (Belgian) (FR), Dutch (Belgian) (DU) and German (GE) learners (all from
the LINDSEI corpus)
LOCNEC SW FR DU GE

t* n† t n t n t n t n

and stuff 34 47 38 56 – – 11 15 9 11
and stuff like that 17 24 18 27 – – 14 19 4 5
and so on 2 3 17 25 33 40 19 26 15 19
and things 52 72 12 18 1 1 2 3 6 7
and things like that 29 40 12 18 18 22 3 4 6 7
and everything 45 63 12 18 3 4 6 8 15 19
and all that 3 4 5 7 4 5 4 5 7 9
things like that 23 32 2 3 4 5 4 5 1 1
and all – – 2 3 6 7 6 5 – –
Total 202 285 118 175 69 84 69 90 63 78
*t stands for token count
†n is the normalised frequency

Table 8 shows that the learners used and-extenders overall less than native
speakers. However, Swedish learners used them more than other learner groups.
Eight types of and-extenders are represented in the native speaker corpus
compared with nine different and-extenders in the Swedish and Dutch corpora.
Other examples in the Dutch corpus are and all of these things, and all of that
(2 examples), and all those kind of stuff. Six different extenders were represented
in the French corpus, not counting single examples of and things, and all things
like that, and and the things like that. Frequencies of particular extenders also
vary between the learner corpora: and things and and stuff were, for instance, fre-
quent in the Germanic data (Swedish, Dutch, and German) but missing from the
French corpus.5 More creative uses from the German corpus include and all these
little things you know, and all the stuff, and all that stuff, and all of that (2), and
all things like that, and all of these things, and all those sort of things, and all this
sort of thing, and all of these things. The French learners, on the other hand, used

5. Terraschke (2007) compared the uses of general extenders by German non-native

speakers and New Zealand (native) speakers of English. In Terraschke’s material, and stuff was
the most frequent and-extender in the German non-native speaker corpus. There was not a
single example of and things.

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224 Karin Aijmer

and things like that and especially and so on (which was also overused by other
learners) more frequently than the other learner groups. One reason suggested by
De Cock (2004) for the high frequency of and so on may be that speakers prefer
the more formal and so on to less formal variants such as and things. Moreover,
the French learners also used et cetera as an alternative to and so on 24 times in
the corpus (De Cock 2004: 237) while et cetera was not used at all by the Swedish,
Dutch or German speakers. In addition there were five examples of and so on and
so on; and so forth and so on occurred once. There are also differences in the use
of or-extenders (see Table 9).

Table 9. The use of or-extenders by native speakers (LOCNEC) compared to Swedish

(SW), French (Belgian) (FR), Dutch (Belgian) (DU) and German (GE) learners (all from
the LINDSEI corpus)
LOCNEC SW FR DU GE

t* n† t n t n t n t n

or something 57 79 72 106 14 17 69 93 27 33
or something like that 22 31 12 18 29 35 16 22 12 15
or anything 25 34 14 21 – – – 13 15 19
or whatever 21 29 11 16 9 11 2 3 18 22
or so 8 11 8 12 – 5 7 16 20
or anything like that 4 6 6 9 – – 3 4 - -
Total 137 190 123 167 52 63 105 142 90 109
*t stands for token count
†n is the normalised frequency

As shown in Table 9, the French, Dutch and German learners tend to unde-
ruse or-extenders.6 The Swedish learners use or-extenders more often than the
other learners but not with the same frequency as native speakers. The French
learners stand out from other learner groups by using only three different patterns
(compared with the native speakers, who use six different patterns with or). The
most frequent extender is or something like that, which was used more often than
by native speakers. Table 9 also shows that there are differences in the use of indi-
vidual extenders which can be characterised in terms of overuse and underuse.
For example, both Swedish and Dutch learners use or something more than native

6. In Terraschke’s (2007: 154) study of German non-native speakers of English or something

was also frequent (but not so frequent as or so). Or whatever, or something like that and or any-
thing were also “relatively frequent”.

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 Chapter 9. General extenders in learner language 225

speakers while all the learner groups underuse or anything (the French learners do
not use or anything at all).
Only comparisons between non-native speakers can give some indication
of whether a certain feature is characteristic of all learners or dependent on the
speaker’s native language. According to Terraschke (2010: 468),

[i]t would be interesting to analyse data from non-native speakers of English

with L1 backgrounds other than German to see if this particular use of or so is
a common non-native feature, whether it is a characteristic of GNNSE [German
non-native speakers of English] speech or whether GEs [general extenders] used
by non-native speakers are generally directly related to the forms and functions
of GEs in the speakers’ L1.

In the German learner corpus, or so was more frequent than in the other corpora.
However, general extenders are not necessarily used with the same functions in
different learner corpora. Overstreet (2011) notes that equivalent forms can appear
to exist in two languages, such as English or so and German oder so, without being
functional equivalents. In this case, the English form is generally restricted to use
after numbers and time expressions, unlike its German equivalent. This small
difference can result in some interlanguage uses of vague expressions, with one
German speaker talking about some wine as just the cheapest or so, employing the
English general extender inappropriately as if it was the functional equivalent of
the familiar German form.
On the other hand, there were no examples of or so in the French learner
corpus. French learners, as suggested above, use general extenders in L1 specific
ways, which may give their English a special French flavour.
When we consider the top extenders in the learner populations we find both
similarities and differences (see Table 10; LOCNEC has been added for compari-
son). Or something is, for instance, the most frequent extender in the Swedish,
Dutch and German corpora. However in LINDSEI-FR and so on was even more
frequent than or something like that.

Table 10. Rank ordering of the top three general extenders in LOCNEC, LINDSEI-SW,
LINDSEI-FR, LINDSEI-DU and LINDSEI-GE

LOCNEC LINDSEI-SW LINDSEI-FR LINDSEI-DU LINDSEI-GE

and things or something and so on or something or something

or something and stuff or something and so on or whatever
like that
and everything and stuff like that and things or something or so
like that like that

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226 Karin Aijmer

10. Functions of general extenders in learner and native speaker data

We also need to explain the differences between learners and native speakers in
terms of the functions of general extenders. General extenders appear to have
functions which refer to information and knowledge which are shared by mem-
bers of a social group (the young people interviewed in the LINDSEI project).
They can also be used as hedges or hesitation markers. Certain extenders can be
used for intensification and exaggeration.

10.1 General extenders and shared knowledge

Following O’Keeffe (2006) we can distinguish different ‘reference domains’
for  the markers. O’Keeffe suggested, for instance, that ‘vague language
forms’ (such as general extenders) could be distributed across broad reference
domains, which can be national (such as reference to things Irish) or more
global. In her study, most references referred to information held within the
group of participants in a radio phone-in show in Ireland. The participants
referred to topics such as contemporary (Irish) political issues and places in
Ireland, thus creating intimacy within the group and excluding others. In the
learner corpus data and in LOCNEC, the focus is on more general issues such
as films, travelling, studies, and living in a big city. The indexing of shared
knowledge can be further signalled by the pragmatic marker you know as in the
following example:

(8) B: (breathes) so: bu= when I dunno it’s . sort of . I always manage to to not
be (begin laughter) I’m not able to speak Spanish when (end laughter)
when I’m supposed to because (breathes) you= you’re you’re supposed
to say things like maybe (breathes) mm . you know red wine please and
[stuff
A: [mhm
B: like that and that’s really just . pff I don’t know and then then if you’re
supposed to speak (breathes) a bit more maybe ask him a= about the
weather eh em ask the: (breathes) the staff of the hotel maybe about
the weather or (breathes) about the swimming or something like that
it’s: sort of very hard (laughs) because I . just . I don’t know [(breathes)
(LINDSEI-SW)

The speaker in (8) is talking about a visit to the Dominican Republic, where she
stayed at a luxurious hotel. She had to speak Spanish although she did not know
the language very well. Both the speaker and the listener in this example share the
experience of going to restaurants and engaging in conversation with the waiter

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 Chapter 9. General extenders in learner language 227

(e.g. ordering red wine or talking about the weather). By referring to the listener’s
shared knowledge, the general extenders can actively contribute to the construc-
tion of rapport (cf. Terraschke & Holmes 2007).
In (9) the reference is to a cartoon containing a picture, which the student
has been asked to describe. Since both the speaker and hearer can see the picture
(representing someone who is made up to look like a young lady), the speaker
need not be explicit:
(9) B: and in the fourth and final . she’s showing this . painting of herself . as
a young . lady or something like that [to her . to her friends .. or to three
other
A: [uhu
B: ladies I should say friends well supposedly erm … it’s hard to make out
what they: make: of it (LINDSEI-SW)

Or something like that is used affectively to create a bond by excluding people who
cannot see the picture.
In example (10) the speaker is talking about a visit to London. By using and
things she establishes rapport by referring to the shared knowledge that people in
big cities like London are stressed:
(10) A: what about London what did you think
B: eh London is a bit too big it’s nice to be there like a couple of days or
something . is= it’s too big and is er people are stressed and things. em
Brighton is a bit more relaxed. (LINDSEI-SW)

The context can make the reference to shared knowledge more or less likely. In
example (11) the reference is to a stereotype of what Americans are like (Ameri-
cans talk a lot to strangers at a party, in a class, on the train, in the elevator, etc.).
The use of and things suggests that the stereotype is shared and that the shared
knowledge creates a bond between the speakers:
(11) A: do you think Americans are more outgoing . eh than Swedes in that
respect it’s more of a social life there than here
B: well that has been discussed a lot [I think so …
A: [mm
B: in one way I think they are . more outgoing . because they they usually
talk a lot to strangers or people you sit right next to at a at a party or in
a class or something (breathes) erm just to be just to be polite [and be
nice but I don’t think they’re more. (LINDSEI-SW)

The speaker in (12) draws on shared knowledge about cartoons and videos with
Charlie Brown and his dog Snoopy in order to actively establish a bond with
hearer. The appeal to shared knowledge is further signalled by you know.

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228 Karin Aijmer

(12) B: by their names or nicknames 〈X〉 quite. often used 〈X〉 there was one
guy who liked to call himself snoopy
A: snoopy
B: yeah
A: (laughs)
B: cos he’s got erm .. all you know Charlie Brown
A: yeah
B: all the videos
A: mhm
B: and things like that and he collected all the books and stuff like that and
his favourite character was snoopy
A: so he wanted to be called [like him (LOCNEC)

10.2 Or-extenders as hedges

Or something signals that there are alternatives that could be specified. In example
(13) below the general extender conveys that the notion implied by ‘or something
like that’ could be other ministerial posts in the government:
(13) B: instead of building society (sharp intake of breath) eh eh do you
remember the television series Golda
A: that’s right yeah
B: er [when Golda Meir got her first ministerial post
A: [I did my
B: as something like ministry of interior [or something like that
A: [mm
B: in building (LINDSEI-SW)

Collocations may help to signal the meaning of the extender in a particular con-
text. Or-extenders collocate with the following: maybe, some, I don’t know (dunno),
sort of/kind of, probably, I don’t know what it’s called, like, I think (I suppose) ….or
something, I can’t remember. In addition to signalling uncertainty, the extenders
can have a hedging or downtoning function to soften what is said. In example (14)
the speaker has visited Malta. When they went on a guided bus, nearly everything
the guide told them had to do with some historic event. Or something indicates
that the speaker cannot remember or does not think it is important to mention a
particular historic event:
(14) B: nearly everything had to do with some historic [event or something
A: [(begin
laughter) yes I see (end laughter)
B: and it was so beautiful it was like (LINDSEI-SW)

In (15) (like)…or something marks the ‘four deadliest snakes’ as an approximation

only:

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 Chapter 9. General extenders in learner language 229

(15) yeah yeah so we went and saw that that was pretty good. and I think it’s
known for a lot of well venomous snakes and things they got like the four
deadliest snakes in the world on the island or something so (laughs)..but
yeah fortunately we didn’t see any of those either so
(LINDSEI-SW)

General extenders can have more than one function and they can be used for dif-
ferent reasons by native and non-native speakers. Hesitation markers can also be
linked to aspects of fluency and be used as a strategy to allow the speaker to gain
time for formulating what to say next (Joybrato Mukherjee, personal communi-
cation). This function is especially clear where general extenders collocate with
other potential hesitation markers such as I don’t know. An example of this can be
seen in (16), where the interviewee is referring to a film which was disappointing
although the main actress was famous:
(16) she did erm well (breathes). I don’t know . erm .. she might have felt that the
script would have been . better . treated in a better way or something I don’t
know (breathes) because it is an interesting idea this panic room
(LINDSEI-SW)

By using or something I don’t know, the speaker can buy herself some extra
production time. Other hesitation markers are illustrated in (17):
(17) A: so you were studying English [in Richmond
B: [yeah .. exactly . yeah
A: eh was that a s= eh l= a language school or something or
[what
B: [yeah I think it was like a college or something [I can’t really remember
(LINDSEI-SW)
Both native and non-native speakers use general extenders as a fluency device to
reduce planning pressure when producing speech on-line. However we can expect
this function to be particularly useful for non-native speakers of English.

10.3 General extenders and intensification

Non-native speakers used fewer examples of and everything and or anything,
which are associated with intensification and exaggeration. However in (18) the
interviewee used both and everything and or anything and and all that:7
(18) yeah I saw that . well . well basically they warned you a bit . for the dingos
so: . and . they did come up really close and everything (breathes in) they

7. And all that is typical of Australian English and may have been acquired when the
interviewee was in Australia.

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230 Karin Aijmer

told us that they’d . stolen an esky a few . f= . few weeks before we’d been
there and so told us to not leave shoes or anything cos they will . take shoes
and carry off (breathes in) and all that so . but they never said (?) to be dan-
gerous or anything but (LINDSEI-SW)

To sum up, both native speakers and learners use general extenders to express
certain basic functions. Section 10 has illustrated how we can distinguish certain
basic functions in learner speech. Extenders can have an interpersonal or affective
function to create rapport by referring to shared values, experiences and informa-
tion and establish social distance from those who are not members of the group.
Another function has to do with hesitation or hedging. This function is closely
associated with the use of general extenders as a fluency marker. General extend-
ers (and everything, and all) provide a third group conveying emphasis and inten-
sification. It is often difficult to specify the function that a general extender has
(and we must also assume that general extenders can be multifunctional). How-
ever, collocations can often help to identify the particular function of the general
extender as well as the association with a shared ‘reference domain’.

11. Conclusion

Susan Hunston has been a pioneer in describing what corpora can do and how
they can be applied to language teaching. In Hunston (2002), she gives several
examples of how learner corpora can give important information about the differ-
ences between learners and native speakers. This study provides another example
of how we need to use the evidence from learner corpora to find out more about
how learners use language. We also need to consider the pedagogical implications
of the findings. General extenders have a number of useful functions in conversa-
tion and learners have to be able to exploit them when they speak English.
It has been shown in this study that the ‘learners’ fingerprints’ can be revealed
in the overuse and underuse of general extenders. Learners do not use general
extenders in the same way as native speakers but they underuse or overuse forms
and use fewer variants. On the other hand, learners and native speakers used short
and long forms in similar ways and they used general extenders to refer back to
both noun phrases and to states and events. Moreover learners and native speakers
used general extenders for both interpersonal and hedging functions.
General extenders play an important role in many languages. The comparison
of general extenders in several learner corpora shows that there are both similari-
ties and significant differences between the learners. For instance, in three of the
learner groups (Swedish, Dutch and German) or something was the most frequent

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 Chapter 9. General extenders in learner language 231

extender, which suggests that it has become automatised as a hesitation marker.

The results of the comparison also show that we cannot ignore the effect of trans-
fer or interference from the mother tongue. The learners’ production of general
extenders is influenced by how the forms are used in the native language as well
as language-specific rules about when it is appropriate to use general extenders.
We expect the findings of this study to have implications for teaching and
that they will encourage the discussion of general extenders in textbooks. Learners
need to be made aware of what functions general extenders can have in discourse
and how different forms are used in a ‘native-like way’. General extenders are, for
instance, important for creating rapport between the speakers (and signal distance
from speakers who do not share the current speakers’ common ground). However,
we need to go beyond their discourse functions and consider how general extend-
ers are linked to aspects of speaking fluently. Speakers have to think of what to
say, find the right words and express themselves clearly while producing speech
on-line. We can assume that learners have a limited ability to speak under mental
pressure and should be encouraged to use general extenders to buy some extra
planning time.

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