The Tag Questions in American and British English
Professor: Verena Jäger
Proseminar: “British and American English: Convergence or Divergence?”
Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
Dept. of English and Linguistics
WS 2011
Tag Questions in British and American English:
“You see the differences, dont you?”
20 February 2011
Ijermia Hamid
Homburgerlandstr. 840
60437 Frankfurt am Main
[email protected]
5th semester (B. Ed.)
Table of Content
Introduction
Features of Tag Questions
Polarity Types
Concordance
General Purpose of Tag Questions
Comparative Point of View: British and American English
Polarity Patterns and Peculiarities
Verbal and Pronominal Use in Tags
Pragmatic Functions of Tag Questions
Sociolinguistic Factors
Conclusion
References
Introduction
While consulting different types of grammatical articles, books and essays, or scientific magazines, we realize that the term Tag Question is not used or associated with only one sense, meaning or context. It is all depending on the author of these articles, books and magazines. Moreover, and even if the appellations question tags, tag questions or tag have a familiar ring for every anglicist, it is paradoxically not easy to define these terms in a simple and consensual way. Thus, one should make a difference between these words, which may sound similar or seem to be synonyms only in appearance, and then place limits on the extent of these latter for the fact that they may overlap with different realities.
The word tag comes from the