Eh Across Englishes: A Corpus-Pragmatic Analysis of the Corpus of Global Web-Based English. Westphal, M. Corpus Pragmatics, 8(1):53–75, March, 2024.
Eh Across Englishes: A Corpus-Pragmatic Analysis of the Corpus of Global Web-Based English [link]Paper  doi  abstract   bibtex   
Abstract This paper presents an analysis of the pragmatic marker eh , which is typical of spoken discourse, in written online discourse from nine varieties of English using the Corpus of Global Web-based English. The analysis focuses on sentence-final eh and considers variation in terms of variety, punctuation, text type, and function. This paper also includes a variationist analysis of eh in contrast to huh . Although there are cross-variety differences, eh is used across all nine varieties in similar ways. Eh is mostly combined with a question mark, it is more frequent in blogs than in general websites, and emphatic functions dominate over narrative and interrogative uses. A qualitative analysis of the indexicalities demonstrates that eh mainly signals orality and informality in online writing but also has specific local meanings. The variationist analysis shows that eh is preferred over huh in the Canadian and New Zealand components. This preference is even more pronounced for the British and Philippine components. In contrast, huh dominates in the US component. These results show that eh is well integrated into online writing and can be characterized as a translocal pragmatic marker as it is used globally but has developed local characteristics.
@article{westphal_eh_2024,
	title = {Eh {Across} {Englishes}: {A} {Corpus}-{Pragmatic} {Analysis} of the {Corpus} of {Global} {Web}-{Based} {English}},
	volume = {8},
	issn = {2509-9507, 2509-9515},
	shorttitle = {Eh {Across} {Englishes}},
	url = {https://link.springer.com/10.1007/s41701-023-00159-6},
	doi = {10.1007/s41701-023-00159-6},
	abstract = {Abstract 
             
              This paper presents an analysis of the pragmatic marker 
              eh 
              , which is typical of spoken discourse, in written online discourse from nine varieties of English using the Corpus of Global Web-based English. The analysis focuses on sentence-final 
              eh 
              and considers variation in terms of variety, punctuation, text type, and function. This paper also includes a variationist analysis of 
              eh 
              in contrast to 
              huh 
              . Although there are cross-variety differences, 
              eh 
              is used across all nine varieties in similar ways. 
              Eh 
              is mostly combined with a question mark, it is more frequent in blogs than in general websites, and emphatic functions dominate over narrative and interrogative uses. A qualitative analysis of the indexicalities demonstrates that 
              eh 
              mainly signals orality and informality in online writing but also has specific local meanings. The variationist analysis shows that 
              eh 
              is preferred over 
              huh 
              in the Canadian and New Zealand components. This preference is even more pronounced for the British and Philippine components. In contrast, 
              huh 
              dominates in the US component. These results show that 
              eh 
              is well integrated into online writing and can be characterized as a translocal pragmatic marker as it is used globally but has developed local characteristics.},
	language = {en},
	number = {1},
	urldate = {2025-06-28},
	journal = {Corpus Pragmatics},
	author = {Westphal, Michael},
	month = mar,
	year = {2024},
	pages = {53--75},
}

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