A Research On Social Factors That Influence Language Habits Through Non-traditional Like

Non-traditional like began to catch public's attention in 1980s, and now is prevalent in the United States and the most of the English-speaking countries, especially among the young generation. In this thesis, major literatures are reviewed regarding both focuser like and quotative like on their possible origins, the grammaticalization paths, multiple linguistic functions, social factors that influence the language habits, and different attitudes toward non-traditional like.Using non-traditional like as the study case, the author made a research on social factors which influence the language habits. The result shows most of the users are young people, which is consistent with all the other researches, and it also confirms that young people are always the pioneers for language change and the leader for new usage. A survey on the usage of non-traditional like of 30 Chinese students in SUNY Oswego shows that female speakers are using non-traditional like more than male speakers do. Peer influence (social network) does play a big role in people's speech habits. People in the same network would try to sound similar with each other to show their identities and construct solidarity. However, none of the social factors can be the only determinant factor, and it varies from person to person. Also, people's attitudes toward non-traditional like are presented. Although some people hold a negative view that it is unprofessional, uneducated, and even stupid if someone uses non-traditional like too much, some people think it cool. For EFL (English as a Foreign Language) students, especially Chinese students, we believe it sounds more idiomatic if we insert non-traditional like in our daily speech.Regarding the spread of non-traditional like, the author did a survey among the English majors in the Foreign Languages College in Shanghai Normal University to see the cognition of this usage, and the result shows the majority of the students have never heard of this non-traditional usage because they don't have enough exposure to informal language, but most of their analysis agree with scholars'research.