Discourse-pragmatic variation in Paris French and London English: Insights from general extenders

•The article compares general extender use in London English and Paris French.•It finds that different types of change may be occurring in both languages.•The paper reflects on the specificity of discourse-pragmatic variation.•It is novel in comparing the conditioning of GE use in two fairly distinct languages.

This paper examines the use of general extenders (GEs), such as and stuff in English and et tout in French, in Paris French and London English. We aim to compare the social and the linguistic conditioning of extender use in the two languages, discuss the different kinds of spread in the two cities and reflect on the specificity of discourse-pragmatic variation.The study shows that GE forms as well as frequencies vary across factors such as gender, age and ethnicity, while some variants also appear to be grammaticalising and acquiring new pragmatic functions. The analysis includes a comparison of different age groups, and finds that different types of generational change may be occurring in both languages.In London, forms such as and stuff and and that diverge along ethnic lines, whereas in Paris et tout is becoming the dominant variant across the board. While different variants in both languages are indirectly associated with different social categories, they perform similar pragmatic functions such as hedging, marking solidarity and appealing to common knowledge between the speaker and the interlocutor(s).