That's so last year! Constructions in a socio-cultural context

In this paper, we examine in detail the properties of a grammatical construction that we call the ‘So TIME’ construction. Expressions instantiating this construction include Podcasts are so last year, E-mail is so five minutes ago and That's so today. In those societies that are deeply ensconced in a world of fast-paced technological changes, there is clearly an obsession with the currency of various phenomena. The ‘So TIME’ construction is a reflection of this. Our paper therefore argues that a fuller understanding of the construction needs to take into account its socio-cultural context. This is a point of general importance, and we suggest that attending to the social-cultural contexts of constructions in fact creates opportunities for significant convergences between the enterprise of construction grammar and some recent concerns in sociolinguistics.