Ok, so I spent a half hour trying to link. Didn't work. Here's the copy and paste version.

Language’s effect on Society

The language mavens always say, "Oh, they're wrecking the language." And it's always girls and
working people. But languages change because they need to change. There are so many more girls and working people than there are language mavens.

—Muffy Siegel, American linguist, [On teenagers and others who make frequent use of the word like.] The Philadelphia Inquirer, August 28, 2002

Language changes. Imagine ivy on a brick wall. The deep shades of green leaves, strong tube stems that reach out, grab the wall. Each arm moving up higher and higher and outward, trying to wrap around obstacles and intertwine within one another. Some limbs dying off, others just sprouting, all trying to expand, change, grow and live forever. This is language. This is how language works. As an organic metaphor, language is a living thing. It is an organism that grows, changes, and dies across time. While some languages may seem to die off into history, others mix together, combine, and tangle with one another in the hopes of growing. This is an accurate depiction of language.
Without question or hesitation, one can say that the influence of language on society and culture is monumental. Language is used in all aspects of society and in all stages of a culture's growth. Although “The Linguistic Foundation” is an article by Jonathan Culler that explains the basics of what linguistics is, it is very useful when determining what the relationship is between language and society.

The notion that linguistics might be useful in studying other cultural phenomena is based on two fundamental insights: first, that social and cultural phenomena are not simply material objects or events but objects or events with meaning, and hence signs; and second, that they do not have essences but are defined by a network of relations. Culler 56

Basically, what happens in our culture is caused by and at the same time, effects what happens when we speak. If we want to take a closer look at the society of a given time period, we can look at how that time period used language and get some insight on its social structure. “The linguist’s task is not to study utterances for their own sake; they are of interest to him only in so far as they provide evidence about the nature of the underlying system, the English language” (Culler 57). I think this can be taken a bit further; the linguist has a second task for studying utterances, to see how that particular time in that particular culture acted. Language defines time periods. This can be seen in the breakdown of the English language; Old English, Middle English, Early Modern English, and Modern English.





However, there are consequences. By looking closely at language, we are able to see how language shifts and morphs over time. By this, I mean that the meanings behind words grow loose; meanings start to fall into that grey area and are not so distinctly defined. Michael Foucault did a good job of phrasing this concept:

I would like to show that discourse is not a slender surface of contact, or confrontation, between a reality and a language, the intrication of a lexicon and an experience; I would like to show with precise examples that in analyzing discourses themselves, on e sees the loosening of the embrace, apparently so tight, of words and things, and the emergence of a group of rules proper to discursive practice. Foucault 96.

In his article, "The Archaeology of Knowledge," Foucault describe's language's role in the overall society. He describes languages as systems that "embody the ideas, values, and shared vocabularies of communities of knowledge" (Rivkin and Ryan 90).
Foucault does outline the obvious opposing side in another one of his articles, "The Discourse on Language," that shows how our society impacts our language.

In a society such as our own we all know the rules of exclusion. The most obvious and familiar of these concerns what is prohibited. We know perfectly well that we are not free to say just anything, that we cannot simply speak of anything, when we like or where we like; not just anyone, finally, can speak of anything. Foucault 216.

We inherently know that society puts restrictions on what we can say, where, and when. Even in a society as sturdy on "free speech" as ours, we still know that we cannot walk into an airport and yell "bomb" as loud as we can without serious repercussions. However, just as time changed the impact of society on language (yelling "bomb" in an airport wasn't as much of a problem a hundred years ago as it is now), time creates a similar impact with language on society. The word like is an excellent starting point. Like is the definitive example of how language changes through time and how society can impact language, and how language can impact society. And this perfect example is happening right now.
History of Like
Like as a Verb
The word like has taken dozens of forms throughout the years, all of which stemming from the time period that used the word. Like was used as a verb with the definition meaning to be pleasing as early as c. 888 but was spelled “licode;” I interpret this spelling as our modern version “liked.” Moving into later years, like took on another definition, still in the verb case, as meaning to please, or be pleasing to a person. This occurred in 971, spelled “lician.” Years later in 1250 the definition of the word changed slightly to be pleasing to someone. Just a short period after that, the definition took a reverse, meaning that a sentence may be translated as saying “to like ill,” meaning to be displeased. This turn-around occurred in 1320.
Five years later, the word grew a little more with the definition now extending to mean someone who is in good condition or doing well. Like was used to imply a kind of pretending or imitation in 1426. Of course the spelling of the word varied slightly than how we would recognize it today, during that time the word was spelled “lyke.” Soon after, we run into a new stem of the definition as it reaches to include someone taking pleasure out of something or someone; a person approving of something. It was with this definition that in 1430 we find the word visually recognizable as our modern version, “liked.” Also as a verb, like was used as a verb meaning to fashion a certain likeness, or comparing to something as early as 1450. Using like to mean finding something agreeable was first used in 1200, though made popular by Chaucer in 1385 and even popular still by Shakespeare in 1590 when Shakespeare found a new phrase to put the word into; “if you like” became public.

Like as a Noun
Like took the form of a noun later than it did as a verb, but it was used as a noun in respect as something was considered to have a “likeness” to something else, to have a resemblance, and was used mainly in proverbial expressions. Some of these expressions may include early versions of like to like, like draws like, like begets like, like cures like, etc. These usages began in 1375. However in 1425 the noun version of like was introduced to mean “at one’s own pleasure.” Using like to mean something similar, or the same kind of thing, came about in 1553. The notion that someone has a “liking” for someone else was first introduced in 1589. In 1592, the word was used in a way that included numbers; “and the like” was used as a formula to avoid further enumeration. Like was used to make another comparison, but this time as a negative one in 1637. This usage translates into “the likes of” someone. Yet it wasn’t until 1851 that we see the earliest evidence of the word like meaning to have affection for or preference to something.


Like as an Adjective
When describing something that is similar in shape, size, color, or any other trait, like can be used. The earliest examples of this are found in the year 1200. If two or more things were being described, and they had similar characteristics, an author can use like to compare them as an adjective. A modern example of this would be the sentence: They were as like as two peas. This usage didn’t occur until 1375. Much later, like took on the new meaning as an adjective to mean alike in a pair. The phrase “share and share alike” would be an example of this, and made its introductory appearance in 1540. Although another formula type definition came about in 1548 but this time numbers were not the subject of the sentence; people were. The phrase “like master like man” (as the master, so do the man), would be a modern example. Around this time, like was beginning to be used in mathematics as well. When studying “like signs” or “like quantities,” a mathematician can credit the year 1557 with this usage.
Between the years 1654 and 1666, like was being used with the sensory words feel, look, and sound to create the notion of “feeling like something.” We may use the word like in a question or a phrase meaning roughly “what is she like?” This is a way to use like as an adjective and was used much later than the first example and didn’t arrive until 1684. Like can be used to signify a particular class, or group as well. In 1886 we see an example of this with the subject of the sentence being grouped into a particular kind of profession.

Like as a Suffix
Like took its suffix form as early as 1470. This usage essentially meant “like one who is something,” referring to comparing two or more people. However, around 1598 the word turned to a slightly different meaning. This form carried the definition of something that is similar to something else (not necessarily people), the same kind of definition we would apply to our modern usage and still use today. However, between 1564 and 1578 a new definition of the like suffix surfaced. This new definition covered something that was done in the manner of something else. Interestingly enough, we still carry the like suffix usage today even if we may not recognize it. The –ly suffix that can be applied to the base form of a word is a form of like, as a shortening of the word.









Uses of Like

Like as a discourse particle
I, like, don't know what to do.

Georgia M. Green wrote an article for the University of Illinois that focused specifically on discourse particles1. Although she described that discourse particles, such as like, are not meaningless, she does portray them in a negative light. When she discusses like specifically, she makes it clear that the use of the word like as an adverbial discourse marker, the speaker comes off as being "too lazy." She claims that when adolescents and some adults use like too much they are becoming predictable in speech. This predictability leads into a lazy or "intellectually challenged" kind of speech.
She relates this also to "adolescent 'uptalk'." This, she defines, as being speech with an abundance of declarative sentences where there is a question intonation. The result, a view that the speaker needs conformation or assurance on something. These are traits she targets to adolescents, due to the facts that adolescents use this kind of speech much more frequently than adults do; although she does admit that adults are guilty as well.
Green goes on to describe how like is able to carry some responsibility for the expression that follows it. An example of this would be if the word like carried the same meaning as the words approximately, around, or about, in the following expression:
"He's like maybe, what? Ten or something?"

However, Green makes it clear that there are quotations that are often used where like does not follow that example, and can even carry the meaning that "there is a minor nonequivalence between that I'm saying and what I mean." This outlines that there has to be meaning in where like fits into the sentence and cannot be just 'thrown in anywhere.' She gives us the following scenario:
Mother: Mrs. Kramer told me you were at the mall at 5:30 yesterday afternoon.
Teenager: But Mom, I couldn't have been, because I was at, like, basketball practice then.
Green points out that if the teenager uses like in this manner, the mother will most likely suspect that the teenager was not really at practice.

Like as a hedge
I have, like, no money.
The restaurant is, like, five miles from here.

When like is used as a hedge, it is used to mean that the phrase that follows it is an approximation, an exaggeration, or that the following phrases are not quite accurate, but close enough.

1. Green, Georgia M. "Discourse Particles in Natural Language Processing." Talk presented at Ohio State
University. (November 2000).





Like as a quotative
Like is sometimes used to introduce a quotation or paraphrase, especially if the quote is being recited from short-term memory and therefore may or may not be exact. If the speaker changes his or her voice to impersonate the person who said the quotation, it is probably in exact words. As in the examples below, Like for this usage is always joined with a "to be" verb (was, were, is etc).

Examples:

Remember when the platform was sliding into the fire pit and I said 'Goodbye' and you were like 'NO WAY!' and then I was all 'We pretended we were going to murder you'? That was great.
He was like, I'll be there in five minutes.
He was like [speaker's voice deepens], "you need to leave the room right now!"

Like can also be used to communicate a pantomime, or to paraphrase an explicitly unspoken idea or sentiment:

I was like [speaker rolls eyes].
I was like, who does she think she is?


Like as an adverb
Like can be used as an adverb meaning "nearly" or to indicate that the phrase in which it appears is to be taken metaphorically. This is normally considered to be 'lazy' speech. Examples:
I, like, died.
They, like, hate it!

Grammaticalization of Like
Teresa Meehan wrote an article in 1991 (entitled “It’s Like, ‘What’s Happening in the Evolution of Like?’: A theory of Grammatcalization”), explaining the changes like is going through in Modern English2. She claims that like changes forms from a content word to a function word. Content words are nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs; although some adverbs can function like function words.


2. Meehan, Teresa. “It’s Like, ‘What’s Happening in the Evolution of Like?’: A theory of Grammatcalization.” Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics. 1991. V. 16 (37-51).

The purpose of a content word is to provide a stable meaning, a concrete example of something. A function word, on the other hand, is a word that provides a meaning as more of a syntactic function. These words have more of an ambiguous meaning and serve to show the relationships between other words in the sentence. Articles, pronouns, and conjunctions are prime examples of function words.
Meehan draws up a table in which she gives her readers a brief outline of the history of the word. She explains that in this table we can see that the different meanings of like have changed in their focus of definition. She claims that the older meanings of the word, meanings like “similar to” and “approximately,” have a more focused definition and a more limited scope of meaning than newer definitions of like such as “as if” and “for example.”
She even shows on her table how like has undergone changes where there is no lexical definition of the word, these are the changes that transform like into a function word. The new functions that like is able to take on is to create more focus on other parts of the sentence, and to quote another source. Her example of a focus sentence would be
She’s like really pregnant.
In this sentence like is creating more focus on the state of being, “pregnant,” whereas if like is removed, the focus of the sentence shifts to the subject, “she.” The second function that like takes on is that of a quotative.
Although Meehan does express her ideas on like changing grammatical forms from a content word into a function word, she does point out that all of these meanings and functions are currently coexisting. Even though there is a shift and change in meaning, no meaning has been lost at this point in Modern English.
Alexandra D’Arcy would agree with Meehan. In her article, “Like and Language Ideology: Disentangling Fact from Fiction,” she too remarks on the grammaticalization changes of like.3 However, D’Arcy’s argument comes from the perspective that the different uses of like by adolescents can be seen as commentary on the intelligence level of the speakers. She also addresses other myths surrounding the use of like such as like is meaningless, women say like more than men do, and that like is an Americanism first introduced by Valley Girls and Valspeak. D’Arcy takes these myths and like’s meaning change head on.
She began by first outlining what the different myths surrounding like are:

Like is just like, that is, there is one like that is recycled repeatedly.
Like is meaningless; it simply signals a lack of articulacy.
Women say like more than men do.
Like began with the Valley Girls.
Only young people, and adolescents in particular, use like.
Like can be used anywhere in a sentence.



3. D’Arcy, Alexandra. “Like and Language Ideology: Disentangling Fact from Fiction.” American Speech. 2007. V. 82, No. 4 (386-419)


In her article, D’Arcy relied on the data that was compiled by the Toronto English Archive, where they gathered “over 350 hours of casual conversational data with speakers between the ages of 9 and 92, all of whom were born and raised in the city” (D’Arcy 389). D’Arcy uses this data to attack the myths that surround like and to build her overall case that like has grammatically changed over time. She begins with each myth, one at a time.

Myth Number One: Like is Meaningless
This is where D’Arcy’s argument sounds the most like Meehan’s. She begins by first explaining that there are five prescriptive functions of like in a given written or spoken sentence;
Verb: I don’t really like her that much.
Noun: He grew up with the likes of all great fighters.
Adverb: It looks like a snail; it just is a snail.
Conjunction: It felt like everything had dropped away.
Suffix: I went, “[groan]” or something stroke-like.
These are the forms that Meehan, and ultimately D’Arcy as well, would describe as grammatical content words.
There are however, D’Arcy claims, other forms of like. These she describes as Vernacular Uses/Functions of Like;
Quotative Complementizer: I was like, “Where do you find these people?” (f/19)
Approximate Adverb: You know, it was like a hundred and four [degrees], but it lasted for about two weeks.(m/84)
Discourse Marker: Nobody said a word. Like my first experience with death was this family. (f/82)
Discourse Particle: She’s like dumb or something. Like I love her but she’s like dumb. (f/18)
Through these examples and differences in meanings between the forms of like, D’Arcy was about to outline how like can’t be meaningless within a sentence. In fact, the particular kind of use of like can help to describe the event or the speaker with more clarity depending on how like is used.

Myth Number Two: Only Women Say Like
A common belief surrounding like is that both men and women use the word, but women have a tendency to use it more often than men. Again, D’Arcy used the data collected from the Toronto English Archive and broke down the uses of like and organized them by gender. What she found was that the question of who uses like more, men or women, is greatly dependant on what form of the vernacular is being looked at. Her table looks as follows:

Clearly, we can see that although women use like more than men as a quotative, adverb, and discourse marker. However, men use like more often than women as a particle, a functional projection (where like is located hierarchically between the tense phrase and the verb), and as a predicate adjective. The greatest margin of difference in usage between men and women is with the quotative form, which also has the greatest usage of all other forms.

Myth Number Three: Like Originated with Valley Girls and Adolescents
It is a fairly common belief that the introduction of the different forms and functions of like originated from California and the West coast. In particular, teenagers were attributed with the various functions and uses that identified their status in society. Many felt and still feel that these uses were appropriate during these particular periods in a person’s life, yet when the person matures and grows more sophisticated, these uses are dropped and become “shrugged off when its suitability wanes” (D’Arcy 398). Many linguists however, may see a differentiation between the individual uses and the locale where it originated. Many people see these uses of like as Americanisms, but linguists see like more detailed than that.
For example, the marker form, the adverb, and the particle forms developed among counterculture groups in New York during the 1950’s and 1960’s, such as the jazz, cool, and Beat groups. The quotative complementizer formed much later in California, during the 1970’s and hitting its peak during the 1980’s. Therefore, the only form of like that truly has Valley Girl origins is the quotative form of be like; whereas the discourse marker and particle have much longer histories and have been influential in language long before hand.
D’Arcy also finds in her data that the use of like as a quotative is not limited to just adolescents and teenagers. Although the peak of those who use like as a quotative are between the ages of 17-19, the percentage declines yet is still apparent in speakers aged up into their 60’s. Her findings conclude that with speakers in their thirties, be like accounts for 26% of their quotative verbs overall. This would be the generation born in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, who would have been teenagers during the 1980’s. D’Arcy was able to find older data, from 1995, that recorded that speakers between the ages of 18 and 27 use the form be like at 13%. Currently, ten years later, the use of the same form for speakers between the ages of 25 and 29 has grown to 58%. This presents a dramatic increase in the same form and use of like for speakers at the same age; which is growing.

Myth Number Four: Like can be used Anywhere
The media and language commentators are to blame, according to D'Arcy, for the myth that like can be inserted anywhere in a given sentence. She even states that there are some linguistic sources that claim like can "occur grammatically anywhere in a sentence" (D'Arcy 408). D'Arcy addresses this issue right away and with strength; "While it is true that the combined functions of marker and particle account for a wide range of contexts across clause structure, it is also the case that these positions are not random" (D'Arcy 408). By looking at the data collected from the Toronto set, D'Arcy sees two distinct patterns of how like is used. First, the pattern of adverb + like and the second, like + adverb. The first pattern can be seen in the sample sentences she observed:
Speaker Oriented
I don't really like judge people on what music they listen to. (m/15)
We literally like cooked all the food. (m/26)
He actually like stood up. (m/21)
They honestly like threatened me. (m/21)

Subject Oriented
Andrea still like comes to lunch with us. (f/16)
Me and my friends, we always like took rulers. (m/11)
They like it but they never like played. (f/17)

The second pattern can be seen in these sample sentences:
Degree
A trade that I like really like was the one they had got from Jersey. (m/12)
Some people like totally fell into the mold. (f/19)
The glue like slightly falls off your hair. (f/11)

Manner
But people will like slowly get into it. (f/19)
And then he like slowly added more and more things. (m/15)
And then they like gradually changed like how they looked. (m/15).

These brief examples show that modern usages of like are not randomly placed within a sentence. They do follow a specific pattern and speech structure. D'Arcy gives a reason for why like seems as if it can go anywhere in the sentence: due to the ability of like to appear as many different forms (i.e lexical verb, noun, preposition, conjunction, suffix, quotative, discourse marker, etc), and due to the fact that many of these forms sound like one another, the illusion is created that like is versatile enough to go anywhere in the sentence. This also leads back to the first myth that like is completely meaningless, which it is not.





Of course, all of these are examples of like being used in the colloquial spoken English. In her article, "An Alternative View of Like: Its Grammaticalisation in Conversational American English and Beyond," Isabelle Buchstaller takes on the use of like in a more direct way.4 She lays out each use, then briefly describes those uses in clear examples. In a way, Buchstaller picks up where D'Arcy's article left off.

Like is a discourse sensitive item with multiple functions and ambiguous scope. I will show that even though its different uses are often highly ambiguous and overlapping, and therefore hard to pin down, it is nevertheless not justified to claim that like can have all functions in all contexts. Rather, the function it assumes is a given utterance depends on the intra- and extralinguistic context. (Buchstaller 23)

What Buschstaller is saying here, is like D'Arcy, she is recognizing that like can have multiple functions in modern colloquial English. However, Buschstaller goes a bit further than D'Arcy by saying that the functions of like depend on the rest of the sentence. Buschstaller takes D'Arcy's Myth Number Four, and takes it to the rest of the sentence.
Buschstaller begins by focusing on how like is used in non-quotative forms. "Like as a preposition or as a conjunction has a clearly comparative function with identity between the compared and the comparer" (Buschstaller 23). This is important to keep in mind because the following two functions are based off of like as a comparative meaning. The first that Buschstaller explains is the comparative to hedge meaning. She describes how like moves from a comparative to a hedge when the speaker inserts it in a sentence where the speaker doesn't want the audience, or receiver, to take the sentence too literally. A simple example sentence:
He ran like, sixty miles an hour!
It is understood by the receiver that the subject ran fast, but not at the sixty mile an hour rate. In this example, like hedges itself into the middle of the sentence and directs the irony to the receiver.
She discovered, like, a million stars.
Again, like is used in the middle of a sentence to exaggerate how many discoveries the subject has made. The receiver is expected to understand this exaggeration.

Buschstaller also discusses how like moves from a comparative to a filler. A filler is a word that is not given much meaning in a sentence but rather used as a hesatative sound. Other common fillers are oh, um, and well. However, unlike those other fillers, like "typically precedes afterthought modifications by speakers who want to continue their utterance but have difficulties formulating it" (Buschstaller 24). What she means by this is that a speaker will often times "jump into" the middle of a conversation and not have their utterance planned out. This impulsive move results in more needed time to complete their thoughts, leading to like being used as a filler in the middle of a sentence.
I'm taking math and it's like called Sequential Bias.
Here, the speaker hesitates because they forgot the name of their math class, and needed the extra time and space in discourse to remember it.

4. Buschstaller, Isabelle. "An Alternative View of Like: Its Grammaticalisation in Conversational American English and Beyond." Edinburgh Working Papers in Applied Linguistics. 2001. No. 11 (21-41).

The article “I’m Like, “Say What?!’: A New Quotative in American Oral Narrative,” the issue of like as a quotative is broadened into the form of like + to be.5 The authors, Blyth, Recktenwald, and Wang, all focus their article on the use of like with the verb be. An example conversation may help make this formulation clearer:

When she said that, I said, “Well, is that in California?” ‘cause I wasn’t sure if it was in
California.
And she goes, “Yes.”
And I’m like, “Oh.” And I go, “Is that where the redwoods are?”
And she goes, “No.”
And I’m like, “Oh.”

This article was a case study with thirty participants. By listening to the way the participants used like, the authors were able to determine what significant factors lead to the use of be + like in spoken narrative English. What they found was that tense was the most significant factor for this specific use, while age was the second most significant factor. For tense, the participants were seventy-one percent more likely to use be + like in the present tense and twenty-eight percent likely in the past tense. For the aspect of age, sixty-eight percent of the participants within the ages of twenty to twenty-four used the combination, thirty-one percent of participants aged twenty-seven to thirty-two, and those aged thirty-eight to seventy-two didn’t use the combination together at all.
These authors did, however, come across findings that were slightly different than D’Arcy’s. They found that fifty-four percent of the participants who used be + like were male speakers, while only forty-six percent were females. This means that males are more likely to use be + like more than women, which is different than the data D’Arcy observed that outlined that females used the quotative more than men did. It is important to keep in mind that these are two different kinds of quotative that are being analyzed. D’Arcy’s quotative is like alone as the quotative form, while Blyth, Recktenwald, and Wang all look at the verb to be + like as a quotative combination.
Like can also be used and viewed in the academic settings. In his article, “Gender, Power, Discipline, and Context: On the Sociolinguistic Variation of okay, right, like, and you know in English Academic Discourse,” Erik Schleef describes how these tag words are used within a lecture and seminar context within different disciplines.6 Just looking at like, Schleef points out that within the humanities departments men and women use like fairly equally, while within the natural sciences departments, women use like much more often. Women also use like more often in seminar and lecture presentations.


5. Blyth, Carl, Jr.; Recktenwald, Sigrid.; Wang, Jenny. "I'm like, 'Say What?': A new quotative in American oral narrative." American Speech v. 65 (Fall '90): p. 215-7.
6. Schleef, Erik. “Gender, Power, Discipline, and Context: On the sociolinguistic Variation of okay, right, like, and you know in English Academic Discourse.” Texas Linguistic Forum. Proceedings of the Twelfth Annual symposium about Language and Society. April 16-18, 2004. 177-186.
However, the forms of like vary by discipline. “Like was used by all humanities instructors at least three times, by less than half of the natural sciences instructors, so that humanists used the discourse marker like 7.57 times more often in lectures and seminars than natural scientists do” (Schleef 180). Schleef gives an explanation of why the difference in disciplines; “The difference between the humanities and the natural sciences in the use of like…is primarily due to different traditions of discourse and the contexts which like is used. Humanities instructors and students express more opinions, views, values, and approximations than natural scientists, who give reports, descriptions, and present factual information.