Narrative-embedded variation and change: The sociolinguistics of the Australian English narrative present perfect

In this paper we examine sociolinguistic constraints on the narrative present perfect (PP) in Australian English (e.g. He couldn't talk. That's how freaked out he was. And I've just yelled like, "Everyone, get out of the water! Massive shark!"). The dataset consists of 220 performed Labovian narratives produced by 57 Australian English speakers. Multivariate analysis of 2,954 narrative clauses shows the narrative PP is primed by the tense used in the previous complicating action clause, and most frequently headed by quotative go. It is favoured with the third person and in the middle of the narrative complication. Our findings also show that non-linguistic factors play a significant role in narrative PP usage. The narrative PP does significant albeit specific work within a sub-section of the Australian English narrative genre and - crucially - it is indexical of older, non-professional, male speech.