Placeholders in present-day informal spoken English

The aim of the thesis is to describe one of the features of vague language called placeholders, the forms they are represented by, how frequently they occur in informal speech and in what contexts they are most likely to be used. The theoretical background comprises three parts. At first, the relationship between vague language and placeholders is discussed. Thereafter, vague language is defined itself and its features, types and aspects, namely grammatical, semantical, pragmatic and sociolinguistic, are explored in more detail. In the third part, the focus is then directed at placeholders themselves. In the analysis, two main groups of placeholders - what- placeholders and thing-placeholders - are further examined from both the morphologico- syntactical and pragmatic points of view. Furthermore, their frequency and gender-related use is also discussed. All the material analyzed in the thesis has been drawn from the Spoken British National Corpus 2014. KEYWORDS Vague language, placeholder, spoken English corpus, corupus linguistic