When GET Got Noticed: The Emerging Salience of GET-Passives

Recent research on the use of the get-passive has suggested that it is rising in frequency at the expense of the be-passive both in spoken American English (Weiner & Labov 1983, Herold 1986, Kim 2012) and spoken British English (Collins 1996, Carter & McCarthy 1999, Kim 2012). Accounts of the variability between get and be have appealed to pragmatic and grammatical factors (Lakoff 1971, Chappell 1980) as well as the social factors of gender, age, and social class (Feagin 1979, Herold 1986). Previous studies also indicate that the get-passive is a stigmatized variant in American English (Labov 1975, Weiner & Labov 1983).