ABSTRACT
This study investigates the sociolinguistic awareness and perception of the quotative be like among German learners of L2 English. The study shows that German students are highly aware of be like and their attitudes reproduce the common perceptional pattern: Be like is associated with young female speakers and the USA; it is largely perceived negatively in terms of social status but positively in terms of social attractiveness. As only few students reported having stayed in an English-speaking country, but the vast majority stated that they are exposed to English via mass or social media, the latter two channels seem the most likely source for the students’ high familiarity with the form and knowledge of its ideological loadings. To incorporate vernacular forms like be like into ELT, the article proposes to include sociolinguistic competence in curricula, introduce vernacular forms through authentic source material, and critically assess teachers’ language ideologies.
