ABSTRACT
The study draws attention to new and unusual intensifiers in present-day English which seem to be in the process of undergoing delexicalisation and grammaticalisation. The following intensifiers fit into this category of intensifiers: fucking, super, dead, real, well (good) and so(+NP) in their roles as intensifiers before adjectives. The method used involves a comparison of the intensifiers in the Spoken BNC1994 and Spoken BNC2014. New forms are illustrated by super, which may have come into the language as a result of influence from American English. On the other hand, dead is shrinking in popularity. Fucking has, above all, changed its sociolinguistic status over the last few decades and is now used more by (young) female than male speakers. Comparing intensifiers across a time span of two decades we can only draw limited conclusions about the trajectories characteristic of delexicalisation and grammaticalisation. However, in a shorter perspective we can consider the effects of the mechanisms of intensification or hyperbole characteristic of the speech by young people.
