ABSTRACT
Vague category markers (VCMs) are one strategy that speakers in the Mayhew Corpus (MC) and Bolton/Worktown Corpus (BWC) used in order to negotiate feelings of solidarity and shared experience. This chapter considers issues of solidarity and identity through the lens of homophoric pronoun use, with an almost exclusive focus on BWC data. It shows that the VCMs used in the BWC and the MC may differ a little in form from those used nowadays, but there is a strong case that aspects of their use remain substantially unchanged. A conspicuous feature of homophoric reference in the BWC is the way the intended referent of the same pronoun can switch within the same utterance, without the addition of any noun phrase. In the BWC but not the MC, solidarity and shared experience were also expressed by homophoric pronoun use. It seems that homophoric pronoun use is a community-based phenomenon whereas VCM use is more of an interpersonal strategy of the moment.
