On the multifunctionality of literally in American English youth speech

The aim of this study is to investigate, from both a qualitative and quantitative perspective, the multifunctionality of the adverb literally in present-day American English youth speech, in order to better understand the ongoing semantic change involving this adverb. Drawing from authentic spoken data taken from a teenage podcast, the analysis explores how literally is used beyond its prototypical literal meaning (i.e. ‘in a literal sense’) and develops a wide range of new functions, supporting the hypothesis of an ongoing grammaticalization process along with increasing subjectification.