https://doi.org/10.30961/lr.2021.57.1.1 1 Evidence for ‘like’ as a Focus Marker Kent Lee Pukyong National University ABSTRACT Several functions have been proposed for the colloquial discourse particle like. This paper examines possible evidence for like as a focus marker. While this hypothesis seems plausible, it has been posited with insufficient definition or detail regarding the type of focus involved. It is also not clear how this aligns with other likely functions proposed for this discourse particle: for example, as a hedge marker or an approximator. This paper reports on a preliminary empirical study with small sets of conversational data of spoken colloquial American English. Its syntactic patterns and pragmatic usage suggest that like is used in a manner comparable to that of additive focus markers, exemplifiers, and other discourse markers. In such cases, it can function as an additive focus marker of indirect contrast, in addition to its well attested use as a hedge marker. Sentence-initial it’s like may have similar properties. Analyzing like as an additive marker allows for reconciliation of its various proposed functions by treating it as a multifunctional marker. The findings also indicate many avenues for further research. Keywords: discourse particle, discourse marker, like, hedge marker, focus, focus marker, pragmatics 1. Introduction An encouraging development in recent decades is how linguists have begun to take serious interest in colloquial lexical items used in natural speech by the common person. This includes a small but growing literature on discourse particles (e.g., oh, um, well), including the very colloquial particle like, though it is often disparaged by prescriptivists and traditionalists, who unfortunately fail to appreciate the linguistic expressiveness of such terms. In surveying the literature on different approaches to like, one sees two major strands in particular. The more common approach has been to treat like as a type of hedge marker, and its usage as a hedge marker or approximator is in fact well † Corresponding author: kentlee7@gmail.com Copyright ⓒ 2021 Language Education Institute, Seoul National University. This is an Open Access article under CC BY-NC License (http://creative-commons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0).