I'm all

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I have a question for my linguistically astute and/or my socially ept readers (please note that one does not necessarily exclude the other).

What is the purpose of the phrase "I'm all" in the following conversation.

"Why did she get you in trouble?"
"I was eating some cheetos. I'm all, I was eating some cheetos."

Previously I had considered that maybe this phrase was introduced only when the speaker was embarrassed by what they had just said and so thought to make it less embarrassing by immediately mocking themselves. But in this particular instance, nearly all of the things the speaker said included "I'm all" and she even used it in relation to me, saying "You're all, checking your stomach."

Frankly, even though I have no idea what the linguistic purpose of this phrase is, I am exceedingly glad that it exists because this particular focus group tends to mumble.

Is my hearing going or do teenagers just mumble more than they used to?

Comments

Matthew Carroll said…
Mmthnks tnujrs mmbl, I'm all, mmtnks tnujrs mmbl.
1:35 PM
serapio said…
The conventional understanding of "I'm all" is that it's used as a quotative for highlighting para-linguistic features, such as intonation, voice-quality and gesture. That makes sense here if the speaker was mocking her own voice quality, but the one about checking your belly isn't even a quotative. That looks suspiciously like a new usage.

At Language Log they've had several posts on the new quotatives, for example, http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001644.html
6:44 AM
serapio said…
Scratch that. Waksler (2001) concludes, "All introduces salient properties described by VPs, APs, PPs, and even an NP and an S, as well as reported speech, constructed speech, reported nonverbal behavior, and constructed nonverbal behavior." She includes several examples like yours, of all used with non-linguistic behaviors.
7:12 AM
Anonymous said…
Thank you, Serapio. That cleared it up tremendously. I'm all, like, impressed.
9:36 AM
caedmonstia said…
I'm so concerned about the linguistic aspect of this discussion. i just want to know why you were checking your stomach. If you got a belly-button piercing, I would like you to post a picture of it.
3:56 PM
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