The Evolution of Pragmatic Markers in English Pathways of Change

7.2 The “That Said” Construction 197

it to be common in Fiction. Moreover, because the Newspaper genre often con-
tains a high proportion of narration, we fi nd that “that said” is of low frequency
in this genre as well, and the Magazine genre, which contains more expository
prose, thus has a higher proportion of “that said” than we fi nd in Fiction.
As seen in Figure  7.2 , having said that / this and that/ this having been
said remain constant in COCA from 1990 to 2015, while that/ this being
said increases throughout this period, and that/ this said increases until
2009 before falling in the most recent fi ve- year period. In Sections 7.2.3
and 7.2.4 , I  take a more long- term view of the development of these
constructions.

7.2.3 History of That/ This (Having Been , Being) Said

S a fi re ( 2002 ) cites Prof. John Lawler of the University of Michigan as saying,
“ That said is an abbreviated form of the absolutive participial phrase ‘(With)

0

1990–94 1995–99 2000–04 2005–09 2010–15

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

Frequency per million

3

3.5

4

4.5

this|that said this|that being said

this|that having been said having said this|that

Figure 7.2 Frequency of forms of “that said” over time in COCA

(Searched March 21, 2016.)