在过去的几十年里，分裂构式是来自不同语言学流派的语言学家们关注的焦点。尽管该领域内已有大量的相关文献，但由于分裂构式家族中的成员众多，包括wh分裂构式、指示分裂构式、all分裂构式和there分裂构式等，这造成分裂构式中的it分裂构式未能得到充分关注。因此，本研究的重点是it分裂构式。
    本研究旨在从认知语言学和社会语言学的角度（即认知社会语言学）研究英国英语口语中的it分裂构式。本研究的语料取自两个不同年代的英国国家语料库，它们分别基于人口地理信息编码的英国国家语料1994口语库（Spoken BNC1994DS）和英国国家口语语料库2014（Spoken BNC2014）。该研究主要关注以下两个方面：一是从20世纪90年代到21世纪10年代，it分裂构式所呈现的历时和社会分布特征；二是在it分裂构式的图形—背景位置中，新信息或已知信息的选择是否受到社会因素的影响（性别、年龄和社会经济地位）。本研究在方法上运用了频率分析和二项逻辑斯蒂回归模型。研究发现：（1）从20世纪90年代到21世纪10年代，it分裂构式在英国英语口语中的使用频率增加；（2）总体而言，女性、60岁以上的老年人和社会地位较高的人更倾向于在会话中使用it分裂构式；（3）在it分裂构式的图形位置上，处于中间社会阶层的人偏好放置新信息，而男性和25 ~ 34岁的人偏好将新信息置于背景位置。
    本研究的上述发现可以从认知社会语言学的角度得到较好的阐释。研究结果在Hoffmann (2022)的基础上重构了it分裂构式的构式图式，促进了it分裂构式研究的“社会转向”，也有助于推进英语口语语法的建构。

    Cleft constructions have been a central topic amongst the linguists from various linguistic backgrounds during the past few decades. Although numerous papers have been contributed to the study of cleft constructions, it should be pointed out that the it-cleft construction in cleft constructions is under-examined by the researchers in this area, owing to the fact that the members in the constructional family are various, including wh-clefts, demonstrative clefts, all-clefts and there-clefts. Therefore, this study focuses on the it-cleft construction.
    The purpose of the current study is to survey the it-cleft construction in spoken British English from the point of view of both cognitive linguistics and sociolinguistics, namely cognitive sociolinguistics. Drawing on informal conversational data from the Spoken BNC1994DS and the Spoken BNC2014, this study mainly concentrates on two particular aspects of the it-cleft construction: one is concerned about the diachronic and social distribution of the it-cleft construction from the 1990s to the 2010s, the other is whether the choice of new or given information in the figure-ground positions of the it-cleft construction will be affected by the social factors, i.e., gender, age and socio-economic status. Through applying frequency analysis and binomial logistic regression model, this study finds that: (1) from the 1990s to the 2010s, the it-cleft construction is used more frequently amongst the British in their conversations; (2) overall, the it-cleft construction is more likely to occur in the conversations of female speakers, older speakers whose age is beyond 60 years old, and the speakers with a higher social rank; (3) in the figure position of the it-cleft construction the speakers in the intermediate social class prefer new information, while the male speakers and the 25~34-year-old speakers prefer to place new information in the ground position.
    This study demonstrates that the above findings can be well accounted for by cognitive sociolinguistics. It contributes to the re-construction of the constructional templates for the it-cleft construction based on Hoffmann (2022), to the study of the it-cleft construction by putting this construction in its social context as well as to the construction of the grammar of spoken English.