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THE USE OF SLANG IN LINGUISTICS 251 THOUGH the use and durability of words vary greatly between stan-dard English and slang, rarely do slang terms come into being without conform-ing to traditional principles of word origin. Thus, the student who creates or uses such expressions to color his speech is often unknowingly exhibiting
The word slang thus suggests a broadening of users, contexts, and ultimately the term’s meaning, though after a century and more of argument, we have not yet arrived at a satisfactory definition or agreement about the slang concept. Indeed, since the rise of sociolinguistics, which tends to see language continua rather than categories, legitimacy of the slang concept has been challenged and ...
Slang indicates a marginal, contrarian lexis, created and largely used by those beyond the social—and by extension—linguistic pale. Its use may have become more extensive alongside the more relaxed social mores of contemporary speech, but it continues to offend language purists and slang remains tainted by its criminal and underclass associations.
- Overview
- Development of slang
- Creators of slang
- Sources
- Linguistic processes forming slang
slang, unconventional words or phrases that express either something new or something old in a new way. It is flippant, irreverent, indecorous; it may be indecent or obscene. Its colourful metaphors are generally directed at respectability, and it is this succinct, sometimes witty, frequently impertinent social criticism that gives slang its characteristic flavour. Slang, then, includes not just words but words used in a special way in a certain social context. The origin of the word slang itself is obscure; it first appeared in print around 1800, applied to the speech of disreputable and criminal classes in London. The term, however, was probably used much earlier.
Other related types of nonstandard word usage include cant and jargon, synonyms for vague and high-sounding or technical and esoteric language not immediately intelligible to the uninitiate. In England, the term cant still indicates the specialized speech of criminals, which, in the United States, is more often called argot. The term dialect refers to language characteristic of a certain geographic area or social class.
Slang emanates from conflicts in values, sometimes superficial, often fundamental. When an individual applies language in a new way to express hostility, ridicule, or contempt, often with sharp wit, he may be creating slang, but the new expression will perish unless it is picked up by others. If the speaker is a member of a group that finds that hi...
Civilized society tends to divide into a dominant culture and various subcultures that flourish within the dominant framework. The subcultures show specialized linguistic phenomena, varying widely in form and content, that depend on the nature of the groups and their relation to each other and to the dominant culture. The shock value of slang stems largely from the verbal transfer of the values of a subculture to diametrically opposed values in the dominant culture. Names such as fuzz, pig, fink, bull, and dick for policemen were not created by officers of the law. (The humorous “dickless tracy,” however, meaning a policewoman, was coined by male policemen.)
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Slang Through the Ages Vocabulary Quiz
Occupational groups are legion, and while in most respects they identify with the dominant culture, there is just enough social and linguistic hostility to maintain group solidarity. Terms such as scab, strike-breaker, company-man, and goon were highly charged words in the era in which labour began to organize in the United States; they are not used lightly even today, though they have been taken into the standard language.
In addition to occupational and professional groups, there are many other types of subcultures that supply slang. These include sexual deviants, narcotic addicts, ghetto groups, institutional populations, agricultural subsocieties, political organizations, the armed forces, Gypsies, and sports groups of many varieties. Some of the most fruitful sources of slang are the subcultures of professional criminals who have migrated to the New World since the 16th century. Old-time thieves still humorously refer to themselves as FFV—First Families of Virginia.
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Most subcultures tend to draw words and phrases from the contiguous language (rather than creating many new words) and to give these established terms new and special meanings; some borrowings from foreign languages, including the American Indian tongues, are traditional. The more learned occupations or professions like medicine, law, psychology, s...
The processes by which words become slang are the same as those by which other words in the language change their form or meaning or both. Some of these are the employment of metaphor, simile, folk etymology, distortion of sounds in words, generalization, specialization, clipping, the use of acronyms, elevation and degeneration, metonymy, synecdoch...
expressive words and phraseological units of the non-literary language [6]. From this point of view slang is a bilateral phenomenon which can be used not only to abuse people but also, and this is the most important thing, to communicate within a professional or a social group, therefore expressing positive feelings and emotions. Functions of slang
- L. Yu . Korolyova, N. V. Melekhova, R. P. Milrood
- 2016
An obvious reason for choosing to concentrate on slang is that it is itself a controversial and spectacular social phenomenon, an ‘exotic’ aspect of an otherwise predictable language environment. An even better reason is that it is a variety which belongs (to a varying degree - of course some young people are quite innocent of non-standard usages) to young people themselves.
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slang should be consigned to "an outer, extra-linguistic darkness." The OED defines SLANG (sb. 3, sense lc) as "language of a highly col-loquial type, considered as below the level of standard educated speech, and consisting either of new words or of current words employed in some special sense." This is not very helpful. What is "highly ...
