Slang - Иностранные языки и языкознание курсовая работа

Concept, history of development and sources of forming of slang as a language of modern youth. Linguistic description of modern slang and ductings of his distribution. Features of functioning of university jargon and slang of the American students.


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1. Slang as a variant of modern youths' language
1.6 Linguistic processes forming slang
2.1 Along with a Smattering of the Collegiate and Skateboard Jargon
2.2 Yuppies, Dinks and other moderns
3 Features of American students' slang functioning
youth jargon university slang student
Slang ... an attempt of common humanity
to escape from bald literalism, and express
itself illimitably ... the wholesome fermentation
or eductation of those processes eternally
active in language, by which froth and specks
are thrown up, mostly to pass away, though
occasionally to settle and permanently crystallise.
Every language allows different kinds of variations: geographical or territorial, perhaps the most obvious, stylistic, the difference between the written and the spoken form of the standard national language and others. It is the national language of England proper, the USA, Australia, New Zealand and some provinces of Canada. It is the official language of
Wales, Scotland, in Gibraltar and on the island of Malta. Modern linguistics distinguishes territorial variants of a national language and local dialects. Variants of a language are regional varieties of a standard literary language characterized by some minor peculiarities in the sound system, vocabulary and grammar and by their own literary norms.
Standard English - the official language of Great Britain taught at schools and universities, used by the press, the radio and the television and spoken by educated people may be defined as that form of English which is current and literary, substantially uniform and recognized as acceptable wherever English is spoken or understood. Its vocabulary is contrasted to dialect words or dialectisms belonging to various local dialects. Local dialects are varieties of the English language peculiar to some districts and having no normalized literary form. Regional varieties possessing a literary form are called variants. Dialects are said to undergo rapid changes under the pressure of Standard English taught at schools and the speech habits cultivated by radio, television and cinema.
This Qualification Paper is devoted to the study of the topic “Youths' lexicon of Modern American.”
The choice of a theme of this paper is caused by the small studying of this question by way of teaching it in schools. The youths' lexicon, as one of branches of lexicon, is a difficult and volumetric question, therefore requires the careful studying. The basic theme of this paper is the question on conversion, as the most productive way of lexicon however the other kinds of formation of new words also are mentioned.
The problem of such a theme has got a great theoretical meaning for analysis of the form/function relation in language: the same form performs more than one function. To generate the young students' lexicon, the speaker has to use qualitatively different types of knowledge, both linguistic and extralinguistic (interactive and encyclopaedic), as well as the ability to reason. A number of theories try to explain why we should use “extra words” sometimes and how we understand their non- literal meaning, but the research is still far from being complete.
The practical value of research lies in the fact that it is impossible to reach a high level of linguistic competence without understanding the nature of speech and knowing typical youths' speech of a particular language.
Thus the hypothesis of our theme is the following: if to study a lexicon of young generation of Americans, it becomes a little more accessible to professionals as it can not always be found in general dictionaries.
The tasks of research: analysis of the theories on different kinds of slang; finding out why interlocutors generate slang instead of saying exactly what they mean; comparing typical youths' lexicon in English, American and in Russian; providing examples of slang in various communicational situations.
The object of research is slang as a communicational action that speakers perform by saying things in a certain way in a certain context.
The subject of research is slang as the main way in which the semantic content of a sentence can fail to determine the full force and content of the illocutionary act being performed in using the sentence.
Methods of research include critical analysis of scientific works on the subject, analysis of speech of native English and American speakers in various communicational situations, analysis of speech behavior of literary personages created by modern British and American writers.
At first it is necessary to tell some words about the term "slang", which is the main one in the paper and should be definite. The term "slang" is taken to denote the smallest independent unit of speech susceptible of being used in isolation.
Having analysed some courses of studying the foreign language it was interesting to find out, that the slang is not mentioned at all there, though, being one of the most productive ways of lexicon, could be a good way of updating the students' active and passive vocabulary. Taking into account the opportunities, which are given by the knowledge of this way of formation the new words, it is easy to estimate a role of studying this material at schools and in the universities, it is natural that the beginning of presenting some items of this phenomenon to students is necessary to start from that moment, as soon as the students would have the sufficient lexical base for this purpose. It is possible to consider the third year of training as the most successful moment for the beginning of presenting the essence of this phenomenon to students.
It would be desirable to note the works of some authors, which were used in this work, such as: “English language nowdays” by L. Bauer, “The categories and types of present day English” by H. Marchand, and others.
1 . Slang as a variant of modern youths' language
People seem fascinated by slang, and it is widely beloved in all languages, especially in the abstract by people who cringe when it is actually spoken. Slang, in one word, just “is”. Slang is unruly, unrefined, irreverent, and illogical. It can be brutally frank and direct, or deceptively kind and euphemistic. Euphemism is the verbal trick that has been termed the deodorant of language, and slang has given us dozens of terms for drunkenness and insanity that are remarkably gentle. There are many beliefs about slang:
A. Slang is as old as language itself, and that American slang started on the Mayflower. Shakespeare used the slang of his time, and by doing so gave us such words as hubbub, fretful, fireworks, and dwindle, which today are no longer considered slang, but literary words in everyday use.
B. Slang binds and identifies and thrives in groups with a strong sense of novelty and group activity. Farmers produce little slang, but boxers, science fiction fans, surfers, high school students, and actors produce a lot.
C. Slang is produced by living languages, and the moment it stops being produced, the language in question is dead. It is also true that slang replenishes standard language. English words as diverse as snide, hold up, nice (as in “nice work”), bogus, clumsy, and spurious were regarded as slang not that long ago. Much slang has become so common that when we use it we forget that it is slang: “Pick up the phone and find out what time the movie starts.”
D. It is all but impossible to destroy or avoid slang, especially with the argument that it is improper or impolite.
E. America is particularly hospitable to slang, and it tends to be embraced rather than spurned. American slang has been called one of the “successful stories” of English, and one estimate, made in the Reader's Digest Success with Words, claims that there are some 35,000 expressions which are, or once were, American slang. 35,000 may not be a very accurate estimate when one considers the British, Irish, Scotch, Australian, and Canadian contributions to slang.
F. Slang is not that hard to create, but it is hard to sustain a `new slang” without a group that continues to speak it. This is exactly what happened to the short-lived Valley Girl (1982-1983) and the Citizen Band radio slang (1975-1977).
G. Slang often has as much to do with who says something as what they are saying. A simple word like hot has many conventional and slang meanings, depending on whether you are talking to a musician, police officer, electrician, florist, radiologist, cook, or basketball player. If a television talk-show guest talks about the Green Room, he's referring to the room in which guests wait to go on camera, regardless of its actual color. On the other hand, to a surfer on a California beach, the Green Room is the sought-for-realm inside the curl of a wave. By extension, at some West Coast colleges, to be doing exceptionally well is to be in the Green Room.
G. Slang is often as much defined by context and position (in the sense that cowgirl and girl cow, OK and KO, and breaking ball and ball breaker, all differ) as by the expression itself. The word say is not slang unless it is used at the beginning of a sentence, in the sense “tell me.” This is as much true of the contemporary teenager who says, “Say, how much did that cost?” as it is in the line, “Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light.”
Slang is nonstandard vocabulary composed of words or senses characterized primarily by connotations of extreme informality and usually by a currency not limited to a particular region. It is composed typically of coinages or arbitrarily changed words, clipped or shortened forms, extravagant, forced, or facetious figures of speech, or verbal novelties.
Slang consists of the words and expressions that have escaped from the cant , jargon and argot (and to a lesser extent from dialectal, nonstandard, and taboo speech) of specific subgroups of society so that they are known and used by an appreciable percentage of the general population, even though the words and expressions often retain some associations with the subgroups that originally used and popularized them. Thus, slang is a middle ground for words and expressions that have become too popular to be any longer considered as part of the more restricted categories, but that are not yet (and may never become) acceptable or popular enough to be considered informal or standard. (Compare the slang "hooker" and the standard "prostitute.")
Under the terms of such a definition, "cant" comprises the restricted, non-technical words and expressions of any particular group, as an occupational, age, ethnic, hobby, or special-interest group. ( Cool, uptight, do your thing were youth cant of the late 1960s before they became slang.) "Jargon" is defined as the restricted, technical, or shoptalk words and expressions of any particular group, as an occupational, trade, scientific, artistic, criminal, or other group. ( Finals used by printers and by students, Fannie May by money men, preemie by obstetricians were jargon before they became slang.) "Argot" is merely the combined cant and jargon of thieves, criminals, or any other underworld group. ( Hit used by armed robbers; scam by corporate confidence men.)
Slang fills a necessary niche in all languages, occupying a middle ground between the standard and informal words accepted by the general public and the special words and expressions known only to comparatively small social subgroups. It can serve as a bridge or a barrier, either helping both old and new words that have been used as "insiders' " terms by a specific group of people to enter the language of the general public or, on the other hand, preventing them from doing so. Thus, for many words, slang is a testing ground that finally proves them to be generally useful, appealing, and acceptable enough to become standard or informal. For many other words, slang is a testing ground that shows them to be too restricted in use, not as appealing as standard synonyms, or unnecessary, frivolous, faddish, or unacceptable for standard or informal speech. For still a third group of words and expressions, slang becomes not a final testing ground that either accepts or rejects them for general use but becomes a vast limbo, a permanent holding ground, an area of speech that a word never leaves. Thus, during various times in history, American slang has provided cowboy, blizzard, okay, racketeer, phone, gas, and movie for standard or informal speech. It has tried and finally rejected conbobberation (disturbance), krib (room or apartment), lucifer (match), tomato (girl), and fab (fabulous) from standard or informal speech. It has held other words such as bones (dice), used since the 14th century, and beat it (go away), used since the 16th century, in a permanent grasp, neither passing them on to standard or informal speech nor rejecting them from popular, long-term use.
Slang words cannot be distinguished from other words by sound or meaning. Indeed, all slang words were once cant, jargon, argot, dialect, nonstandard, or taboo. For example, the American slang to neck (to kiss and caress) was originally student cant; flattop (an aircraft carrier) was originally navy jargon; and pineapple (a bomb or hand grenade) was originally criminal argot. Such words did not, of course, change their sound or meaning when they became slang. Many slang words, such as blizzard, mob, movie, phone, gas, and others, have become informal or standard and, of course, did not change in sound or meaning when they did so. In fact, most slang words are homonyms of standard words, spelled and pronounced just like their standard counterparts, as for example (American slang), cabbage (money), cool (relaxed), and pot (marijuana). Of course, the words cabbage, cool, and pot sound alike in their ordinary standard use and in their slang use. Each word sounds just as appealing or unappealing, dull or colourful in its standard as in its slang use. Also, the meanings of cabbage and money, cool and relaxed, pot and marijuana are the same, so it cannot be said that the connotations of slang words are any more colourful or racy than the meanings of standard words.
Here is the example of two students' communication. Imagine that they talk about Bob whom they both know.
Bob is a great guy. He never blows his slack. He hardly ever flies off the handle. Well, of course, he is actually getting on, too. But he always knows how to make up for the-lost time by taking it easy. He gets up early, works out, and turns in early. He knows how to get away with things. Bob's got it made. This is it for him. He is a cool cat.
All words seem to be clear, but the general sense appears hardly probable. And if we look at our mini-dictionary it will decipher something:
a great guy классный чувак, клевый парень
to blow one's stack не держать себя в руках, заводиться
to fly off the handle выходить из себя, срываться
to be getting on изнашиваться, стареть
to make up for something восстанавливать, компенсировать
to take it easy не брать до головы упражняться
to work out делать зарядку, качаться
to get away with thingsпроворачивать дела
to get it made быть удачливым, уметь все схватывать
coolклассный, четкий (четко), клевый (клево)
Let us translate the whole paragraph which, certainly, on lexicon hardly concerns to the Oxford English, but is quite modern colloquial variant:
Боб -- классный парень. Он никогда не заводится с пол-оборота и спокоен, как удав на солнце. Ну да, годы на нем тоже сказываются. Но он всегда умеет держать себя в форме, потому что старается ничего не брать до головы. Рано встает, тренируется и рано уходит на боковую. Он отлично проворачивает свои дела. У него все получается. В этом он весь. Он отличный малый.
Using standard English we would translate this as follows:
Bob is a calm person. He never loses control of himself, he hardly ever becomes very angry. Needless to say, he is getting older. But he knows how to compensate by relaxing. He rises early, exercises, and goes to bed early. Bob is successful, he reached his lifes ' s goal. He is a good guy.
A word cool in dictionaries is translated as something average between warm and cold, i.e. cool. In daily dialogue cool sounds at those moments when we speak: «здорово!», «класс!», «клево!», «чётко!». Sometimes it is possible to tell great, that is translated the same way. In this case it is important who is speaking. If the word "great" is said by decently dressed gentleman it will be translated as "грандиозно", if the punk - it will be "круто", if hippie -" клево, хиппово" if it is said by a girl - than it will be "обалденно" and if a guy - it will mean "здорово!".
-- Do you like the ice cream? -- Как мороженое
Here cool will not mean that ice-cream is cool. "Класс! " - is that John answers Mike. It is necessary to be the quite good psychologist to translate, for example, expression cool weather. We should translate it according to the speaker. It can sometimes be "прохладная погода ", and another time - "классная погода". The same concerns almost all words of English language. In a press translations of interview are often bring to difficulties. For example, known rock-musicians while giving interview often use words "круто", i.e. "Я тащусь" in Russian. In English it appears, they speak instead of "I am dragged" simply I love it, i.e. "it is pleasant to me, I love it", but the translator has counted, that Russian rock-fans will not understand the idol if he speak as everybody. So that phrase I love it needs to be treated the same way as great, according to the speaker.
-- It's very different. But I love it. -- Здесь все по - другому . Но мне нравится , -- one American tells to another in foyer of Russian capital hotel.
-- Man, I love it. -- Паря , я тащусь , -- one hippie tightening marihuana transfers a stub to the buddy.
-- Oh boy! I love it! -- Ого ! Обалденно ! -- Jane shouts Mike having rolled down from an abrupt hill in water.
At those moments when we are surprised we pronouns:
"Ничего себе! Вот это да!", Americans cry out " Oh boy ! " Without dependence from that, "boy" stands beside or "girl".
- Oh boy! - Michael exclaims getting out of the car and estimating, how many centimeters from a column he has managed to park.
- Oh boy! - Mike and John are laughing looking as their friends in suits of the play "Hamlet"'s heroes enter the stage.
All languages, countries, and periods of history have slang. This is true because they all have had words with varying degrees of social acceptance and popularity.
All segments of society use some slang, including the most educated, cultivated speakers and writers. In fact, this is part of the definition of slang. For example, George Washington used redcoat (British soldier); Winston Churchill used booze (liquor); and Lyndon B. Johnson used cool it (calm down, shut up).
The same linguistic processes are used to create and popularize slang as are used to create and popularize all other words. That is, all words are created and popularized in the same general ways; they are labeled slang only according to their current social acceptance, long after creation and popularization.
Slang is not the language of the underworld, nor does most of it necessarily come from the underworld. The main sources of slang change from period to period. Thus, in one period of American slang, frontiersmen, cowboys, hunters, and trappers may have been the main source; during some parts of the 1920s and '30s the speech of baseball players and criminals may have been the main source; at other times, the vocabulary of jazz musicians, soldiers, or college students may have been the main source.
To fully understand slang, one must remember that a word's use, popularity, and acceptability can change. Words can change in social level, moving in any direction. Thus, some standard words of William Shakespeare's day are found only in certain modern-day British dialects or in the dialect of the southern United States. Words that are taboo in one era ( e.g., stomach, thigh ) can become accepted, standard words in a later era. Language is dynamic, and at any given time hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of words and expressions are in the process of changing from one level to another, of becoming more acceptable or less acceptable, of becoming more popular or less popular. What about jargon? A rough distinction between slang and jargon is that jargon is technical, professional talk which acts as a barrier to keep outsiders from understanding what is going on. But not always. For instance, medical doctors have a polysyllabic, latinate jargon as well as a blunt and sometimes cruel slang. It is one thing to say that one has a bilateral probital hematoma (jargon), but quite another to say that you have a shiner, black eye, or mouse (slang).
The word screw has now become something abusive. The most decent word with a root screw is screwdriver ("screw-driver") which means directly «отвертка» less often than an alcoholic drink, juice with vodka. The girl sat down at a rack and speaking to the barman: " I wanna be screwed " , means that wishes to drink and in general to spend good evening, shortly to be delayed with a man.
Screw up has two meanings in American slang. The first one is «внести сумятицу, напортачить, все испортить». For example:
The main treasurer of the Blind Society who has forged the accounting report is brought to the commissioner:
- What has he done? - asks sergeant Holduin, looking as the thief is lead out from a cabinet in handcuffs.
- This dude screwed up the accounts of the Blind Society .
-- Этот придурок напортачил с отчетом Общества слепых. Думал, что если они слепые, то не заметят...
The second meaning of “screw up” is “доконать, довести до нервного срыва кого-нибудь, заколебать...”:
-- Why have you forced all of us to worry so much? - exclaims Jane -- I was hardly screwed up! -- Я чуть не рехнулась !
-- You were screwed up?-- Чуть не рехнулась ?-- grins М ike, taking his wet hair away from a forehead.
-- Did you see how they screwed us up in the first two quarters? -- А ты видела , как они нас продрали в первых двух четвертях ?
Screw around - бить баклуши, валять дурака, пороть чушь, ворон считать - and in English sounds rudely.
- Get up! - Sergeant Timpson shouts on the soldiers of his platoon, sitting and doing nothing . - Your screw around is over! - Ваше валяние дурака закончилось !
Slang tends to originate in subcultures within a society. Occupational groups (for example, loggers, police, medical professionals, and computer specialists) are prominent originators of both jargon and slang; other groups creating slang include the armed forces, teenagers, racial minorities, ghetto residents, labor unions, citizens-band radiobroadcasters, sports groups, drug addicts, criminals, and even religious denominations (Episcopalians, for example, produced spike, a High Church Anglican). Slang expressions often embody attitudes and values of group members. They may thus contribute to a sense of group identity and may convey to the listener information about the speaker's background. Before an apt expression becomes slang, however, it must be widely adopted by members of the subculture. At this point slang and jargon overlap greatly. If the subculture has enough contact with the mainstream culture, its figures of speech become slang expressions known to the whole society. For example, cat (a sport), cool (aloof, stylish), Mr. Charley (a white man), The Man (the law), and Uncle Tom (a meek black) all originated in the predominantly black Harlem district of New York City and have traveled far since their inception. Slang is thus generally not tied to any geographic region within a country.
A slang expression may suddenly become widely used and as quickly date ( 23-skiddoo ). It may become accepted as standard speech, either in its original slang meaning ( bus , from omnibus ) or with an altered, possibly tamed meaning ( jazz , which originally had sexual connotations). Some expressions have persisted for centuries as slang ( booze for alcoholic beverage). In the 20th century, mass media and rapid travel have speeded up both the circulation and the demise of slang terms. Television and novels have turned criminal cant into slang ( five grand for $5000). Changing social circumstances may stimulate the spread of slang. Drug-related expressions (such as pot and marijuana ) were virtually a secret jargon in the 1940s; in the 1960s they were adopted by rebellious youth; and in the 1970s and '80s they were widely known.
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 his creation projects the emotional reaction of its members toward an idea, person, or social institution, the expression will gain currency according to the unanimity of attitude within the group. A new slang term is usually widely used in a subculture before it appears in the dominant culture. Thus slang-- e.g., "sucker," "honkey," "shave-tail," "jerk"--expresses the attitudes, not always derogatory, of one group or class toward the values of another. Slang sometimes stems from within the group, satirizing or burlesquing its own values, behaviour, and attitudes; e.g., "shotgun wedding," "cake eater," "greasy spoon." Slang, then, is produced largely by social forces rather than by an individual speaker or writer who, single-handed (like Horace Walpole, who coined "serendipity" more than 200 years ago), creates and establishes a word in the language. This is one reason why it is difficult to determine the origin of slang terms.
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.)
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.
In criminal subcultures, pressure applied by the dominant culture intensifies the internal forces already at work, and the argot forming there emphasizes the values, attitudes, and techniques of the subculture. Criminal groups seem to evolve about this specialized argot, and both the subculture and its slang expressions proliferate in response to internal and external pressures.
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, sociology, engineering, and electronics tend to create true neologisms, often based on Greek or Latin roots, but these are not major sources for slang, though nurses and medical students adapt some medical terminology to their slang, and air force personnel and some other branches of the armed services borrow freely from engineering and electronics.
1. 6 Linguistic processes forming slang
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, synecdoche, hyperbole, borrowings from foreign languages, and the play of euphemism against taboo. The English word trip is an example of a term that has undergone both specialization and generalization. It first became specialized to mean a psychedelic experience resulting from the drug LSD. Subsequently, it generalized again to mean any experience on any drug, and beyond that to any type of "kicks" from anything. Clipping is exemplified by the use of "grass" from "laughing grass," a term for marijuana. "Funky," once a very low term for body odour, has undergone elevation among jazz buffs to signify "the best"; "fanny," on the other hand, once simply a girl's name, is currently a degenerated term that refers to the buttocks (in England, it has further degenerated into a taboo word for the female genita
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