YOUTH SLANG AS A SOCIAL PHENOMENON
Кадыркулова А. К., [email protected]
Л.Н.Гумилев атындағы Еуразия ҧ лттық университеті,
Астана Ғылыми жетекшісі – Д.М. Ксанова
We are inclined to believe that language has its specific to change all the time. New words
and expressions appear and evolve. The words and pronunciations used by young people nowadays
can be radically different from those used by adults. As far as we concerned, living in a
multicultural society has an effect on a language, especially of young people, whose friends are
often from a mix of backgrounds. Mass Media, especially TV and music also have a massive impact
on the language of the young. For instance, often UK singers will even sing in American accents
without realizing.
Young people use lots of language that you usually cannot find in most dictionaries. These
highly informal words and expressions are known as slang. Slang words and expressions are
characterized by a high degree of informality, familiarity, vocabulary richness. Moreover, they are
realized by a specific group of people whose members are connected with some particular link, such
as territory (Californian), age (teenagers), subculture (students), and mainly occur in the spoken
form of the language. It is not possible to come up with a complete list of modern British slang. By
the time the list was completed, it would be out of date. New words come and go like fashions.
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 young people themselves.
Researchers into adolescent language usage have tended to concentrate on the links between
language and hierarchies, status and deployment of social capital. More recently, however, some
specialists have started to look at such ‗carnivalesque‘ manifestations as profaning, mischief, banter and
teasing, the borrowing of ethnically marked codes to signal empathy and solidarity in ‗crossing‘
(Rampton 1995), and anticipated a change of emphasis in Bernstein‘s words ‗from the dominance of
adult-imposed and regulated rituals to dominance of rituals generated and regulated by youth‘
(Bernstein, cited in Rampton 2003). None of these studies has taken slang into account although
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there has been a plea, again by Rampton, for more attention to ‗the social symbolic aspects of
formulaic language‘. [1,12]
Eble, in the only book-length study in recent times devoted to North American campus
slang, has shown that the slang of middle-class college students is more complex and less a product
of alienation than has been assumed in the past [2,34]. Her recordings of interactions reveal, too,
that the selective and conscious use of slang itself is only part of a broader repertoire of styleshifting in conversation, not primarily to enforce opposition to authority, secretiveness or social
discrimination, but often for the purposes of bonding and ‗sociability‘ through playfulness.
John Benjamins considered slang words not to 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. 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). 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 [3,65]
In our view, learning English entails learning not only formal language but also slang, which
is bound up with both social and linguistic conventions that may be essential for comprehension.
That suggests that under the proper circumstances, i.e., in a properly constructed social context
slang can convey cultural attitudes and ideas more efficiently than conventional usage. From the
linguistic point of view, E. Mattiello gives the following definition of slang ―Slang - informal,
nonstandard words and phrases, generally shorter lived than the expressions of ordinary colloquial
speech, and typically formed by creative, often witty juxtapositions of words or images‖ . [4,50]
To our mind, each society can be divided into many groups regarding to interests, tastes,
professional affiliation, political and social points of view, etc. The members of the groups may
belong to several ones at the same time, so they will be aware of all the peculiarities concerning
these groups. According to Beregovskaya E.M. variety of such groups leads to the deviation from
some language standards and creation of so-called «micro languages» within these groups. Each of
these «micro languages» develops within the boundaries of one particular group. Such languages
are not spread far and wide as they are nonuniversal ones. [5, 36] This leads us to believe that slang,
i.e., youth slang as a social phenomenon is a nonstandard vocabulary composed of words or senses
characterized primarily by connotations of extreme informality; 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 (group of young people).
The fact that slang does enter the common language is one thing. It signals formal meanings
in an informal way, and it may also symbolize a whole range of beliefs and/or attitudes of a
subculture. Concrete abstractions such as these involve the user of the slang, the listener to the
slang, and the linguistic target of the designation itself, in a specific cultural frame of reference.
That is to say sociological properties are derived from slang´s multiple nature and its function. As
E. Mattiello offers they can be classified into two groups with respect to either the speaker (speaker oriented) or the hearer (hearer-oriented). refers to four characteristics of speaker with regard to
appropriate sociological properties.[4,47]
As a member of a particular group (group-restriction, individuality, secrecy, privacy,
culture-restriction, prestige).
As a person with a concrete occupation or activity (subject-restriction, technicality).
As a person of low cultural status using bad language (informality, debasement,
vulgarity, obscenity).
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As an individual of a certain age or generation from a certain regional area (timerestriction, ephemerality, localism).
As the speaker-oriented properties of slang determine the speaker, hearer oriented properties
characterize the hearer and the effect they produce upon him with a view to
Amusing the hearer (playfulness, humor).
Breaking up his monotony of neutral style (freshness, novelty, unconventionality).
Impress the hearer with extraordinary expressions (faddishness, color, and
musicality).
Mock, offend or challenge the hearer (impertinence, aggressiveness, offensiveness)[4,53]
The importance and frequency of sociological properties used in slang vary from the
linguists´ different point of view. Thus, most of the properties are not considered so much crucial
and it may happen that they are not even mentioned in some linguistic studies on slang.
As slang is the language of the youth it is interesting for us to find out where it comes from.
At all times the youth could not live without music. For some people it is a way to relax, and for
others - an inexhaustible source of inspiration. Teenagers even try to look like their idols, and let
alone the imitation of the way of speaking. For instance, following the example of ―The Pink
Floyd‖ , the name of their song «Another brick in the wall» became a synonym of the informal
teenager.
Song lyrics often contain slang words and expressions. For instance, slang word Phunk
(Black Eyed Peace ―Don‘t phunk with my heart‖ ) is an euphemism (polite way of saying
something) for fuck; Don‘t phunk with my heart = don‘t play with my heart, and according to the
classification of sociolinguistic features of slangs given by Mattiello Phunk regards to Obscenity:
slang synonyms flourish in the taboo subjects of a culture.
Another example from the same song is Yee-haw! - an exclamation of excitement associated
with unsophisticated country people from the South – Orality - typical fillers of everyday
conversation and never used in formal written language associated with spoken language. [7]
Chill out (Avril Lavigne ―Complicated‖ ) is a slang that refers to the Ephemerality: slang is
an ephemeral, short-lived, ever changing vocabulary. Novel words and special meanings crop up at
very brief intervals, but generally remain in current use for a short time, and then pass away as
quickly as they have been created. Thus, while some words, such as chap, chum and grub ―have
been slang for a long time‖ [6,78], other words (called ―vogue words‖ in the literature), such as
massive, paranoid and reckon, ―have become fashionable for a short period of time‖ [3, 65].
In Eminem‘s ―Without me‖ we can find the following ones: Weed meaning marijuana
refers to the subject-restriction: sometimes slang is described as the special, even specialized,
vocabulary of some profession, occupation or activity in society. This makes slang peculiar to a set
of people who are identified by their specific terminology or by the specialized terms they use
within group members. In particular, specific slang words such as crack (‗a potent, crystalline form
of cocaine‘), junkie (‗a drug addict‘) and joint (‗a marijuana cigarette‘) are related to the topic of
drugs, and creep (‗a stealthy robber‘), dog (‗an informer; a traitor‘), and the Family (‗the thieving
fraternity‘) are connected with the crime topic. [7]
Slang is worthy of the attention of linguists in its own right, but further that, as an exciting
and controversial form of language which belongs to young people and to youth culture. So this
leads us to believe that context – physical, social, psychological, emotional – is the decisive
sociolinguistic factor of communication effectiveness, and that mastering context may prove more
important for mastering the language than mere attention to linguistic phonemes.
References
1. Rampton, B, Crossing: Language and Ethnicity among Adolescents, Harlow and New York:
Longman, 2003 –p.12
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2. Eble, C. Slang and Sociability. London and Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,
1996.-p.34
3. Stenström, A.-B., G. Andersen & I.K. Hasund Trends in teenage talk: Corpus compilation,
analysis and findings - John Benjamins, Amsterdam/Philadelphia, 2002 – p. 65
4. Elisa Mattiello An Introduction to English Slang - Polimetrica International Scientific
Publisher Monza/Italy, 2008 – p. 47-60
5. Береговская Э. М. Молодежный сленг: формирование и функционирование // Вопросы
языкознания. - 1996. - № 3. - С. 32-41.
6. Andersson, L.G. & P. Trudgill Bad language - Blackwell, Oxford, 1990 –p.78
7. www.digitalspy.co.u