Peculiarities of Slang

Content 
 
Introduction………………………………………………………2 
 
1.Peculiarities of Slang…………………………………..3 
 
1.1. History of slang…………………………………………….3 
 
1.2. Characteristics of slang……………………………….6

 
1.3. Slang as phenomenon in modern linguistics. Slang and Jargon………………8 
 
2. Uses of  Slang.  Types of slang in Modern English……………………..10 
 
2.1. Rhyming slang…………………………………….13 
 
2.2. Internet slang………………………………..18 
 

2.3. Dictionary…………………………………………..20

2.3.1. Dictionary of youth slang during 1960-70's……………….21

2.3.2. Dictionary of modern British slang……………….23

2.3.3 Dictionary of modern USA slangs………………………..35

Conclusion………………………………. 
 
Bibliography……………………………………… 
 
 

Introduction 
Slang is an informal kind of language in which words and phrases are used in new or unusual ways. Many slang terms are expressive, humorous and vivid. Some are rude and offensive. 
  People use slang more often in speaking than in writing and more often with friends than with strangers. Slang thus resembles colloquialisms, which are expressions used in everyday conversation but considered appropriate for formal speech or writing. Unlike colloquialisms, however, most slang lasts only a few years. Also, nearly all colloquialisms are used- or at least understood- by the general population. But many slang expressions are limited to a certain segment of society or to a specific occupational group. For example, some slang is used only by criminals and other members of the underworld. Such slang is called argot and cant. The special slang and technical vocabulary of a profession or trade is known as jargon.

  Slang expressions change and spread so quickly that many people have difficulty determining what is slang and what is not. Dictionaries and language experts often disagree about whether a particular expression is slang, a colloquialism, or even standard language

  Speech activity has always been in the focus of interests of modern linguistics and is closely correlated with cognitive linguistics, first and foremost with psychology, sociology, cultural science. To this number is undoubtedly referred a linguistic notion of slang. There exist a great number of researches concerning slang and the authors treat this phenomenon in various scientific systems (Sh. Johnson, D. Crystal, I.R. Galperin, J.E. Lighter, A.Thorne, etc.). 
  The topicality of the given investigation is connected with the fact that at the beginning of the XXI-st century computers have became the integral part of our everyday life, therefore the necessity has emerged in developing interpretative techniques of the computer language processing. 
The scientific novelty of this work is in the investigation of the problems of translation of computer slang of the English language. 
The aim of the paper is defined as revealing the basic characteristics of the computer vocabulary of the English language. 
The given Qualification Paper is dedicated to one of the main problems of lexicology of the English language. 
Slang is a language of a highly colloquial type considered as below the level of educated standard speech and consisting either of new words or current word employed in some special sense. 
The aim of the research is based on detailed study of “Slang”, which is the most interesting and important for English Lexicology. 

The given purpose follows successive solution of the following tasks:

•  
  to define the subject of Slang;
•  
  to study the origin and sources of slang;
•  
  to present Slang forms and kinds;
•  
  to reveal slang dominions.

 
The actuality of the Qualification Paper is that the vocabulary of the English language is increasing. It is necessary to define the role of slang in colloquial speech. 
The novelty of the Qualification Paper is that in this investigation we have discussed the spread of slang, its kinds, role and usage among different youth fields of community. 
The theoretical significance of this Qualification Paper is that the theoretical position can be used in scientific works besides that they may be used in delivering lectures on Lexicology and Stylistics. 
The practical value of the Qualification Paper is that the practical results and conclusion can be used in seminars on Stylistics and Lexicology. 
The content of this Qualification Paper is as follows:  
Introduction, two chapters, conclusion, summary and the list of used literatures. 
Introduction deals with the description of the structure of a qualification paper. 
In the first chapter, subject to critical analysis of the different points of view on the problem of the definition of "slang," reveals status of slang in modern English, the concept of shared jargon and slang, slang reveals structural features. 
In the second chapter, we consider these types of slang, rhyming slang, Internet slang, and students try to understand the everyday slang, with which you can meet in everyday life. 
Conclusion deals with the theoretical and practical results . 
In the Bibliography, it is listed the used literatures in the paper.

1.Peculiarities of  slang

1.1. History of slang

Most of us think that we recognize slang when we hear it or see it, but exactly how slang is defined and which terms should or should not be listed under that heading continue to be the subject of debate in the bar-room as much as in the classroom or university seminar. To arrive at a working definition of slang the first edition of the Bloomsbury Dictionary of Contemporary Slang approached the phenomenon from two slightly different angles. Firstly, slang is a style category within the language which occupies an extreme position on the spectrum of formality. Slang is at the end of the line; it lies beyond mere informality or colloquialism, where language is considered too racy, raffish, novel or unsavory for use in conversation with strangers … So slang enforces intimacy. It often performs an important social function which is to include into or exclude from the intimate circle, using forms of language through which speakers identify with or function within social sub-groups, ranging from surfers, schoolchildren and yuppies, to criminals, drinkers and fornicators. These remain the essential features of slang at the end of the 1990s, although its extreme informality may now seem less shocking than it used to, and its users now include ravers, rappers and net-heads along with the miscreants traditionally cited. There are other characteristics which have been used to delimit slang, but these may often be the result of prejudice and misunderstanding and not percipience. Slang has been referred to again and again as ‘illegitimate’, ‘low and disreputable’ and condemned by serious writers as ‘a sign and a cause of mental atrophy’(Oliver Wendell Holmes), ‘the advertisement of mental poverty’(James C. Fernal). Its in-built unorthodoxy has led to the assumption that slang in all its incarnations (metaphors, euphemisms, taboo words, catchphrases, nicknames, abbreviations and the rest) is somehow inherently substandard and unwholesome. But linguists and lexicographers cannot (or at least, should not) stigmatize words in the way that society may stigmatize the users of those words and, looked at objectively, slang is no more reprehensible than poetry, with which it has much in common in its creative playing with the conventions and mechanisms of language, its manipulation of metonymy, synechdoche, irony, its wit and inventiveness. In understanding this, and also that slang is a natural product of those ‘processes eternally active in language’, Walt Whitman was ahead of his time.  
More recently some writers (Halliday being an influential example) have claimed that the essence of slang is that it is language used in conscious opposition to authority. But slang does not have to be subversive; it may simply encode a shared experience, celebrate a common outlook which may be based as much on (relatively) innocent enjoyment (by, for instance, schoolchildren, drinkers, sports fans, Internet-users) as on illicit activities. Much slang, in fact, functions as an alternative vocabulary, replacing standard terms with more forceful, emotive or interesting versions just for the fun of it: hooter or conk for nose, mutt or pooch for dog, ankle-biter or crumb-snatcher for child are instances. Still hoping to find a defining characteristic, other experts have seized upon the rapid turnover of slang words and announced that this is the key element at work; that slang is concerned with faddishness and that its here-today-gone-tomorrow components are ungraspable and by implication inconsequential. Although novelty and innovation are very important in slang, a close examination of the whole lexicon reveals that, as Whitman had noted, it is not necessarily transient at all. The word punk, for example, has survived in the linguistic underground since the seventeenth century and among the slang synonyms for money - dosh, ackers, spondulicks, rhino, pelf - which were popular in the City of London in the 1990s are many which are more than a hundred years old. A well-known word like cool in its slang sense is still in use (and has been adopted by other languages, too), although it first appeared around eighty years ago.  
Curiously, despite the public’s increasing fascination for slang, as evinced in newspaper and magazine articles and radio programs, academic linguists in the UK have hitherto shunned it as a field of study. This may be due to a lingering conservatism, or to the fact that it is the standard varieties of English that have to be taught, but whatever the reasons the situation is very different elsewhere. In the US and Australia the study of slang is part of the curriculum in many institutions, in France, Spain, Holland, Scandinavia and Eastern Europe slang, and especially the slang of English, is the subject of more and more research projects and student theses; in all these places slang is discussed in symposia and in learned journals, while in Russia, China and Japan local editions of British and American slang dictionaries can be found on school bookshelves and in university libraries.

Slang was the main reason for the development of prescriptive language in an attempt to slow down the rate of change in both spoken and written language.   Latin and French were the only two languages that maintained the use of prescriptive language in the 14th century.   It was not until the early 15th century that scholars began pushing for a standard English language. 

During the Middle Ages, certain writers such as Chaucer, William Caxton, and William of Malmesbury represented the regional differences in pronunciations and dialects.  The different dialects and the different pronunciations represented the first meaning for the term “slang.” 

However, our present-day meaning for slang did not begin forming until the 16th or 17th century.  The English Criminal Cant developed in the 16th century.  The English Criminal Cant was a new kind of speech used by criminals and cheats, meaning it developed mostly in saloons and gambling houses. The English Criminal Cant was at first believed to be foreign, meaning scholars thought that it had either originated in Romania or had a relationship to French.  The English Criminal Cant was slow developing.  In fact, out of the four million people who spoke English, only about ten thousand spoke the English Criminal Cant.  By the end of the 16th century this new style of speaking was considered to be a language “without reason or order” (Thorne 23).   During the 18th century schoolmasters taught pupils to believe that the English Criminal Cant (which by this time had developed into slang) was not the correct usage of English and slang was considered to be taboo. 

However, slang was beginning to be presented in popular plays.  The first appearance of the slang was in a play by Richard Brome’s and later appeared in poems and songs by Copland.  By the 1700’s the cultural differences in America had begun to influence the English-speaking population, and slang began to expand. 

Almost all of the slang words during this time were anatomical and well known all through Britain and in America due to the British colonists.   Furthermore, certain events happened in the 18th century that helped the development of slang such as, Westward expansion, the Civil War, and the abolitionist movement.  By this time scholars such as Walt Whitman,  W. D. Whitney, and Brander Matthews all considered slang to be anything that sounded new, and that was not in the “glossaries of British dialects” (Thorne 26).  Walt Whitman considers slang to be the life of the language.  Whitman wrote “that slang was a wholesome.....of common humanity to escape the form bald literalism, and express itself illimitably” (Thorne 26). 

This was a turning point for slang it was starting to escape the harsh criticism of being associated with criminals or foreigners.  It was not until the early 1920’s that slang had gained the interest of popular writers.  It was during the post-World War I era that society gained new attitudes about slang.  There was now a demand for entertainment, mass media, and slangy fiction. 

Today modern American slang has been shaped and reshaped by the different cultures and the emergence of technology, which has left our society with varieties of slang from extremes like Street/Drug Slang to African-American Slang. 

1.2.Characteristics of slang

Psychologically, most good slang harks back to the stage in human culture when animism was a worldwide religion. At that time, it was believed that all objects had two aspects, one external and objective that could be perceived by the senses, the other imperceptible (except to gifted individuals) but identical with what we today would call the "real" object. Human survival depended upon the manipulation of all "real" aspects of life--hunting, reproduction, warfare, weapons, design of habitations, nature of clothing or decoration, etc.--through control or influence upon the animus, or imperceptible phase of reality. This influence was exerted through many aspects of sympathetic magic, one of the most potent being the use of language. Words, therefore, had great power, because they evoked the things to which they referred.

Civilized cultures and their languages retain many remnants of animism, largely on the unconscious level. In Western languages, the metaphor owes its power to echoes of sympathetic magic, and slang utilizes certain attributes of the metaphor to evoke images too close for comfort to "reality." For example, to refer to a woman as a "broad" is automatically to increase her girth in an area in which she may fancy herself as being thin. Her reaction may, thus, be one of anger and resentment, if she happens to live in a society in which slim hips are considered essential to feminine beauty. Slang, then, owes much of its power to shock to the superimposition of images that are incongruous with images (or values) of others, usually members of the dominant culture. Slang is most popular when its imagery develops incongruity bordering on social satire. Every slang word, however, has its own history and reasons for popularity. When conditions change, the term may change in meaning, be adopted into the standard language, or continue to be used as slang within certain enclaves of the population. Nothing is flatter than dead slang. In 1910, for instance, "Oh you kid" and "23-skiddoo" were quite stylish phrases in the U.S. but they have gone with the hobble skirt. Children, however, unaware of anachronisms, often revive old slang under a barrage of older movies rerun on television.

Some slang becomes respectable when it loses its edge; "spunk," "fizzle," "spent," "hit the spot," "jazz," "funky," and "p.o.'d," once thought to be too indecent for feminine ears, are now family words. Other slang survives for centuries, like "bones" for dice (Chaucer), "beat it" for run away (Shakespeare), "duds" for clothes, and "booze" for liquor (Dekker). These words must have been uttered as slang long before appearing in print, and they have remained slang ever since. Normally, slang has both a high birth and death rate in the dominant culture, and excessive use tends to dull the lustre of even the most colourful and descriptive words and phrases. The rate of turnover in slang words is undoubtedly encouraged by the mass media, and a term must be increasingly effective to survive.

While many slang words introduce new concepts, some of the most effective slang provides new expressions--fresh, satirical, shocking--for established concepts, often very respectable ones. Sound is sometimes used as a basis for this type of slang, as, for example, in various phonetic distortions (e.g., pig Latin terms). It is also used in rhyming slang, which employs a fortunate combination of both sound and imagery. Thus, gloves are "turtledoves" (the gloved hands suggesting a pair of billing doves), a girl is a "twist and twirl" (the movement suggesting a girl walking), and an insulting imitation of flatus, produced by blowing air between the tip of the protruded tongue and the upper lip, is the "raspberry," cut back from "raspberry tart." Most slang, however, depends upon incongruity of imagery, conveyed by the lively connotations of a novel term applied to an established concept. Slang is not all of equal quality, a considerable body of it reflecting a simple need to find new terms for common ones, such as the hands, feet, head, and other parts of the body. Food, drink, and sex also involve extensive slang vocabulary. Strained or synthetically invented slang lacks verve, as can be seen in the desperate efforts of some sportswriters to avoid mentioning the word baseball--e.g., a batter does not hit a baseball but rather "swats the horsehide," "plasters the pill," "hefts the old apple over the fence," and so on.

The most effective slang operates on a more sophisticated level and often tells something about the thing named, the person using the term, and the social matrix against which it is used. Pungency may increase when full understanding of the term depends on a little inside information or knowledge of a term already in use, often on the slang side itself. For example, the term Vatican roulette (for the rhythm system of birth control) would have little impact if the expression Russian roulette were not already in wide usage.

1.3.Slang as a phenomenon in modern linguistics. Slang and Jargon. 
 
In linguistics there is no clear notion of slang. 
The whole vocabulary of a language is divided into literary and non-literary. By literary include: 
 
.1. Ink-horn term 
2. Standard spoken words 
3. Neutral words 
 
The whole vocabulary is used either in literature or in a speech in a formal setting. There is also a non-literary vocabulary, we divide it into: 
 
1.Professionalism 
2.Vulgarism 
3.Jargon 
4.Slang 

This part of the lexicon is distinguished by its conversational and informal nature. 
 
Professionalism - words used by small groups of people united by a particular profession. 
 
Vulgargomy - it's harsh words, not usually employed by educated people in society, the special vocabulary used by people of lower social status: prisoners, drug dealers, homeless, etc. 
 
Jargon - words that are used by certain social or common interest groups, which are secret, incomprehensible to all make sense. 
 
Slang - words that are often viewed as a violation of the standard language. This is a very expressive, ironic words serve to indicate items being talked about in everyday life. 
 
It should be noted that some scholars refer to the slang jargon, thus not releasing them as a separate group, and slang is defined as a specific vocabulary used to talk a group of people with common interests. 
 
The term "slang" in the translation from English (Sov. congruence. Dictionary, ed. S. Kovaleva, - M., "Soviet Encyclopedia", str.1234) means: 
 
A. 
it socially or professionally isolated groups opposed to the literary language; 
 
B. 
version of the conversation (including painted expressive elements of the speech) that do not coincide with the standard literary language. 
 
 
Slang consists of words and phraseology, which originally emerged and were used in separate social groups, and reflect the holistic orientation of these groups. Having become a commonly used, these words remain largely emotional assessment, although some "sign" of evaluation varies. For example, the "trash" (an actor's use of Wednesday) - stands for "perquisite." 
 
On the problem of allocation of unallocated or slang of a number of others, and as a concept and as a term for local linguists, there are several points of view: 
 
A. 
I.R. Halperin, in his article "On the term" slang "," referring to the uncertainty in this category, denies its existence. 
His argument is based on the results of studies of British scientists lexicographers, mainly on their experience in compiling dictionaries of English, which showed that the same word in different dictionaries have different linguistic recognition, the same is given to the litters of "slang," "vernacular" or without litter, indicating that under normal literary language. 
I.R Halperin does not admit the existence of slang as a separate category of self-offering, the term "slang" used as a synonym, the English equivalent of jargon. 
 
B. 
Opinion about the identity of the two terms (slang and jargon), but beyond that - a sharp

rejection of the presence of this phenomenon in the Russian spoken language (Elena Borisova-Lunashanets, A.N. Mazurova, L. Radzihovsky). 
 
 
It is interesting to use in this aspect the opinion of Academician AA Shakhmatova, who offered to point to the attention of such a phenomenon, and not get involved in propaganda denying slang and showing how to speak. 
 
It should not be approached solely from the perspective of slang scholar and linguist, as the language - not a static phenomenon, but versatile, and above all in the way of (slang is present mainly in speech). 
 
In terms of style - the jargon, slang or sociolect - it is not harmful parasitic excrescence on the body language, which is vulgarized spoken language of the speaker, and organic and to some extent a necessary part of the system. 
 
Some researchers believe that the term is slang used here in two senses: as a synonym for jargon (but with reference to English-speaking countries) and as a collection of slang words, slang values ​​of well-known words, slang phrases, belonging by birth to the different jargon, and become, if not commonly used , it is sufficient wide range of understandable. The authors of the various slang dictionaries in this way understand the slang. 
 
The great interest in this study are slang dictionaries. Interesting demonstration of the facts, not found in the vast majority of cases reflected in the standard dictionaries. Interesting as a document of time, definite evidence of taste and language age, and socio-psychological processes generated by extralinguistic factors. Speaking of these processes and circumstances, the authors of these papers point out that the prison-camp slang was not affected by the official ideology. And that in a totalitarian state made it an attractive "for everyone, one way or another, did not suit the Soviet reality: from the dissidents - to fans of jazz and non-objective painting." In addition, "a country that for decades was an almost one giant concentration camp, where people constantly, directly or indirectly, faced with prison life, could not learn manners and customs of this world in all spheres of social and cultural life." Once Joliot-Curie said: "The truth is traveling without a visa." But nothing of the word and say nothing.

2. Uses of slang.

Why People Use Slang?

Because most people are individuals who desire uniqueness, it stands to reason that slang has been in existence for as long as language has been in existence.  Even so, the question of why slang develops within a language has been hotly debated.  Most agree that the question is still unanswered, or perhaps it has many answers.  Regardless, there is no doubt that we can better explain slang's existence by analyzing how and why it exists. 

Foreign words are a common resource for the development of slang, as are regional variations of standard words.  David Crystal, author of The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, calls the introduction of foreign words into a language "borrowings."  Likewise, slang may incorporate "elements of the jargons of special-interest groups (e.g., professional, sport, regional, criminal, and drug subcultures)."  The Historical Dictionary of American Slang says that "Slang is lexical innovation within a particular cultural context."  Sometimes these foreign words and regional variations become part of the standard language. 

The Historical Dictionary of American Slang points out that many groups "use slang largely because they lack political power."  It is simply a safe and effective way that people rebel against the establishment.  Often, however, it appears that slang is ever present and exists even in complacent times.  It is created by individuals and perpetuated based upon its usefulness and applicability. 

The Columbia Encyclopedia notes that slang is often "well developed in the speaking vocabularies of cultured, sophisticated, linguistically rich languages."  Whereas slang was once considered as the lowest form of communication, many now consider slang to be an intelligent and insightful variation to the blandness of the standard language.  Gerald Parshall, in a 1994 article for U.S. News & World Report, describes this as "proletarian poetry."  The Oxford English Dictionary points out that George Eliot's character in Middlemarch, written in 1871, says that "Correct English is the slang of prigs who write history and essays."  For some, it is enough that Shakespeare often used slang. 

Others, however, condemn the use of slang, believing that it undermines the standard language and reflects poorly upon its users.  Parshall notes that Ambrose Bierce, in his dictionary, called slang "the grunt of the human hog."  Even The Oxford English Dictionary's 1989 edition defines slang as "the special vocabulary used by any set of persons of a low or disreputable character; language of a low and vulgar type."  In fact, both Crystal and The Historical Dictionary of American Slang point out that Samuel Johnson and Jonathan Swift produced the very first dictionaries partly out of great concern for the corruption of the standard English language.