Slang

4 Key excerpts on "Slang"

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  eBook - ePub

  What Is Sociolinguistics?

  • Gerard Van Herk(Author)
  • 2012(Publication Date)
  • Wiley-Blackwell

    (Publisher)

  And sometimes, languages are “invisible.” Kachru and Bhatia (1978) describe a situation in parts of India where the local variety (distinct enough for linguists to consider it as a separate language) might not be considered a language at all. So when census takers come around and ask people what language they speak, people instead name the language that they occasionally use in formal situations: Hindi. This was especially true just after Indian independence, when nationalist feeling was at its strongest; in that census, reported Hindi use spiked.

  Other naming issues: Dialect, Slang, accent, variety …

  This might be a good place to clear up a couple of other naming problems related to dialects. Non-linguists often call non-standard varieties Slang . To us linguists, however, “Slang” refers only to words – either words that are new to the language, or old words or phrases with new meanings. Slang is usually associated with younger speakers – in fact, a good indicator that a Slang term is finished is when middle-aged university professors like me start using it. Most Slang is “faddish” or short-lived – you don’t hear many people saying far out or the bee’s knees any more, and if I put any current Slang in the book, it’ll be outdated by the time you read it. Not all Slang dies out, though. Mob , freshman , and glib all started out as Slang, but have become part of the standard language, and only a generation ago mainstream news media used to give a definition whenever they used the then-obscure Slang term ripoff . Unlike Slang, a dialect is usually distinct in multiple linguistic domains – lexicon (word choice), morphology (word structure), syntax (sentence structure), and phonology/phonetics (pronunciation).

  A second term sometimes used by non-linguists to describe dialects is accent

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  Human Communication

  Theoretical Explorations

  • Albert Silverstein(Author)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  The function of Slang in establishing local identity has been observed for many years. Its chief function seems to be identifying group membership. In any case, we find that groups resent the adoption of their own vocabulary by others; if they cannot prevent it, they will shift to other forms that are still their own.

  The adolescent group known as the Cobras in south Harlem always used the term tip to mean "go," as in Let's tip. We had heard Let's tip hundreds of times, and there was no doubt about its appropriate meaning and use. But when I used it one day on an outing with the Cobras, there was an immediate surge of amusement from the members and they pretended not to understand. Outsiders are allowed and encouraged to shift on some points of phonology and grammar, but there was a sharp reaction against anyone else wearing this linguistic mark of local identity.

  Slang is one of the most conspicuous forms of linguistic innovation; most linguistic change operates well below the level of consciousness. Young people know that their Slang is different from their parents; but they seldom realize that their sound pattern or their grammar has changed. So don't I has risen to the level of an overt stereotype in eastern New England. Teachers consider it to be one of the many mistakes in grammar that young people make because they do not know better. But as far as young people are concerned, it seems to function as one of the marks of local identity, a symbol of resistance to the standardizing influence of the teachers who would erase those marks if they possibly could.

  Intimacy

  Vocabulary is fairly accessible to inspection; sound changes are more difficult to observe, and grammar even more so; but perhaps the most elusive of all linguistic changes are systematic shifts in the rules of discourse. When we are engaged in social interaction with another speaker, at the beginning or ends of our conversations, we are in a structural situation that makes it almost impossible to know exactly what we are saying or doing.

  A good example of such a structural situation is leave-taking. For several years, I have been observing these forms: first, taking notes on what speakers actually say; second, asking speakers what they say. There is little connection between the two.

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  eBook - ePub

  Slang

  To-Day and Yesterday

  • Eric Partridge(Author)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Part III Particular Aspects Passage contains an image

  Chapter I The Affiliations of Slang

  DOI: 10.4324/9781315692111-15

  Language picks out with almost a chemical certainty what is suitable for it, and any language at any moment is a naturally selected residuum of all which the human mind has thought or conceived ever since that line of civilization began.—Greenough and Kittredge.

  At times one feels that there is much to be said for the discretion that is the better part of valour. While, in justice to the subject, I should certainly say something about the relations of Slang to ordinary colloquial speech, low speech and vulgarisms, cant, and dialect on the one hand, and to standard English and the literary language on the other, I confess to a preference for fighting another day, for those relations and affiliations, obvious the moment one considers the grades, the degrees, the hierarchy of our language, are not only extremely difficult but almost impossible to define in the least vigorously. Doubtless I could burble vaguely ... if only burbling had not died a timely death with Carlyle and Ruskin! Far-stretching platitudes and intangible generalities are out of date. Recourse to their generous aid would have enabled me to escape this dilemma, if not with honour at least with decorum: as it is, I must content myself with a brief attempt to weigh the imponderable, to contain the fluid that is language in the sieve that is precision, and to define the boundaries of frontierless regions. With what joy I welcome Mr. Logan Pearsall Smith's pronouncement may be guessed—but not, I hope, imagined. " The discrimination between Slang and idiom," he says,1 " is one of the nicest points in literary usage; and, like all such discriminations, must be based on sensitiveness and literary tact; there are no precise rules which are easy to apply to individual cases. It is mostly a matter of usage, and of a delicate sense of what is accepted and what is not." As this comforting writer quotes from the brothers Fowler, perhaps we should see what they

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  Japanese–English Translation

  An Advanced Guide

  • Judy Wakabayashi(Author)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Iwannadrink (Birnbaum 2002: 295).

  Like writers, translators have their own idiolect. A predilection for certain turns of phrase can result in a ‘translator’s tic’. Ways of overcoming this include paying careful attention to one’s writing, soliciting critical feedback, and consciously looking for alternative expressions when reading other people’s work.

  Exercises

  1 Work through a Japanese text of your choice to pick out any idiolectal features, and then consider whether these are significant enough to need conveying in translation, and if so, how.

  2 Examine an extended piece of your own writing or one of your translations and see if you can identify any mannerisms.

  Slang and swearing

  Mattiello (2009: 67) defines Slang as

  a highly informal, quite temporary, debased, unconventional vocabulary which is often associated to a social group or to some specific subject. It is described as fresh and novel, often colourful, faddish, playful and humorous, and aims either at establishing a social identity for the speaker or at making a strong impression upon the hearer.

  She identifies a range of speaker-oriented properties of Slang (group-restriction, informality, time-restriction, subject-restriction, obscenity, vulgarity, unconventionality, localism, secrecy, privacy), hearer-oriented properties (playfulness, freshness, novelty, faddishness, humour, strong impression, offensiveness, colourfulness, musicality, aggressiveness) and intrinsic properties (extra-grammatical morphology, semantic indeterminacy).

  The first task is to recognise that a Japanese expression is Slang. The next challenge is to find an emotionally charged match in English, keeping in mind the possibility of cultural differences relating to the offensiveness of specific terms. Mattiello (2009: 83) recommends considering (a) who the speaker is; (b) what are the desired effects on hearers and (c) what morphological or semantic devices are used to achieve this in the source language.

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