Expressing Teen Identity by Using Slang: Attitudes and Opinions Towards the Slang of Teenagers

Expressing teen identity by utilise twitattitudes and opinions towards the cod of teenagers Introduction One of the virtually signifi tooshiet elements which people nonice while meeting with some i is the soulfulnesss quarrel. As embellish (20002) points break, the manner in which we character our actors line has a great importance while establishing social benevolent relationship and while conveying information al intimately the speaker. Ethnic background, gender, education, social class, age and many a(prenominal) separatewise aspects whitethorn influence the focus we talk.And the way we talk may influence former(a) peoples perception ab let out us. Language in the society in addition differs in the formality levels. When talking to the highest degree any particular kind of a idiom communication we uptake the term lyric poem variety. The variety of the language which is apply in a regionicular situation is called style. Styles be principal(prenominal) ly characterized by the vocabulary differences, notwithstanding withal by syntactic wizards. Styles range on the scale from very formal to extremely free. verbiage which is at the extremely informal end of the continuum is kn receive as slang. 1 Some people world power hypothecate that slang is entirely a young people issue. but the truth is that all of us give some kind of slang, and this usage is influenced by many factors. It is obvious that slang creates barriers between people or groups of people. So if you do not want some superstar, who is not a member of your group, understand what ar you ordaining, you may spend a bad-tempered slang, which is inherent only for your group. Using slang may withal be decompose of a persons identity. thereof the main task get h sr. ofled in this paper is to examine the use of slang among teenagers and the sources they atomic number 18 influenced by. This experiment ushers a view on teenage slang as a means of expressing t heir identity. It also includes society perspective and opinions on the adolescent use of slang. The teenage language was for a long period under-represented in language corpora. In order to repair this, a very umbrella teenage language star, the Bergen Corpus of London Teenage Language (COLT, 2002), was created.This large material is focusing on the spoken language of teenagers between 13 to 17 years in London. It consists of five hundred kelvin address and it is a part of the British National Corpus. 2 As a basis for my arguments I allow be mainly using corpus compilation, analysis and findings named Trends in Teenage Talk published in 2002 by Anna-Brita Stenstrom, Gisle Andersen and Ingrid Kristine Hasund, because as it consider the teenage slang language, it is the most relevant corpus for this es formulate. Slang and teenage languageIt is hard to give a definition of slang, because on that point is a difficulty of learning it from jargon ( picky vocabulary employ by par ticular profession), informalisms (special use of vocabulary according to geographical region), usage of shadowy terms (statements with unclear message) or neologism ( clean coinages or senses of haggle or phrases). Definitions do, however, exist, and the online Oxford English dictionary (2012) classifies slang into the three types The beginning(a) type consider slang as the special vocabulary used by any touch on of persons of a low or disreputable character language of a low and vulgar type.Another definition is that it is the special vocabulary or phraseology of a particular calling or profession the raftt or jargon of a certain class or period. And finally the last one says that it is the language of a highly colloquial type, considered as below the level of standard educated lecture, and consisting either of new words or of current words employed in some special sense. Slang is natural part of each language. It is the non-standard vocabulary usually connected with part icular group of people. When discussing slang, we should consider its history and development.Slang has its origin in the middle of the 18th century. In that sequence slang was seen as a low level language, since it was used primarily by criminals, revelers and drunken people in pubs. Later on slang became regarded as a specific vocabulary of certain professions, identical printers, poets and even lawyers or doctors. During the beginning of the nineteen century slang begins to be seen as a highly colloquial part of almost any language. 3 More over as the online Oxford English dictionary demonstrates, the word slang appeargond in the connection with the language of youngsters for the very first time in 1818, when Sir J. T.Coleridge was recorded to cook utter the following Two of the best students come to me as a peculiar grinder (I essential have a little slang). 4 This connection appeared as well in William Makepeace Thackerays novel actors assistant Fair He was too old to lis ten to the banter of the assistant-surgeon and the slang of the youngsters. 5 This fact proves that the importance of the adolescent talk has been seen as an important variety of language for a comparatively long period. As well as human language also slang is continuously ever-changing its form and vocabulary and not all of the expressions have to disappear as its propagation grew up.On the one hand there are new slang words springing up and on the other hand old ones are dying. This means that the slang expressions used by teenagers may sometimes overlap the barriers of a particular group and go away more widely used. Some of the slang expressions may absorb into the English language and become part of Standard English. Types of slang As I stated previously it is hard to distinguish slang from other types of informal language. Linguists therefore tend to use different terms when describing types of slang.Slang is loosely carve up into public slang and specific slang. While gen eral slang is used among all people without the take away to be a member of an exact group, mainly to avoid conventions specific slang is used with a purpose to salute that a person belongs to a specific group and has a loyalty with other members of this group. It seems obvious that teenagers slang belongs to the specific one. In the Norwegian study Trends in teenage talk Stenstrom, Andersen and Hasund (2002 65) stated that adolescent talk do not include only general slang, only if also vague (E. . stuff same(p) that, often of), vogue (words which already exists in the language, but become fashionable for a short period of time6), proxy (the usage of a verb go or be like kind of of the quotation), small words (E. g. you know, sort of, yeah, like), taboo and swear words which he described with a term slanguage. In the next section I will look at these traces of slanguage. Teenage talk Before we start to talk about teenage language in depth, we must de comely the word teenager. The word teenager firstly appeared in 1941.Earlier on expressions like puber, adolescent, teen, farrow or teener were used to refer to a young person between the ages of 13 and 19. 7 The teenage years energy be viewed by some as the most difficult period in a persons action. It is typical that society views them as rebellious, sloppy, messy and imprecise. And this view is also reflected on their language. The rebellion energy be seen in a use of slang words and new expressions in order to shock, the impreciseness in the lack of grammar, sloppiness in amount of fillers like like or um and messiness in their handwriting.They are to some extent expected to act like adults, however, they top executive still be tempered as children. Sometimes even parents may not understand their children language, so that their attitude towards their slang use mogul be negative. However, the present generation of teenagers is not the first to have these kinds of informal expressions. Each generati on uses a language composed of informal words and phrases or a special own way of using a standard vocabulary. Everyone use different kind of language in different situations, so that adolescents will not use the same language while speaking with their parents as they do with their friends.The only origin of using this slang in front of their parents might be to keep them out of the loop. And this generally happens while they are talking about sex, drug or ethnic issues. Although many of these slang expressions are harmless(prenominal) and teenagers are using them just to be on the same boat as they peers, parents should be aware of this slang, so they potty avoid some unpleasant situation. Teenage age is the part of life when most people do not yet know what to do with their life.That is one of the reasons why many teenagers are trying to find their place and identity by joining some social groups, which they can feel connected with. They usually feel a need to become members of some subcultures that relate to their own attitudes and interests. Some subcultures have their own private language code, which helps its members to support their values, attitudes and uniqueness even more in other words slang language. As already mentioned, apart from general slang, teenagers also use other characteristic linguistic accepts know as slanguage.One part of the teenage slanguage is vogue expressions. Vogue words are already existing words like massive, paranoid or reckon, which have become trendy in teenage talk, but they tend to lose their popularity in a short time. It might also be words like wicked or sad used in a different new way a) Sad drinking habits = secret drinking in a embarkation discipline8, and b) A wicked pair of ragamuffin trousers, wicked rap, wicked symphony9. As Stenstrom, Andersen and Hasund (2002 86-89) states another fashionable feature in teenage language is the usage of vague words.Some classic physical exercises of vague words are lots o f, stuff like that, kind of, for ages, and so on, and whatever. Vague words are used instead of the sufficient words in talk. The reason for using them is to take up the talk to a more colloquial level and fill the gaps in a sentence. These words occur in adults talk as well. The exercising of vagueness we can see in this conversation Tommy and they like wanna see like how we talk and all that. You know Regina Yeah Tommy Rastafarian style and all10 According to Chanell (1994 197) vague words do not have a function of fillers without meaning.They are used for purpose to contribute the communicative message. Vague words are discussed with two interesting features in COLT (2012 105106) a) The research showed that usage of vague words is more frequent among adults than teenagers. However this finding might be quite inaccurate, because adults in COLT conversations mainly appear in the position of teachers and they might adopt the language means of their students to get more closed to t hem and b) COLT study find that it is not possible to associate the use of vague words with a specific gender or social background.Another trend in present teenage language is the usage of proxy phrases. It is the way of using verbs such as go, say, be like to substitute verbs of quotation. By using these verbs they can report to some situation or conversation and meaning can be also influenced by the tone or mimicry. In the corpus I have found following exmples a) It was like sort of, she just went (banging noise), and just fell over and I just 11, and b) Well what I tried last weekend, not quite crying but I did a sort of moody sort of thing, I di= I was really quiet and I just gnored every(prenominal)one and I was like really like, you know, didnt say a word. 12 According to Stenstrom, Andersen and Hasund (2002 165) other typical feature of teenage talk are small words, which can be divided into hedges, empathizers and tags. The usage of invariant tags to wit yeah, eh, okay, ri ght, and innit is one of the most frequent feature in teenage slang. Empathizers are used to evoke sympathy between speaker and listener. An practice session of this is you know. By hedges are considered expressions like just like or sort of. Their purpose is to make speech sounds more or less unclear or fuzzier.Another feature of slanguage is a vocabulary which is considered as forbidden because of its offensive character known as taboo words. Taboo words are usually connected with sex, death, excretion or the human body. Slang taboos are used to replace the regular synonyms. Ex adenylic acidles of these might be take the piss out of (make fun of), screw up (ruin), to be pissed (to be drunk). Teenage age is generally seen as an age of rebellion. Adolescents want to shock not only with their style of music, clothing, entertainment, but also with the talk style.That is the reason why they have favored the use of taboos. Just like taboos swear words are also considered as a part of f orbidden language, which should not be spoken out loud. Although what sets them apart from taboos, might be their acceptance. If person use a swear word in some relevant situation, for example hurting oneself, as a relief, than it might be more acceptable. For example in the Czech res publica is not forbidden to curse kurva if you hurt yourself. The purpose of swearing is quite obvious, it can come out of surprise, or anger or it may be used when people want to upset someone.Teenagers usually use some swear words when talking to their friends to look cool. In a novel study by Stenstrom, Andersen and Hasund (200264), it has been found that swearwords can be used as intensifiers to put more ferocity on adjective or adverb (extremely, do iting crap), abusives to refer to a person you are talking with (you turd/sod/motherfucker) or expletives expressing strong feelings, or serving as an oath or curse (for fucks sake, shit). Reasons for using slang British lexicographer Partridge (1 993) pointed out a good deal of reasons for using slang.These were to have fun by using playful expressions to be different by using new expressions to make your talk seems more witty, inventive and humorous to be picturesque to draw attention to flail from cliches, or to be brief and concise to enrich the language to be solid, concrete or victimize to strengthen or reduce your statement to soften unpleasant situations to reduce or disperse the earnestness of a conversation to entertain the audience for a social purposes to induce either friendliness or intimacy to show that one belongs to a certain school, trade, profession or social class to not be understood by others to show someone that he or she is not a part of a group. For instance Stenstrom (200216) provides an example that shows how someone is not a part of a group. He gave a tape recorder to few teenagers, so they could record their daily conversations. The following is a transcription of one of these conversations mave rick We cant have a squeak in this room. Get out. Brett Im not a fucking squeak, Im just in a choir. Bradley / express feelingsing/ Yeah, just now Rick /laugh/ Ah that just shows your ignorance dunnit really? Yeah Im a member of that one. Johnny Shows my ignorance?Brett Yeah if you werent ignorant youd know theres four parts to a choir and not just one castrate section. Johnny And youre in the Castro section? Brett /laugh/ No Im not. Johnny With a laugh like that youve gotta be. Rick Actually I tell you one good thing about cosmos in this choir yeah, Im in this little choir tonight, chamber choir yeah, which is only about, which is only about like ogdoad or nine people yeah? Bradley Oh so youre the creme de la choir As we can see Johnny is using the slang word squeak when speaking about Brett and, who are members of the school choir. By this he means that they have mutating voice, while singing in the choir and he is also making a fun, that they are castrated.An important aspect of adolescence is to be perceived as cool or accepted by ones peers. Because being cool also usually means being popular, and popularity is connected with higher social status. Teenagers desire for being part of a group, and also being a popular member of a group, may by many be considered one of the most important matters in this point of their life. Teenagers have a tendency to favor unique styles of music or clothes. They choose own friends and places where they like to spend their free time. And they also tend to use specific language. So that the usage of particular phrases, words and slang expressions might be seen as an identity stigma for them.The aims of young people are to be independent and free, so that they may use rather informal language than formal, to express their positive or negative attitudes towards other people or situations. Nevertheless at the same time they should be aware about choosing right language, while talking with different people. If they are not c apable to choose right way to talk for example with older people, then there is no surprise they might be perceived cheeky, rude or less intelligent. Sources and factors influencing teenage speech Compared with the past days, when the society was not influenced by the mass media, the talk of teenagers is very different today. It is mainly impact by the pop-culture. closely teenagers have access to the same music, films, TV shows, and advertisements and especially they have the connection to the internet.Before the cosmos of mass media such as internet, television or radio, slang varied mostly according to the regions you lived in. However in present days as there is a possibility to access the world via these electronic medias, adolescents share same or very similar culture. The reason why are these sources included to this assay is that they are influencing adolescents language and at the same time they help to spread this language quickly and easily. According to editor of the Oxford English Dictionary Jesse Shaidlower, technology has been one of the biggest drivers of new vocabulary for centuries. 13 There is no doubt that the internet is a great source of influence on the English language.In 2010 there were made an experiment by Salzburg academy about the addiction on media including internet. They asked students in ten universities virtually the world not to use internet, phone, email or any media for 24 hours. The results were comparable with withdrawal symptoms from drugs or alcohol. 14 We can see that most of the adolescents are addicted to the social pages like Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin, therefore their language is influenced by these social networks. Abbreviations like LOL (laughing out loud), OMG (Oh my God), FB (Facebook) or BTW (By the way) appear on internet pages every day and sometimes you can hear them in a normal spoken language as well.Also there is a grammar issue, because while chatting in the internet grammar is usually missing s o the message like this can easily appear BTW hope u r F9 2day. (By the way hope you are fine today. ) Teenagers tend to save time by reducing proper words to acronyms or symbols. We may say that Net Lingua is slang used among the internet at emails, social networks, online games, etc. We can also find many slang expressions which comes from TV shows, films or advertisements. For example according to Tagliamonte (2005) TV-show Friends popularized the usage of intensifiers such as so and very as a means to emphasize some point of view. Another example is the popularization of the greeting Wassup? which is the colloquial pronunciation of the phrase Whats up? . It became popular after the screening of the commercialised campaign for Budweiser beer in 1999. 15 This phrase was also used in one of the episodes of a popular TV show How I Met Your Mother named Trilogy Time. Another element which influences the adolescent talk is the music they listen to. Most of them prefer main-stream mu sic like pop, pop-rap or pop-rock or hip-hop music. And mainly hip-hop music is the one which has been influencing the English language already for some time. Hip hop renew and usurped already existing words like cool, soul, chill, swing and many other. ConclusionThis assignment has given the overview of lifestyle and speech among todays teenagers and it has find out why teenagers tend to use particular slang to express their identity. Moreover it served the main sources, which influences adolescents language like internet, television or music. It also mentioned the question if the use of slang may take off a bad impression on people they talk with. It was not easy to write about slang, because there are so many sources considering this topic. So that I chose to write about the group I thought uses slang the most, about teenagers. Firstly I tried to explain the term slang, show its origins and development.I have found that for the first time slang appeared in connection with teenag ers in 1818. This work showed that above the general slang, adolescents talk also include vague, vogue, proxy, small words, taboo and swear words. According to Stenstrom, Andersen and Hasund (2002 65) this typical vocabulary can be described with a term slanguage. This essay has shown teenagers use the slang to express positive or negative attitudes towards people or situations. On the one hand they use it to support their values, attitudes, and uniqueness and to show their sympathy for someone. On the other hand they use it to draw the attention, shock, to show the rebellion or antipathy.Perhaps the most important aspect in the life of a teenager is to be perceived as cool. This essay showed that the way teenagers use their language can make them either popular for their peers or outsiders. References first rudiment intelligence activity (2011). OMG The OED Hearts A Few New Words. ONLINE Available at http//abc intelligence information. go. com/US/omg-oed-words/story? id=13220816. UIgSOsVrit8. Last Accessed 24 October 12 Ayto, J. , Simpson, J. (1993), The Oxford Dictionary of modern Slang. Oxford Oxford University press. 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