What is Slang?
Slang can be described as informal, nonstandard words or phrases
(lexical innovations) which tend to originate in subcultures within a
society. Slang often suggests that the person utilizing the words or
phrases is familiar with the hearer’s group or subgroup-it can be
considered a distinguishing factor of in-group identity. Microsoft
Encarta states: “slang expressions often embody attitudes and values of
group members.” In order for an expression to become slang, it must be
widely accepted and adopted by members of the subculture or group. Slang
has no societal boundaries or limitations as it can exist in all
cultures and classes of society as well as in all languages.
Slang expressions are created in basically the same way as standard
speech. As stated in Microsoft Encarta, “expressions may take form as
metaphors, similes, and other figures of speech.” In addition, it is
noted that the words used as slang may be new coinages, existing words
may acquire new meanings, narrow meanings of words may become
generalized, words may be abbreviated, etc. However, in order for the
expression to survive, it must be widely adopted by the group who uses
it. Slang is a way in which languages change and are renewed.
British slang is English language slang used in Great Britain. While
some slang words and phrases are used throughout all of Britain (e.g.
knackered, meaning “exhausted”), others are restricted to smaller
regions.[1] London has its own varieties of slang, one of the most
well-known of which is Cockney rhyming slang.
Varieties of British slang
1. Rhyming slang
Rhyming slang, chiefly associated with Cockney#Cockney speech spoken in
the East End of London, replaces a word with a phrase which rhymes with
the word, for example, plates of meat for “feet”, or twist and twirl for
“girl”. Often only the first word is used, so plates and twist by
themselves become the colloquialisms for “feet” and “girl”.
2. Back slang
Back slang is simply the practice of using words spelled in reverse,
e.g. yob for “boy” or ecilop for “police”.
3. Polari
Polari is a variety of slang used by gay men and lesbians in Britain and
the United Kingdom, which has a history going back at least a hundred
years.
History of Slang
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.
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.
Why People Use Slang?
According to the British lexicographer, Eric Partridge (1894-1979),
people use slang for any of at least 15 reasons:
1) In sheer high spirits, by the young in heart as well as by the young
in years; ‘just for the fun of the thing’; in playfulness or
waggishness.
2) As an exercise either in wit and ingenuity or in humour. (The motive
behind this is usually self-display or snobbishness, emulation or
responsiveness, delight in virtuosity).
3) To be ‘different’, to be novel.
4) To be picturesque (either positively or – as in the wish to avoid
insipidity – negatively).
5) To be unmistakeably arresting, even startling.
6) To escape from cliches, or to be brief and concise. (Actuated by
impatience with existing terms.)
7) To enrich the language. (This deliberateness is rare save among the
well-educated, Cockneys forming the most notable exception; it is
literary rather than spontaneous.)
8) To lend an air of solidity, concreteness, to the abstract; of
earthiness to the idealistic; of immediacy and appositeness to the
remote. (In the cultured the effort is usually premeditated, while in
the uncultured it is almost always unconscious when it is not rather
subconscious.)
9) To lesson the sting of, or on the other hand to give additional point
to, a refusal, a rejection, a recantation;
10) To reduce, perhaps also to disperse, the solemnity, the pomposity,
the excessive seriousness of a conversation (or of a piece of writing);
11) To soften the tragedy, to lighten or to ‘prettify’ the inevitability
of death or madness, or to mask the ugliness or the pity of profound
turpitude (e.g. treachery, ingratitude); and/or thus to enable the
speaker or his auditor or both to endure, to ‘carry on’.
12) To speak or write down to an inferior, or to amuse a superior
public; or merely to be on a colloquial level with either one’s audience
or one’s subject matter.
13) For ease of social intercourse. (Not to be confused or merged with
the preceding.)
14) To induce either friendliness or intimacy of a deep or a durable
kind. (Same remark.)
15) To show that one belongs to a certain school, trade, or profession,
artistic or intellectual set, or social class; in brief, to be ‘in the
swim’ or to establish contact.
16) Hence, to show or prove that someone is not ‘in the swim’.
17) To be secret – not understood by those around one. (Children,
students, lovers, members of political secret societies, and criminals
in or out of prison, innocent persons in prison, are the chief
exponents.)
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