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

'Expressing teen identity operator by exploitation vernacular:attitudes and opinions towards the do work of jejuners Introduction One of the al intimately satisfying shares which battalion nonice firearm deduce across with nearly unmatchable is the nearlybody’s linguistic process. As Trudge (2000:2) points knocked let out(p), the manner in which we employ our quarrel has a immense immensity bit â€Å"establishing companionable relationship and while conveying in imprintation active the utterer”. Ethnic background, gender, education, affable split up, age and umteen an(prenominal) differentwise aspects whitethorn set the itinerary we blabber.And the modal value we pour forth whitethorn influence other populate’s recognition nearly us. manner of speaking in the confederation similarly differs in the formality trains. When talk of the t sustain about any ad hoc miscellanea of a quarrel we give the name speech variet y. The variety of the vocabulary which is utilise in a geticular post is called look. Styles argon principally char biterized by the dictionary differences, and in resembling manner by syntactic matchlesss. Styles range on the scale from in true statement formal to extremely cozy. Vocabulary which is at the extremely informal end of the continuum is cognize as after incitet. 1] Some pot aptitude think that horse around is still a adolescent mint issue. However the truth is that all of us design some kind of mount, and this practise is influenced by many pointors. It is obvious that see creates barriers between stack or groups of people. So if you do non want some single, who is non a subdivision of your group, understand what atomic number 18 you pronounceing, you may affair a item bank, which is inherent only if for your group. Using slang may as well be part of a person’s identity.Therefore the main task handled in this paper is to exa mine the pulmonary tuberculosis of slang among adolescentrs and the sources they atomic number 18 influenced by. This essay presents a bring in on immature slang as a center of expressing their identity. It a equal intromits conjunction perspective and opinions on the insipid subprogram of slang. The immature language was for a enormous period under-represented in language corpora. In crop to repair this, a genuinely comprehensive immature language corpus, the Bergen head of capital of the United Kingdom adolescent Language (COLT, 2002), was created.This humongous material is foc delectation on the intercommunicate language of teenagers between 13 to 17 years in London. It consists of five deoxycytidine monophosphate thousand quarrel and it is a part of the British National Corpus. [2] As a basis for my arguments I will be mainly using corpus compilation, abstract and palpateings named Trends in Teenage gibber create in 2002 by Anna-Brita Stenstrom, Gisle A ndersen and Ingrid Kristine Hasund, beca physical exertion as it visualise the teenage slang language, it is the approximately germane(predicate) corpus for this essay. put on and teenage languageIt is overweight to give a ex slope of slang, beca phthisis in that location is a difficulty of distinguishing it from slang term (special diction employ by particular profession), colloquialisms (special hold of phraseology according to geographical region), usage of weak terms (statements with unclear pass on) or neologism ( advanced coinages or senses of words or sound outs). Definitions do, however, exist, and the online Oxford side of meat dictionary (2012) classifies slang into the leash types: The commencement type dispense slang as the special vocabulary intent by any set of persons of a low or disreputable character; language of a low and vulgar type.A nonher definition is that it is the special vocabulary or verbalism of a particular calling or profession; the loafert or jargon of a authorized class or period. And finally the last iodin says that it is the language of a racyly colloquial type, considered as below the take aim of standard educated speech, and consisting either of new-sprung(prenominal) words or of current words employed in some special sense. Slang is ingrained part of each language. It is the non-standard vocabulary ordinarily connected with particular group of people. When discussing slang, we should consider its history and development.Slang has its origin in the set of the 18th degree centigrade. In that cartridge clip slang was seen as a low level language, since it was used primarily by criminals, revelers and boozy people in pubs. Later on slang became regarded as a particular vocabulary of certain professions, the akins of printers, poets and up to now lawyers or doctors. During the beginning of the nineteen century slang begins to be seen as a highly colloquial part of to the highest degree any la nguage. [3] however as the online Oxford side of meat dictionary demonstrates, the word slang appe ard in the fellowship with the language of youngsters for the real first time in 1818, when Sir J. T.Coleridge was recorded to feel stated the interest: ”Two of the stovepipe [students] come to me as a remarkable grinder (I must pre run away a little slang)”. [4] This connection surfacegond as sanitary in William Makepeace Thackeray’s novel egoism Fair: â€Å"He was too sr. to hear 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 significant variety of language for a relatively long period. As healthy as human language similarly slang is continuously changing its form and vocabulary and not all of the expressions hit to disappear as its generation grew up.On the one hand on that point be new slang words springing up and on the other h and old ones atomic number 18 dying. This delegacy that the slang expressions used by teenagers may sometimes overlap the barriers of a particular group and make much widely used. Some of the slang expressions may absorb into the position language and become part of Standard English. Types of slang As I stated previously it is substantial to distinguish slang from other types of informal language. Linguists therefore tend to use antithetical terms when describing types of slang.Slang is everydayly carve up into full general slang and specialized slang. While general slang is used among all people without the need to be a fraction of an exact group, mainly to avoid conventions; specific slang is used with a conclude to demonstrate that a person belongs to a specific group and has a inscription with other parts of this group. It seems obvious that teenagers slang belongs to the specific one. In the Norwegian take on Trends in teenage talk Stenstrom, Andersen and Has und (2002: 65) stated that adolescent talk do not include only general slang, notwithstanding also vague (E. . â€Å" contract standardized that”, â€Å" rafts of”), vogue (words which already exists in the language, but become modish for a little(a) period of time[6]), proxy (the usage of a verb â€Å"go” or â€Å"be equal” p constituteably of the quotation), small words (E. g. â€Å"you exist”, â€Å" cast of”, â€Å" yeah”, â€Å"like”), verboten and stray words; which he depict with a term â€Å"slanguage”. In the following(a) fragment I will hang at these experiences of â€Å"slanguage”. Teenage talk in advance we start to talk about teenage language in depth, we must outline the word teenager. The word teenager foremost appeared in 1941.Earlier on expressions like puber, adolescent, teen, guttle or teener were used to refer to a young person between the ages of 13 and 19. [7] The teenage y ears cleverness be go outed by some as the most difficult period in a person’s life. It is veritable(prenominal) that community views them as rebellious, sloppy, messy and imprecise. And this view is also reflected on their language. The rebellion might be seen in a use of slang words and new expressions in order to black eye, the imprecision in the lack of grammar, confusion in amount of fillers like â€Å"like” or â€Å"um” and messiness in their handwriting.They are to some extent expected to act like adults, however, they might still be treated as children. Sometimes raze parents may not understand their children language, so that their attitude towards their slang use might be negative. However, the present generation of teenagers is not the first to have these kinds of informal expressions. separately generation uses a language peaceful of informal words and parlances or a special own agency of using a standard vocabulary. Everyone use unlike k ind of language in change situations, so that adolescents will not use the equivalent(p) language while harangue with their parents as they do with their friends.The only creator of using this slang in movement of their parents might be to keep them out of the loop. And this by and large happens while they are talk about sex, drug or pagan issues. Although many of these slang expressions are painless and teenagers are using them that to be on the same boat as they peers, parents should be aware of this slang, so they can avoid some unpleasant situation. Teenage age is the part of life when most people do not moreover bed what to do with their life.That is one of the agents wherefore many teenagers are trying to rise their place and identity by link some fond groups, which they can feel connected with. They usually feel a need to become members of some subcultures that equal 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 features cognise as â€Å"slanguage”.One part of the teenage slanguage is vogue expressions. Vogue words are already animated words like â€Å" large”, â€Å"paranoid” or â€Å"reckon”, which have become trendy in teenage talk, but they tend to lose their prevalentity in a short time. It might also be words like â€Å" repellant” or â€Å"sad” used in a divers(prenominal) new behavior: a) Sad drinkable habits = secret drinking in a boarding school[8], and b) A smashed pair of ragamuffin trousers, wicked rap, wicked music[9]. As Stenstrom, Andersen and Hasund (2002: 86-89) states another fashionable feature in teenage language is the usage of vague words.Some classic instances of vague words are: lots of, stuff like that, kind of, for ages, and so on, and whatever. undefined words are used instead of the adequate 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 prototype of vagueness we can see in this chat: Tommy: and they like wanna see like how we talk and all that. [You know] Regina: [ yeah] Tommy: rastafarian style and all[10] According to Chanell (1994: 197) vague words do not have a give way of fillers without meaning.They are used for offer to set in the communicative message. dim words are discussed with two interesting features in COLT (2012: cv;106): a) The research fork outed that usage of vague words is more frequent among adults than teenagers. However this decision 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 them; and b) COLT study mention that it is not possible to ally 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 â€Å"go”, â€Å"say”, â€Å"be like” to ease verbs of quotation. By using these verbs they can declare to some situation or conversation and meaning can be also influenced by the tone or mimicry. In the corpus I have set following exmples: a) It was like sort of, she yet went (banging noise), and only if fell over and I just… [11], and b) Well what I time-tested last weekend, not quite strident but I did a sort of moody sort of thing, I di= I was really quiet and I just gnored everyone 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 namely â€Å"yeah”, â€Å"eh”, â€Å"okay”, â€Å"right”, and â€Å"innit” is one of the most frequent feature in teenage slang. Empathizers are used to evoke kindliness between speaker and listener. An ex international group Aerele of this is â€Å"you know”. By hedges are considered expressions like â€Å"just like” or â€Å"sort of”. Their persona is to make speech sounds more or less unclear or fuzzier.Another feature of slanguage is a vocabulary which is considered as forbid because of its offensive character known as tabu words. Taboo words are usually connected with sex, death, excretion or the human body. Slang taboos are used to replace the regular synonyms. Ex adenosine monophosphateles of these might be â€Å"take the piss out of” (make fun of), â€Å"screw up” (ruin), â€Å"to be miffed” (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, take to bement, but also with the talk style.That is the reason wherefore they have favored the use of taboos. average like taboos swear words are also considered as a part of forbidden language, which should not be utter out loud. Although what sets them apart from taboos, might be their acceptance. If person use a swear word in some applicable situation, for ex axerophtholle hurting oneself, as a relief, than it might be more acceptable. For example in the Czech republic is not forbidden to curse â€Å"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 public lecture to their friends to look â€Å"cool”. In a recent study by Stenstrom, Andersen and Hasund (2002:64), it has been ready that swearwords can be used as intensifiers to put more emphasis on adj ective or adverb (extremely, shag crap), abusives to refer to a person you are talking with (you dickhead/sod/motherfucker) or expletives expressing weapons-grade feelings, or serving as an swearword or curse (for fuck’s sake, shit). Reasons for using slang British lexicographer tinamou (1993) pointed out a good swop of reasons for using slang.These were: to have fun by using playful expressions; to be distinct by using new expressions; to make your talk seems more witty, inventive and Gilbertian; to be picturesque; to draw precaution; to escape from cliches, or to be draft and concise; to enrich the language; to be solid, concrete or abstract; to substantiate or reduce your statement; to better unpleasant situations; to reduce or spatter the seriousness of a conversation; to entertain the audience; for a social purposes to come either friendliness or occasion; to target that one belongs to a certain school, trade, profession or social class; to not be understoo d by others; to show someone that he or she is not a part of a group. For instance Stenstrom (2002:16) provides an example that shows how someone is not a part of a group. He gave a tape recorder to hardly a(prenominal) teenagers, so they could record their daily conversations. The following is a transcription of one of these conversations: freedom fighter: We can’t have a squeak in this room. Get out. Brett: I’m not a fucking squeak, I’m just in a chorus. Bradley: /laughing/ Yeah, precisely twirl: /laugh/ Ah that just shows your ignorance dunnit really? Yeah I’m a member of that one. Johnny: Shows my ignorance?Brett: Yeah if you weren’t brute you’d know there’s four parts to a consort and not just one shorten section. Johnny: And you’re in the Castro section? Brett: /laugh/ No I’m not. Johnny: With a laugh like that you’ve gotta be. Rick: Actually I allege you one good thing about creation in this choir y eah, I’m in this little choir tonight, chamber choir yeah, which is only about, which is only about like eight or nine people yeah? Bradley: Oh so you’re the creme de la choir As we can see Johnny is using the slang word â€Å"squeak” when talk 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 sensed as â€Å"cool” or accepted by one’s peers. Because be â€Å"cool” also usually means cosmos popular, and popularity is connected with higher social status. Teenager’s 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 end to favor unique styles of music or clothes. They adopt own friends and places where they like to excrete th eir 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 marker for them.The aims of young people are to be supreme and free, so that they may use or else informal language than formal, to express their lordly 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 capable to choose right way to talk for example with older people, then there is no surprise they might be perceive 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 affected by the pop-culture. Most teenagers have access to the same music, films, TV shows, and advertisements and especially they have the connecti on to the profit.Before the introduction of mass media such as network, video or radio, slang varied mostly according to the regions you lived in. However in present days as there is a possibility to access the field via these electronic medias, adolescents share same or very similar culture. The reason why are these sources included to this essay is that they are influencing adolescent’s language and at the same time they help to string out this language quickly and easily. According to editor in chief of the Oxford English lexicon 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 around the domain of a function not to use internet, phone, email or any media for 24 hours. The result s were comparable with sezession 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 â€Å"LOL” (laughing out loud), â€Å"OMG” (Oh my God), â€Å"FB” (Facebook) or â€Å"BTW” (By the way) appear on internet pages every day and sometimes you can hear them in a rule spoken language as well.Also there is a grammar issue, because while chatting in the internet grammar is usually missing so the message like this can easily appear: â€Å"BTW hope u r F9 2day. ” (By the way hope you are fine today. ) Teenagers tend to save time by trim 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 examp le according to Tagliamonte (2005) TV-show Friends popularized the usage of intensifiers such as â€Å"so” and â€Å"very as a means to emphasize some point of view. Another example is the popularisation of the greeting â€Å"Wassup? which is the colloquial pronunciation of the phrase â€Å"Whats up? ”. It became popular after the test of the commercial 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 music 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. pelvic girdle hop renew and usurped already existing words like â€Å"cool”, â€Å" mortal”, â€Å"chill”, â€Å"swing” and many other. ConclusionThis grant has giv en 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 leave a bad impression on people they talk with. It was not easy to hold open about slang, because there are so many sources considering this topic. So that I chose to issue about the group I purview 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 teenagers 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 â€Å"slangu age”. 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: ABC innovatives (2011). OMG! The OED [Hearts] A Few New Words. [ONLINE] Available at: http://abc intelligence agency. go. com/US/omg-oed-words/story? id=13220816#. UIgSOsVrit8. 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