Is slang a word for linguists

Slang is vocabulary (words, phrases, and linguistic usages) of an informal register, common in verbal conversation but avoided in formal writing.^[1] It also sometimes refers to the language generally exclusive to the members of particular in-groups in order to establish group identity, exclude outsiders, or both. The word itself came about in the 18th century and has been defined in multiple ways since its conception.

Etymology of the word slang[edit]

In its earliest attested use (1756), the word slang referred to the vocabulary of «low» or «disreputable» people. By the early nineteenth century, it was no longer exclusively associated with disreputable people, but continued to be applied to usages below the level of standard educated speech.^[2] In Scots dialect it meant «talk, chat, gossip»,^[3] as used by Aberdeen poet William Scott in 1832: «The slang gaed on aboot their war’ly care.»
^[4] In northern English dialect it meant «impertinence, abusive language».^[5]

The origin of the word is uncertain, although it may be connected with thieves’ cant^{[citation needed]}. A Scandinavian origin has been proposed (compare, for example, Norwegian slengenavn, which means «nickname»), but based on «date and early associations» is discounted by the Oxford English Dictionary.^[2] Jonathon Green, however, agrees with the possibility of a Scandinavian origin, suggesting the same root as that of sling, which means «to throw», and noting that slang is thrown language – a quick and honest way to make your point.^[6][7]

Defining slang[edit]

Linguists have no simple and clear definition of slang, but agree that it is a constantly changing linguistic phenomenon present in every subculture worldwide. Some argue that slang exists because we must come up with ways to define new experiences that have surfaced with time and modernity.^[8] Attempting to remedy the lack of a clear definition, however, Bethany K. Dumas and Jonathan Lighter argue that an expression should be considered «true slang» if it meets at least two of the following criteria:^[8]

Michael Adams remarks that «[Slang] is liminal language… it is often impossible to tell, even in context, which interests and motives it serves… slang is on the edge.»^[9] Slang dictionaries, collecting thousands of slang entries, offer a broad, empirical window into the motivating forces behind slang.^[10]

While many forms of lexicon may be considered low-register or «sub-standard», slang remains distinct from colloquial and jargon terms because of its specific social contexts. While viewed as inappropriate in formal usage, colloquial terms are typically considered acceptable in speech across a wide range of contexts, while slang tends to be perceived as infelicitous in many common communicative situations. Jargon refers to language used by personnel in a particular field, or language used to represent specific terms within a field to those with a particular interest. Although jargon and slang can both be used to exclude non-group members from the conversation, the purpose of jargon is said to be optimizing conversation using terms that imply technical understanding.^[11] On the other hand, slang tends to emphasize social and contextual understanding.

While colloquialisms and jargon may seem like slang because they reference a particular group, they do not necessarily fit the same definition, because they do not represent a particular effort to replace the general lexicon of a standard language. Colloquialisms are considered more acceptable and more expected in standard usage than slang is, and jargon is often created to talk about aspects of a particular field that are not accounted for in the general lexicon.^[12] However, this differentiation is not consistently applied by linguists; the terms «slang» and «jargon» are sometimes treated as synonymous,^[13] and the scope of «jargon» is at times extended to mean all forms of socially-restricted language.^[14]

It is often difficult to differentiate slang from colloquialisms and even high-register lexicon, because slang generally becomes accepted into common vocabulary over time. Words such as «spurious» and «strenuous» were once perceived as slang, though they are now considered general, even high-register words. The literature on slang even discusses mainstream acknowledgment of a slang term as changing its status as true slang, because it has been accepted by the media and is thus no longer the special insider speech of a particular group. For example, Black American Music uses a lot of slang based on nationality and origin. The use of slang is a combinations of slurring and slurping words as a result. Nevertheless, a general test for whether a word is a slang word or not is whether it would be acceptable in an academic or legal setting, as both are arenas in which standard lexicon is considered necessary and/or whether the term has been entered in the Oxford English Dictionary, which some scholars claim changes its status as slang.^[12]

Examples of slang (cross-linguistic)[edit]

Formation of slang[edit]

It is often difficult to collect etymologies for slang terms, largely because slang is a phenomenon of speech, rather than written language and etymologies which are typically traced via corpus.

Eric Partridge, cited as the first to report on the phenomenon of slang in a systematic and linguistic way, postulated that a term would likely be in circulation for a decade before it would be written down.^[15] Nevertheless, it seems that slang generally forms via deviation from a standard form. This «spawning» of slang occurs in much the same way that any general semantic change might occur. The difference here is that the slang term’s new meaning takes on a specific social significance having to do with the group the term indexes.

Coleman also suggests that slang is differentiated within more general semantic change in that it typically has to do with a certain degree of «playfulness». The development of slang is considered to be a largely «spontaneous, lively, and creative» speech process.^[15]

Still, while a great deal of slang takes off, even becoming accepted into the standard lexicon, much slang dies out, sometimes only referencing a group. An example of this is the term «groovy» which is a relic of 1960s and 70s American hippie slang. Nevertheless, for a slang term to become a slang term, people must use it, at some point in time, as a way to flout standard language.^[12] Additionally, slang terms may be borrowed between groups, such as the term «gig» which was originally coined by jazz musicians in the 1930s and then borrowed into the same hippie slang of the 1960s.^[12] ‘The word «groovy» has remained a part of subculture lexicon since its popularization. It is still in common use today by a significant population. The word «gig» to refer to a performance very likely originated well before the 1930s, and remained a common term throughout the 1940s and 1950s before becoming vaguely associated with the hippie slang of the 1960s. The word «gig» is now a widely accepted synonym for a concert, recital, or performance of any type.

Generally, slang terms undergo the same processes of semantic change that words in the regular lexicon do.^[15]

Slang often forms from words with previously differing meanings, one example is the often used and popular slang word «lit», which was created by a generation labeled «Generation Z». The word itself used to be associated with something being on fire or being «lit» up until 1988 when it was first used in writing to indicate a person who was drunk^[16] in the book «Warbirds: Diary of an Unknown Aviator». Since this time «lit» has gained popularity through Rap songs such as ASAP Rocky’s «Get Lit» in 2011. As the popularity of the word has increased so too has the number of different meanings associated with the word. Now «lit» describes a person who is drunk and/or high, as well as an event that is especially awesome and «hype».

Words and phrases from popular Hollywood films and television series frequently become slang.^[17]

[edit]

Indexicality[edit]

Slang is usually associated with a particular social group and plays a role in constructing identity. While slang outlines social space, attitudes about slang partly construct group identity and identify individuals as members of groups. Therefore, using the slang of a particular group associates an individual with that group. Michael Silverstein’s orders of indexicality can be employed to assign a slang term as a second-order index to that particular group. Using a slang term, however, can also give an individual the qualities associated with the term’s group of origin, whether or not the individual is trying to identify as a member of the group. This allocation of qualities based on abstract group association is known as third-order indexicality.

As outlined in Elisa Mattiello’s book «An Introduction to English Slang»,^[18] a slang term can assume several levels of meaning and can be used for many reasons connected with identity. For example, male adolescents use the terms «foxy» and «shagadelic» to «show their belonging to a band, to stress their virility or their age, to reinforce connection with their peer group and to exclude outsiders, to show off, etc.» These two examples use both traditional and untraditional methods of word formation to create words with more meaning and expressiveness than the more direct and traditional words «sexy» and «beautiful»:

• The slang term «foxy» is arguably not even a case of word formation since this process (denominal adjective with -y suffix from «fox») already occurred in the formation of this word with its standard English meanings of «foxlike, crafty, cunning». Instead, the traditional word’s meaning is extended^[19] to «attractive, desirable, pretty, sexy» with the following added implications according to Mattiello:

From the semantic point of view, slangy foxy is more loaded than neutral sexy in terms of information provided. That is, for young people foxy means having the quality of: (1) attracting interest, attention, affection, (2) causing desire, (3) excellent or admirable in appearance, and (4) sexually provocative, exciting, etc., whereas sexy only refers to the quality indicated in point (4).

• «shagadelic» is a combination of a slang term with a slang suffix and therefore is considered an «extra-grammatical» creation.

Matiello stresses that those agents who identify themselves as «young men» have «genuinely coined» these terms and choose to use them over «canonical» terms —like beautiful or sexy—because of the indexicalized social identifications the former convey.

First and second order indexicality[edit]

In terms of first and second order indexicality, the usage of speaker-oriented terms by male adolescents indicated their membership to their age group, to reinforce connection to their peer group, and to exclude outsiders.^[18]

Higher-order indexicality[edit]

In terms of higher order indexicality, anyone using these terms may desire to appear fresher, undoubtedly more playful, faddish, and colourful than someone who employs the standard English term «beautiful». This appearance relies heavily on the hearer’s third-order understanding of the term’s associated social nuances and presupposed use-cases.^[18]

Subculture associations[edit]

Often, distinct subcultures will create slang that members will use in order to associate themselves with the group, or to delineate outsiders.

Slang terms are often known only within a clique or ingroup. For example, Leet («Leetspeak» or «1337») was originally popular only among certain internet subcultures such as software crackers and online video gamers. During the 1990s, and into the early 21st century, however, Leet became increasingly commonplace on the internet, and it has spread outside internet-based communication and into spoken languages.^[20] Other types of slang include SMS language used on mobile phones, and «chatspeak», (e.g., «LOL», an acronym meaning «laughing out loud» or «laugh out loud» or ROFL, «rolling on the floor laughing»), which are widely used in instant messaging on the internet.^[21]

As subcultures are often forms of counterculture, which is understood to oppose the norm, it follows that slang has come to be associated with counterculture.

Social media and internet slang[edit]

Slang is often adopted from social media as a sign of social awareness and shared knowledge of popular culture. This type known as internet slang has become prevalent since the early 2000s along with the rise in popularity of social networking services, including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. This has spawned new vocabularies associated with each new social media venue, such as the use of the term «friending» on Facebook, which is a verbification of «friend» used to describe the process of adding a new person to one’s group of friends on the website, despite the existence of an analogous term «befriend». This term is much older than Facebook, but has only recently entered the popular lexicon.^[22] Other examples of slang in social media demonstrate a proclivity toward shortened words or acronyms. These are especially associated with services such as Twitter, which (as of November 2017) has a 280-character limit for each message and therefore requires a relatively brief mode of expression.^[23] This includes the use of hashtags which explicitly state the main content of a message or image, such as #food or #photography.^[24]

Debates about slang[edit]

Some critics believe that when slang becomes more commonplace it effectively eradicates the «proper» use of a certain language. However, academic (descriptive) linguists believe that language is not static but ever-changing and that slang terms are valid words within a language’s lexicon. While prescriptivists study and promote the socially preferable or «correct» ways to speak, according to a language’s normative grammar and syntactical words, descriptivists focus on studying language to further understand the subconscious rules of how individuals speak, which makes slang important in understanding such rules. Noam Chomsky, a founder of anthropological linguistic thought, challenged structural and prescriptive grammar and began to study sounds and morphemes functionally, as well as their changes within a language over time.^[25]

In popular culture[edit]

The 1941 film, Ball of Fire, portrays a professor played by Gary Cooper who is researching and writing an encyclopedia article about slang.^[26]

See also[edit]

• A New Dictionary of the Terms Ancient and Modern of the Canting Crew
• Slang dictionary
• Urban Dictionary

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• A Dictionary of Slang, Jargon & Cant, Albert Barrère and Charles Godfrey Leland (1889 edition, full text, at Wikimedia Commons).
• The Online Slang Dictionary – American and English terms, features other statistical information.
• Bradley, Henry (1911). «Slang» . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 25 (11th ed.). pp. 207–210.
• SlangLang – Popular slang words with their meaning, origin and spread

 The
meaning of the concept of ‘slang’ and what it includes was much
clearer in the old days. Originally, it was used by British criminals
to refer to their own special language. Later the main subject of
slang involved. It became a speech of all classes, both high and low.
Bu today the correct definition of slang cannot be found in the
dictionaries, encyclopedias or somewhere else.

          Among
the more expressive and a colorful description of slang is: “language
with its sleeves rolled up, its shirt-tails dangling, and its shoes
covered in mud”. In the “Concise Encyclopedia of
Pragmatics”, points to the uncertain existence of slang,
describing it as ‘vocabulary in limbo awaiting acceptance or
rejection by standard usage’.

Some
linguists and lexicographers give a rather sweeping definition. In
Swedish, for instance, slang is said to vary from casual to vulgar,
but that the distinction cannot be specified, since it is all a
matter of attitude. Similarly, in “A Comprehensive Grammar
of the English Language”, mention ‘slang’ under
the heading ‘Varieties according to attitude’. Others, such as
Dumas & Lighter avoid definitions altogether by instead
providing identifying criteria, for instance, ‘Its presence will
markedly lower, at least for the moment, the dignity of formal or
serious speech or writing.’ and ‘It is used in place of the
well-known conventional synonym’, while still others describe slang
by stating ‘what it is and what it is not’

What
is the same in the work of linguists and lexicographers is that slang
is short-lived, because it appears spontaneously and diaper when
trend comes away. They agreed that slang is also related into the
groups of people from different type of life habits. All of the
scientists describe slang as creative and new, often playful and
metaphorical part of language’s vocabulary. Also linguists say that
slang appears in the metropolises first and then it spreads into the
other parts of the country. Scientists also admit that slang of the
villages does not spread into the cities.

It
should be said that slang become more highly-used every day, but it
is not well reflected on our lexicology, vocabulary and expression of
our speech. That charm and beautiful literature speech was lost many
years ago with coming of slang. It has a very large influence on our
habits and way of communicating. We should agree with the fact that
slang made our thoughts easier to utter, but it also spread out the
accessibility of that expression.

          It
is also usually pointed out that slang affects vocabulary but not
grammatical constructions. In this connection, Anderson and Trudgill
comment, that ‘there are perhaps a handful of features which could
be regarded as typical of slang grammar’. Some of investigators are
giving the following example of ‘slang syntax’ represented by the
unorthodox use of the definite article, observed among “American
college” students: ‘Susan set me up with her big brother.
She’s the homie’. Unlike other scholars, philologists
also mentions the important role of body language and sounds, and the
combined effect of pitch, stress and pauses, without which some words
would not convey the slang meaning at all.

          Under
the meaning of slang are getting a lot of reductions and abbreviators
of the Internet slang. A lot of people every day in all
English-speaking countries use abba’s to communicate with each
other.

          Slang
is said to be short-lived. This, of course, is not true for all slang
words. Some were created a very long time ago and are still defined
as slang. Notice, however, that the dates that are given in
dictionaries prefer to written language, which most certainly means
that the first occurrence of the respective words in spoken language
was much earlier. Other old slang words would seem hopelessly
outdated if uttered by somebody today. Still other words, which were
originally referred to as slang, have been adopted in the standard
language but are labeled ‘informal’, such as the short
forms super in the sense of ‘wonderful’ and telly for
‘television’, to mention but two.

Conclusion

Slang
is an alternative vocabulary of each language. It is mostly used for
bringing humor, prejudice into language. “The
Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar” describes it as, «Words,
phrases, and uses that are regarded as informal and are often
restricted to special contexts or are peculiar to specific
profession, classes etc». Under the meaning of slang we can get
a lot of reductions and abbreviators of the Internet slang. A lot of
people every day in all English-speaking countries use abba’s to
communicate with each other. Slang was first recorded in the 16th
century by Thomas Dekker.

Соседние файлы в предмете Английский язык

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Работа добавлена на сайт samzan.net: 2016-06-20

Tony Thorne

Slang, style-shifting and sociability

Encounters with what is loosely called ‘slang’in speech or in print are ubiquitous. In the UK ‘well-brought-up’speakers move easily in and out of slang in conversation and the previous reluctance by the print and broadcast media to admit slang terms has given way to a tendency to embrace and in some cases to celebrate this extremely informal level of lexis. Interest in collecting and analysing slang is keen especially among adolescent learners, but in Britain, as opposed to the US and certain European countries, teachers and academics have hitherto paid it little or no attention. Although there may be valid reasons for this — it is obvious that the study of non-standard varieties of language is of little use in teaching communication skills or preparing for examinations — we should remind ourselves that any disapproval of slang can only be a social and not a linguistic judgement. Indeed, there are grounds for seeing slang, diffuse and ill-defined as it is as a category, as a particularly interesting aspect of language, both formally in that it mobilises all the morphological and metaphorical possibilities of English (Eble 1996 25-60) — rather as poetry does, but without the dimension of allusiveness and ambiguity — and functionally in that it often occurs in association with heightened self-consciousness and charged social interactions. Lexical innovation is also, of course, a function of cultural change, notoriously raising problems of decoding by ‘non-natives’(and some natives, too), but worthy of attention for that very reason, especially for working or trainee teachers and translators. 

An obvious reason for choosing to concentrate on slang is that it is itself a controversial and spectacular social phenomenon, an ‘exotic’aspect of an otherwise predictable language environment. An even better reason is that it is a variety which belongs (to a varying degree — of course some young people are quite innocent of non-standard usages) to young people themselves.

The recorded slangs of the past have been quite rightly characterised by Halliday in terms of ‘antilanguages’, the secretive codes of transgressive or deviant subcultures — criminals, beggars, travelling entertainers — with their salient features of relexicalisation and overlexicalisation (Halliday 1978). Later sociolinguists have focused on the role of adolescent slangs in the construction of social identity, among for example street gangs or high school students (Labov 1982, Eckert 1989), showing how acceptance into and exclusion from peer-groups is mediated by slang nomenclature and terminology.

Researchers into adolescent language usage have tended to concentrate on the links between language and hierarchies, status and deployment of social capital. More recently, however, some specialists have started to look at such ‘carnivalesque’manifestations as profaning, mischief, banter and teasing, the borrowing of ethnically marked codes to signal empathy and solidarity in ‘crossing’(Rampton 1995), and anticipated a change of emphasis in Bernstein’s words ‘from the dominance of adult-imposed and regulated rituals to dominance of rituals generated and regulated by youth’(Bernstein, cited in Rampton 2003). None of these studies has taken slang into account although there has been a plea, again by Rampton, for more attention to ‘the social symbolic aspects of formulaic language’.

Eble, in the only book-length study in recent times devoted to North American campus slang, has shown that the slang of middle-class college students is more complex and less a product of alienation than has been assumed in the past (Eble 1996). Her recordings of interactions reveal, too, that the selective and conscious use of slang itself is only part of a broader repertoire of style-shifting in conversation, not primarily to enforce opposition to authority, secretiveness or social discrimination, but often for the purposes of bonding and ‘sociability’through playfulness. 

Eble’s tally of student slang, collected at Chapel Hill, North Carolina since 1979, prompted the compiling of a similar database at King’s College London. A crude categorisation of the London data (as in the American survey largely donated by students rather than recorded in the field) by semantic clusters gives a picture of student preoccupations that can be compared with the US findings (Thorne 2004 forthcoming). Interpretation is problematical — for example, the large number of terms for intoxication do not prove that London students are necessarily drunkards, but suggest that they do enjoy talking about excessive behaviour.

Tentative insights from the lexicology have been bolstered by analysis of conversations in which slang is used extensively. This also shows in many cases that speakers are operating not as deficient or restricted linguists but as empowered actors, not exactly, in Claire Kramsch’s phrase, the ‘heteroglossic narrators’of recent myth, but enabled to vary their language strategies just as they use assemblage and bricolage in their presentations of self through dress, stance, gesture and accessorising.

By bringing the study of slang into the classroom and helping students to reflect upon their own language practices — especially on how they are potentially or actually able to style-shift and thereby play with identities — we can sensitise them to issues of register, appropriacy and semantic complexity. At a deeper level we can explore together what Bhabha calls the ‘social process of enunciation’ (Bhabha 1992, cited in Kramsch 1997) and bring into play students’values, feelings and allegiances. 

If we turn from the mainly monolingual, although multi-ethnic environment of the London campus to that of the international learner, there seem to me to be potential experiential links which suggest themselves in terms of Byram and Zarates’ notion of the intercultural learner (1994) and more especially Kramsch’s promotion of the ‘third space’or ‘third place’, a metaphorical or actual setting in which language learners move beyond appropriation or assimilation and explore the actual boundaries between themselves and others, and begin to focus less on the formal features of language and more on the ludic, aesthetic or affective qualities of encounters across languages and cultures (Kramsch 1997). It has been proposed that there are certain boundary activities, including for instance pastiche, re-telling of stories and code-mixing, etc, that are especially useful in this context. To these I would modestly suggest that we could usefully add a number of slang-based activities.

Of course slang itself has gone global; there are now local hybrids, often incorporating English lexis alongside the pervasive effects of dominant inner-circle varieties such as the high school argot propagated by Hollywood movies and TV soaps, and the black street codes of rap and hip-hop. Authenticity — not just a concept among analysts but an emblematic term for members of subcultures — is complicated by the development in the media and in literature of pseudo-slangs (a phenomenon that goes back at least as far as Raymond Chandler and P.G. Wodehouse). So-called virtual or electronic literacies developing for the Internet, email or text messaging have generated new slangs and an enormous proliferation of websites designed to celebrate or decode them.

Looking at young peoples’ small-culture codes, whether these be wide-ranging alternative lexicons or the narrower hobbyist (surfboarding, DJ-ing) or media-influenced (pop music and fashion) or technological (email, text-messaging, internet) vocabularies that shade into jargon, revalues young people as expert linguists and their own experiences as worthwhile and meaningful. In nearly all cultures there are examples of this expertise, sometimes also involving catchphrases, media quotes, one-liners, jokes and puns. Language crossing is also a feature of many slangs, bringing into play the question of linguistic imperialism (I recall lessons looking at Franglais, Chinglish and Spanglish, and, in Slovenia, debating the borrowing of ‘cool’.)

Published materials presenting English slang to international students have generally been limited to glossaries; a recent exception being the listening material prepared by Beglar and Murray (2002). Expertise in slang incidentally is not a requirement of the teacher: definitions, usage guidance and even etymologies can be provided by reference materials or come from students themselves. In the classroom I have used componential and cultural analysis of slang keywords, comparison and contrast of slang vocabularies from various languages and regions, critical reading of slang in the media and literature and scripting of slang-rich interactions. Outside the classroom, students have carried out surveys and ethnographies to observe slang usage and uncover attitudes to it held by different speech communities.

Halliday suggested that ‘a study of sociolinguistic pathology may lead to additional insight into the social semiotic’(Halliday 1978). I should emphasise that focusing in this way on stigmatised or taboo language, if it is culturally permissible at all, does not, in my experience, restrict learners’ability to operate with privileged varieties (whether ‘British English’ or EIL); it does not, as some fear, subvert standard usage or devalue it in the eyes of young people but rather the opposite. It helps language users to objectify the way that spoken varieties can be fitted to contexts and enriches their sense of the possibilities of lexical variety.

The idea of the adolescent as the master or mistress of his or her subcultural identity and owner of his or her idiolect and sociolect is not new, nor is the notion of the intercultural learner as a bilingual or multilingual actor consciously operating across boundaries. What is still lacking, however, are materials which set out the kind of ‘boundary activities’ that teachers can draw upon in order to activate third places and empower learners. I have suggested that slang is worthy of the attention of linguists in its own right, but further that, as an exciting and controversial form of language which belongs to young people and to youth culture, it is a valuable entry-point into discussion of sociocultural issues, whether in a monolingual or multilingual setting. Using or talking about slang is only one of many experiences which can be mobilised ‘at the boundaries’in this way, and as a final cri de coeur I would add that whether or not we are interested in slang per se, the urgent need is for practical, usable methods and materials — whether developed and exchanged informally or published commercially — which will help the teaching of language-and-culture in the global classroom to catch up with and profit from a decade or more of theory.

References

Andersson, L. G. and P. Trudgill. Bad Language. London: Penguin Books,1990.

Beglar, D. and N. Murray. Contemporary Topics 3. New York: Longman, 2002.

Crystal, D. Language Play. London: Penguin Books,1998.

Dumas, B.and J. Lighter. “Is slang a word for linguists?” American Speech 53 (1978). 5 — 17

Eble, C. Slang and Sociability. London and Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996.

Eckert, P. Jocks and Burnouts: Social Categories and Identity in High School.New York: Teacher’s College Press, 1989.

Halliday, M.A.K. (1978), Language as Social Semiotic: The Social Interpretation of Language and Meaning, London: Edward Arnold.

Kramsch, C. (1997), ‘The cultural component of language teaching’in Wadham-Smith (ed) British Studies Now 8, London: British Council

Labov, T. (1982), ‘Social structure and peer terminology in a black adolescent gang’, in Language and Society 2, 391 – 411

Rampton, B (1995), Crossing: Language and Ethnicity among Adolescents, Harlow and New York: Longman

Rodriguez Gonzalez, F. (ed) (2002), Comunicacion y cultura juvenil, Barcelona: Ariel

—————————(2002), El lenguaje de los jovenes, Barcelona: Ariel

Sornig, Karl (1981), Lexical Innovation: A Study of Slang, Colloquialisms and Casual Speech, Amsterdam: Benjamins

Thorne, T. (1998), The Dictionary of Contemporary Slang (New Edition), London: Bloomsbury.

———————-(2004 forthcoming) ‘Campus talk’, in King’s English Vol 1.2, King’s College London

Wierzbicka, A. (1997), Understanding Cultures through their Key Words, Oxford: Oxford University Press

This article first appeared in Multicultural Perspectives on English Language and Literature (Tallinn/London 2004)