What Is American Slang - Research Paper Example

American slang Introduction At the present time, a lot of American use ‘slang’, which is an informal style of speech. Slang can be a single word, a group of words, or a sentence. Slang words became more popular with the use of the Internet. Although, how did the slang occur in English in the first place, and what effected the evolution of colloquialism? In the twentieth century, there were quick changes caused by historical events. WW1 and WW2 took place in the 20th century, and it affected American life in different ways: economically, culturally, socially, and politically. It also affected the language. American slang is concocted and developed with the American history, and it reflects the culture and society of Americans. ‘American slang is a product of society, it is produced and created by society and people who live in it. It is one of linguistic varieties, which we cannot separate it from its social background and social surroundings’ (Zhou and Fan). There are 3 significant factors that affect and develop American slang: gender, race, and age. What is slang? Slang is a non formal language or communication strategy that involves the playful handling of words that is quite contrary to the formal language in which most of those that use it tend to be peers. Essentially, slang does not meet the standard requirements of a formal language as most of the words applied are shorter as compared to the ordinary colloquial speech expressions (Dumas 5). Another meaning attached to slang is that it tends to be a contrast or irony of the formal English words as it seeks to establish a new meaning that best suits the users. Based on this, the classification of slang tends to be among a group of users that have common interests such as university students, teenagers, criminals, males, those that attend public school among a list of other social groupings. In some circles, slang has been used to establish derogatory names that belittle women in society in which men view them as sexual objects (Tucker 1997). However, it would not be appropriate to say American slang is the only form of informal language as other countries have also been able to concoct their own slang drawing from other distinguished elements. The origin of American slang As per literary works, American slang is quite enriched and it also sits in the same rank as the French slang because of their constant enrichment as compared to English and the German slang. Remarkably, American slang has contributed immensely in the formal American English with words such as ‘nice’ originating from slang and is now acceptable to use in the formal language. The contrast brought by words such as ‘awful’ from the American slang have also become applicable in the formal English as they now denote emphasis or character of a person or a word. For example, ‘awfully sweet’ could mean that something or someone is too sweet. On the other hand, university slang can also be an origin of American slang as most of the words in the American slang dictionary such as ‘slacker’ were borrowed from this fraction or age group of the population. Therefore, the use of certain words considered to be slang words has become a legitimate practice in the USA, which has helped distinguish American English from the British English. How the use American slang has evolved and changed With each decade, the American slang words used were not similar in each of them, meaning that this language was on a constant path of evolution and undergoing metamorphic change (Lighter 1981). In this decade, American slang has changed, especially with the increased usage of the internet and social media sites that have led to the development of the urban or internet slang. The slang words and abbreviations that characterize this era include YOLO (meaning You only Live Once), LOL (Laughing Out Loud), selfie, doh, among a list of other words have become too popular to the extent that the Oxford English has adopted them (Lytle 2011). Based on this, the internet and have become the propellant for change for the usage of the American slang whose application has spread around the world. Social sites such as Instagram, twitter, Facebook is known for widespread usage of the colloquial expressions derived from American slang. With the high powered internet, words move across the world so fast, meaning that it is no longer restricted by age, race or by gender because anyone that has access to the internet and these social media tools can access and use these words. Therefore, American slang has integrated with computer slang to form internet slang that is relatively applicable across the globe, even in areas that do not have English as their first language. Interestingly, other countries that have their own slang such as France have changed some internet slang words such as ‘LOL’ to ‘mdr’ (mort de rire) to have the same meaning but in a different language. Therefore, slang has evolved in a way that suits the user, especially online as per their culture and creating worlds that are more resounding to them as compared to applying foreign slang words. How does the evolution of American slang effect the way people communicate One of the major areas that the evolution of American slang has affected is the area of learning as many students tend to write their essays using this informal language hence affecting their grades and the way they speak. As a result, the population of Americans that can communicate effectively has continued to drop as many of the graduates may fail to properly communicate as required in the professional world. High school students are also affected by the increasing usage of internet slang that has drawn from American slang as the way that communicate with their peers in the social media sites is the same way that they are communicating in class. The effect of this is that students are now losing their writing abilities as they are applying abbreviations such as SMH (shaking my head) and BTW (by the way) in their term papers as this now appears to be the norm to them (Lytle 2011). This has also spread in the way students communicate with their teachers as they no longer see the need to write full sentences as they abbreviate these sentences to suit what they want to communicate, which is an ineffective way to communicate. The sad thing is that most of these high school students are not aware that they are applying the shortcut languages and abbreviations because their teachers have also come to see this as the norm especially in this era of digital communication. Scholars now say that the use of shortcut sentences and abbreviated words tends to influence communication breakdown, especially to the population that is less savvy about the evolved American slang. However, for those that understand the internet slang, communication is much easier as this has reduced the bulk of wording that they can send through emails provided that the information gets across. People no longer feel the need to make high cost phone calls to the people that they hold dear as messaging services such as WhatsApp have made it easy and cheaper to convey messages and keep in touch. As a result, some abbreviations, acronyms and neologisms have become part of the daily spoken speech as people now understand this more in this decade as compared to the past one. The other way that communication through the internet is a sign of the volution of American slang is the use of emoticons, stickers and pictures that help in conveying the emotions of the one communicating. This has cut down on the writing a sentence to express what a person is feeling, hence using minimal time and space communicating hence making the evolved form of communication to be easy. Based on this, the evolution of American slang draws from race, age, and gender as it has now become the internet slang which is a global language. Work cited Dumas, Bethany K. "Is Slang a Word for Linguists?" American Speech 53.1 (1978): 5-17. JSTOR. Web. 12 Nov. 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/455336?ref=no-x-route:404548f07f527ff90b388e1dd4916459 Lighter, Jonathan Evan. "A Historical Dictionary of American Slang." (Vol. 1)." Dissertation Abstracts International 41. (1981). America: History & Life. Web. 19 Nov. 2014. Lytle, Ryan. “How Slang Affects Students In The Classroom”. U.S.News . 13 June 2011. Web. 19 November 2014. Tucker, Joan S. "Brief Report." Sex Roles. By Aryn L. Grossman. Vol. 37. N.p.: Kluwer Academic-Plenum, July 1997. 101-10. Issue 1-2. Springer Link. Web. . Zhou, Yanchun, and Yanhong Fan. "A Sociolinguistic Study of American Slang." Academic OneFile. Gale, Dec. 2013. Web. 19 Nov. 2014. Read More