What is Slang? THE MEANING OF SLANG

CHAPTER 2 THE MEANING OF SLANG

2.1 What is Slang? Slang is crucial part of a young persons coming of age, one of the first detectable signs of a their breaking away from their parents and their parents values. It is a cheap second language that expresses the differences between a young person who is about to enter adulthood from his or her parents generation. Slang is actually not a language or a dialect at all, however. It is more a code in which one vaguely related or unrelated word or phrase is substituted for a more common one. The words that are replaced in slang are the most common ones: good cherry, boss, phat, da bomb, bad icky, yucky, jankety, crazy nuts, bananas, crackers, bonkers, smart brainy, savvy, sharp, fast scream, tear out, fly, like greased lightning, slow dragging, poky, crawling, creeping. Slang is different from a register, though. We would use slang at a football game though probably not on a job interview. We might use it at home but probably not in church. However, we could use slang in all these situations, so if it is a register, it is a uniquely different one, associated with an stage of development rather than a profession or situation. Slang does favor various grammatical means of forming new words. Clipping is one of them, removing syllables from words, like teach for teacher or phys ed for physical education. It is important to remember that slang is not bad grammar so there is no need to deprecate or discourage it. It sometimes contributes words to the general Universitas Sumatera Utara vocabulary. Live-wire, jive, copacetic, and jazz are all words that came to us from slang. While slang is often accompanied by bad grammar and pronunciation, these are separate issues. The used of slang is means of recognizing members of the same group, and to differentiate that group, and to differentiate that group from society at large. In addition to this, slang can be used and created purely for humorous or expressive effect. In this case many of linguist says about slang in their own concepts, they are : According Brayan A. Garner : Slang is, A notoriously difficult terms to define, has potentially for characteristic : 1. it is markedly lower in dignity than Standard English, 2. it is typically surfaces first in language of people with low states or with a low status or with a low level of responsibility, 3. it is more less taboo in the discourse of those with high status or high degree of responsibility, and 4. it displaces a conventional tem or from the annoyance of fully elaborated expression. According F. Genung, Outlines of Phetoric : Slang is to people’s language that an epidemic disease is to their bodily constituation ; just as catching and just as inevitable in it’s run like a disease, too it is severest where sanitary conditions are most negleted, where there is least culture and though to counteract. Universitas Sumatera Utara According H. N Mac Craclan Helen E. Sandison, Manual of English : Slang words belong to generally unauthorized vocabulary, which every speaker of English should be able to without. According Robert L. Chapman: Slang is, The body of words and expressions frequently used by or intelligible to a rather large portion of the general American public, but not accepted as good, formal usage by the majority. According Jonathan E. Lighter, Historical Dictionary of American Slang, Slang, at it’s worst, it is stupidly coarse and provocative. At its best, it makes standard English seem pallid. According S. I. Hayakawa, Language in Action, Slang is poetry of everyday life. According George Eliot, Middlemarch, 1871 : Slang is, I shall invent a new game; I shall write bits of slang and poetry on slips and give tham to you separate. According Carl Sandburg : Slang is “language which takes off its coat. Spits on its hands – and goes to work” According John Algeo, Univeristy of Georgia professor: Slang is, Slang is humanity’s first play toy. According David Crystal, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of The English Language, Slang is: Universitas Sumatera Utara This scholary source provides a limited amount of information regarding slang. It is a helful source in studying such aspects of the English language as the history of the language, English vocabulary, English grammar, and uses of English. It also contains a helpful glossary of terminology and reference listing.

2.2 Extent and Origins of Slang