Slang . It is a social dialect limited to the lexicon , parasitic in nature, insofar as it creates new terms, with different affective values, for concepts already endowed with a term. These words are used by a certain social layer that is considered different from the others. When a slang word becomes general knowledge, it is precisely because it has ceased to be so. It is common to confuse colloquialisms with slang, but they are two different phenomena.
Summary
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- 1 Definition
- 2 Background
- 3 Objective
- 4 Features
- 5 Investigations
- 6 Sources
Definition
Slang is the special language between people of the same trade or activity. Rodríguez (1999) defines the concept of slang as a part of the lexicon subjected to a constant flow and formed by a cluster of lively and picturesque expressions that characterize very different social and professional groups, especially when they are used for internal communication . Slang provides and reinforces social and group identity, but is also used in general society to give an air of informality and relaxation to communication.
Background
Dennis Francois affirms that the term slang appears in the seventeenth century , at the time of the Coquillards trials. Slang originally designates the community of criminals and beggars, the “Kingdom of Slang”, a place where criminals were confined. It seemed that the slang would be made up of all those verbal manifestations typical of criminals, and by extension, by the speech of the economically low social strata, the illiterate and illiterate. However, with the passage of time, this perspective undergoes a change as they become legitimate social or group speech whose identity purposes assign them their own value within a larger linguistic system.
So it was only initially that slang was identified only with criminals, the language of the underworld, Germania in Spain or the jobelin, narquin or jargon of the gangs of highwaymen in France . Progesively within the slang, linguistic forms used by different social groups –professions, trades or occupations– concur that seek to legitimize its existence through the peculiarity of its verbal uses. They emerge as a necessary instrument to defend themselves and survive within a social group. Slang should not be confused with technical languages, despite the fact that certain slang has technicalities.
objective
The objective of slang is to encode the message , in such a way that it can only be understood by the social group that uses it, so that possible unwanted recipients cannot decode it, for this they use an informal language.
features
Slang is an incomplete, limited vocabulary, where only a few new lexemes appear to make the phrase incomprehensible to outsiders. It is an instrument of secondary and parasitic communication, which always requires the support of a common language, which also explains why slang cannot be international.
The changing character is one of the main characteristics of this phenomenon. The argots change from generation to generation and from city to city. There are words that change from one generation to the next and from place to place, although others seem to spread over the centuries.
Slang, as a social phenomenon, shows a great expressive richness within the social groups in which it finds its place, at the same time that it allows for the creation of close linguistic links between its members and enables greater cohesion and identity compared to other external groups. Slang is characterized by the unequal terminology that can be presented in one language versus another, a reflection of the society that manages it. Slang is a reflection of the social groups in which it lives.
Research
Among the investigations on Spanish slang carried out in recent years, those of Julia Sanmartín and Ciriaco Ruiz, authors of Spanish slang dictionaries, stand out. Sanmartín considers that the argots are specific lexicons typical of a social group, with exclusive features that allow them to be differentiated from the rest of the social or stylistic varieties of a language and that are halfway between the stylistic and the denominative neology.
Ruiz affirms that slang is one more among the multiple social variations of the language that are determined by factors that stratify and segment the language in society and make it an expression of the difference through which users recognize, integrate and share own values of the group. This is how it works as a group cohesive, although from the outside it is interpreted as an attempt to prevent its communications from being understood by the rest of the social group.
