American Slang and Its Social Functions.doc
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1、American Slang and Its Social FunctionsSlang used to be regarded as indecent, vulgar language. However, today people have realized its value; more and more people widely use such language form in their daily communication. Even some slang terms and expressions have been drafted into the dictionaries
2、. As one of the most powerful countries in the world, the U.S.A is more and more influential. For English learners, learning slang can help them to avoid misunderstanding and enhance language competence. This thesis discusses American slang from the relations among society, culture and language. The
3、 examples cited in this paper will deepen the understanding of the importance of American slang.Slang takes up an indispensable part in American English. According to the statistic by American linguists Wentworth & Flexner, the number of the words an average American people has is ranging from 10,00
4、0 to 20,000, of which 10 percent are slang terms (Flexner xx). Slang is widely used by people from different fields. And where is slang from? Who have created it? The following will discuss them.Most of slang words are created or formed by the same ways as other kinds of words in English. Here are s
5、everal ways of word-formation.One way that we often use is clipping. “Slang delights to curtail words, as in monk for money, flu for influenza, biz for business, varsity for university, vent for convert or pervert.” (Partridge 26). Clipping can be divided into four methods: the first one is clipping
6、 the front part of the word, e.g. amp for ampere or amplifier, champ for champion, bro for brother; the second is clipping the middle part, e.g. flu for influenza, tec for detective; the third is clipping the front part of the first word in a phrase, e.g. pop for popular music, intercom for intercom
7、munication system; the last one is clipping the front part of each word, e.g. bs for bull-shit, ID for Identification Card, G-man for Government man, etc.Blending also is a popular way to form slang words, which invents a word by gathering parts of other words: one is combining the initial part of t
8、he first word with the end of the second one, for example, mingy (mean + stingy) means “mean, stingy or narrow-minded”; smog (smoke + fog) means” mixture of smoke and fog”. The other is combining the initial parts of two words, for instance, sitcom (situation + comedy) means” the radio or TV series
9、that are very humorous”; brunch (breakfast + lunch) means “late morning meal eaten instead of breakfast and lunch ” and sci-fi (science + fiction).Another way is reduplication. We can see many slang words are formed in such way. However, reduplication is different in various situations. Some slang w
10、ords are invented by combining two words of the same spelling, e.g. dum-dum (stupidity, fool), no-no (taboo, prohibition). Some are created by two words different in one letter, e.g. tip-top (great or excellent), fiddle-faddle (nonsense, uselessness). The words created by reduplication are very rhyt
11、hmic and easy to be remembered.The last major way is compounding, a process of word-formation, by which two independent words are put together to form a word (Lu 309). There are many slang terms formed by compounding, such as baby-sit from baby, sit; feedback from feed, back; baby-kisser from baby,
12、kisser; career boy from career, boy; dropout from drop, out; awesome from awe, some; copycat from copy, cat (someone that copies the words or behavior of others). Many young people like to call their friend homeboy or homegirl, which is formed in the same way, too. Some popular ones also are without
13、 exception, for example, party-pooper from party and pooper means “the person who refuses to enthusiastically take part in some recreational activities of a group”. “The reason why many Englishmen tend to equate slang and American English is that American slang is often more picturesque and striking
14、 than British and it has therefore been freely introduced into England” (Brook 129). Actually, why American slang is so popular is that it is not only picturesque and striking but also very practical and unique. Analyzing American slangs features informality, brevity, newness, rhetoric must be inclu
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