Курсовая работа: British slang and its classification

"John Cleese" - cheese

"John Major" - pager

2.4 Morphological characteristics of slang

Slang comes to be a very numerous part of the English language. It is considered to be one of the main representatives of the nation itself. The birth of new words results from the order of the modern society. Slang arises due to our propensity for replacing old denominations by expressive ones. And yet the growing popularity of every new creation prevents it from remaining fresh and impressive. What was felt as strikingly witty yesterday becomes dull and stale today, since everybody knows it and uses it. So how do the slang words come to life? There are several ways of slang words formation:

1. Various figures of speech participate in slang formation.

For example: upperstorey-head (metaphor)

skirt-girl (metonymy)

killing-astonishing (hyperbole)

some-excellent or bad (understatement)

clear as mud (irony)

Slang items usually arise by the same means in which new words enter the general vocabulary.

2. The slang word can appear thanks to the recycling of the words and parts of words, which are already in the language.

Expressions may take form as metaphors, similes, and other figures of speech (dead as a doornail).Some slang formation follow the rules of Standard English. F.e., slang behaves regularly in the forming of denominal adjectives by –y suffixation (e.g. cbordy- moody, cbord-a bad mood, gobby-mouthy, slang gob-mouth) and deverbal adjectives by – able suffixation (shaggable- slang to shag –to fornicate). It uses the suffix –ette to denote female sex as in punkette (a female punk). It uses the verbal prefix de- to convey a sense of removal or deprivation to the base as in de-bag –to remove trousers. [21]

Words may acquire new meanings (cool, cat). A narrow meaning may become generalized (fink, originally a strikebreaker, later a betrayer or disappointer) or vice-versa (heap, a run-down car). Most affixation tend to belong to extragrammatical morphology, though they exhibit a certain regularity and stability.

Slang has some productive suffixes which are either novel (eg. -o/oo, -eroo, -ers) or used differently from Standard English. The slang suffix –o means either ``a stupid unintelligent person``(dumbo, thicko) or a person with a particular habbit or characteristic (eg. Saddo, sicko). This suffix seems to be productive in the making of forms of address (kiddo, yobbo)

A cumulation of the suffix – er with –o/oo produces –eroo in slang as in smackeroo, meaning the same as smacker but with a more light – hearted slant.

Another profilic slang cumulation is –ers as in some pair nouns (cobblers, conkers, knackers), plural nouns (choppers-teeth, trousers) and uncountable nouns (ackers-money, uppers- amphetamine). The slang suffix –ers often occurs after abbreviation as in bathers (bathing costumes), brekkers (breakfast), taters (potatoes).

The suffix –s lost its inflectional meaning in slang and conveys new meaning to the base: afters- dessert, flicks- cinema, messages- groceries.

The use of – ed is also noteworthy in slang. It is added to noun to obtain adjectives: boxed, brained, hammered, ratted. –er in slang gives unpredictable sense as in belter- excellent thing or event, bottler-person who easily gives up.

3. Compounding makes one word from two. Initial and final combination have intensifying function: butt naked- fully naked, butt ugly- completely ugly; earache- a talkative person, faceache – a miserable looking person, airhead-someone out of touch with reality, homeboy-a person from the same hometown

Infixes are unknown in standard English being a peculiarity of slang. Bloody, fucking are used to provide information about speaker`s attitude (as in abso-bloody-lutely, or in fan-fuckin`-tastic).

Conversion is anomalous in slang in case of adjective-noun as in high- pleasantly intoxicated state, massive- a group of people.[22]

4. In slang, frequently used words are likely to be abbreviated. For example: OTL-out to lunch-out of touch with reality. VJ-video jock-an announcer for televised music videos

Words may be clipped, or abbreviated (mike, microphone), and acronyms may gain currency (VIP, awol, snafu).

5. A currently productive process is the addition of a particle like OUT, OFF or ON to a noun, adjective or verb, to form a phrasal verb.

For example: blimp out-to overeat

blow off-to ignore

hit on-to make sexual overtures to

6. Unlike the general vocabulary of the language, English slang has not borrowed heavily from foreign languages, although it does borrow from dialects, especially from such ethnic or special interest groups which make an impact on the dominant culture .