Is slang ruining the English language ?

NO !!!!!!!!!

Informal words and expressions that are not considered standard English - otherwise known as slang has always been a subject of great lament for prescriptivists who perceive it to be an indicator of a low or disreputable character and the  driving force in the "deterioration" of the English language. This contention is to ignore both the functions and history of slang. 

The use of the vernacular has always attracted criticism, particularly from older generations who feels as though the language innovations of the youth are ruining the language. This is often due to the inherent function of slang in defining a social group and asserting its values through language. Young people especially are experimental with their language across a range of contexts so as to express their different individual and social identities through building covert prestige. The tribal nature of slang as expressed by David Crystal "the chief use of slang is to show that you're one of the gang" means that it can isolate anyone who is not privvy to the linguistic paradigm of a particular social group. This is often the case with older generations who feel threatened when they don't understand what the kids are talking about.

This is nothing new, but thanks to the ubiquitous nature of technology and the increasing pervasiveness of social media, the slang that may have once been confined to one environment, such as school, is spread far and wide at an unprecedented rate. This concept is reflected in the prevalence of text speak such as "OMG" "lol" and "yolo" in the popular lexicon.

When considering whether young people are indeed destroying our language, it is imperative to think about it with an understanding of linguistic history. Words which we would all think of as Standard English such as "capture" "fun" "nowadays" and "pants" were once argued to be too informal in the 17th century by people like Samuel Johnson. In our own context, of course this notion seems ridiculous.

Despite this, the UK government is being warned that teenagers of today can "barely talk", possessing a vocabulary of only 800 words, much of which is comprised of text-speak and slang. This phenomenon is, apparently rendering teens as unemployable and is being blamed on the prevalence of technology and social media. However, these findings were based predominately upon transcripts of day-to-day communication with peers and similarly aged individuals. Given the social function of language to facilitate solidarity through covert prestige which, especially in young people, is achieved through a typically low level of formality and use of individualistic slang and idioms, these findings are flawed. In contrast to the study, Moniker Wagner (of the Victorian Association for the Teaching of English) states that in her 15 years of experience in the classroom, students have demonstrated and awareness of context and appropriateness, known linguistically as descriptivism, which sees them able to switch between essay writing language and playground language. Similarly, Monash University professor of linguistics Kate Burridge  backs up this claim, stating that young people in fact write very well, and not at all like how they speak (unless the context calls for it)

Interestingly,  in encouraging text-speak and slang within popular lexicon, it seems as though Electronically Mediated Communication is facilitating a shift in societal attitudes towards Standard and Non Standard varieties of English.

According to a recent study by Knox University in Galesburg, writers whose emails include more errors were believed to be more apathetic, and participants were more likely to assume the writer was a superior.  It seems that typo-laden, abbreviation-ridden and grammatically incorrect emails are perceived to be a sign of social dominance as it implies that the writer of the "sloppy" email is too busy to adhere to the Standard conventions of English and that their audience is not significant enough to warrant such attention to detail.

Similarly, deliberate lack of punctuation (specifically question marks) seems to insinuate a similar type of social hierarchy in by rendering the modality of a request higher to make them seem peremptory.  This phenomenon was addressed in a recent Huffington Post article by Susan Cain who contends that the elision of the question marks in question are not born from laziness, but deliberate social cues in an attempt to signal power and authority
As the shift towards descriptivism progresses, it is inevitable that young people will extend their already sufficient knowledge of context and social appropriateness. A negative approach to slang is to disregard its value. Slang includes some of the most vulgar, but equally expressive language in all of English. The fact that young people can adorn their language with such irony, creativity and wit whilst simultaneously building social connections is an undeniably positive thing. A prescriptivist approach to informality overlooks the value of slang in expressing insight into how we think and feel as humans as well as being a reflection of social climate and pop culture. 

More on the Misogyny Speech

This transcript is an excerpt from Former PM Julia Gillards 2013 monologue “opposing the motion”. Whilst the speech took place within the House of Representatives, various videos of the event soon went viral, thus expanding the speech's original intended audience. In drawing public attention the sexist behaviours of Tony Abbott, Gillard both diverted attention from the controversial issue involving the publication of Peter Slipper's derogatory text messages and successfully successfully awareness of the issue of misogyny is Australian politics.

The parliamentary context in which the discourse took place necessitates not only a formal register but also an adherence to the linguistic paradigm underpinning the official environment. This must be taking into consideration by the speaker in order to maintain a respectful identity. Gillard's use of formal modes of address and pronouns “Deputy Speaker” “Leader of the Opposition” “member for Mackellar” “The Government”, employment of euphemistic implicature “he needs a mirror”, political jargon“I rise to oppose the motion” and formal syntactic structures such as the passive voice “will not be lectured” are indicative of her awareness of the appropriate conventions of the context.

As the discourse is a monologue, Gillard holds the floor for the its entirety. Her authority is both enforced and undermined by interjections from the audience which signal support “hear hear” “absoloutely” and restlessness “order order”. The notion that the audience is in favour of Gillard during the extended periods of silence (which comprise the majority of their role in the discourse) is more ambiguous. Whilst Gillard intends to manipulate her audience into silence through building suspense in lines 42 to 55, their response could be due their obligation to be respectful of the official context and role of Gillard as Prime Minister. 

Gillard allocates stress and a louder pitch to certain words within utterances in order to render them more emphatic and emotive (lines 9 to 15). Contrastingly, Gillard employs a softer intonation in line 32 “thats what he needs to do” so as to permit the message to resonate with the audience. Similarly, the falling intonation allocated to certain utterances functions to generate a notion of emphatic finality. (line 21, 24 and 31). In conjunction with prosodic features, Gillard employs a repetition of lexemes such as “sexism” and “misogyny” and syntactic parallelism “not now, not ever” which work to further emphasise her argument.

The positive and negative face needs of Abbott are ignored by Gillard. Her accusatory statements which label him a sexist and misogynist cater neither for his desire to not be imposed upon by others or for his need to feel acknowledged and appreciated. The collective pronoun “The Government” further contributes this effect in presenting a cohesive, united front against Abbott which has significantly more effect than the use first person pronouns “I” and “my”.

In comparison, Gillard acknowledges the positive face needs of women (their desire to be seen and treated as equals to men) facing sexism in Australia by condemning misogynistic behaviour. This also caters for their need to not be imposed upon by the sexist agenda of Abbott.

Dear Missy..

This text is a reminder from a veterinary clinic aimed at is customers whose pets are due for their vaccination. Its dual function in both informing the customer of the necessity of the vaccination as well as the comical and rapport building elements of the text function to persuade the customer to pay for their services.

In addressing the letter to the dog rather than the human customer “Dear Missy” the text achieves a comedic element. This humour stems from the common, pragmatic knowledge insinuated by the author and inferred by the reader that dogs cannot actually read.

The text couches its modality and caters to the reader's negative face needs by continuing to refer to the dog rather than the customer and using less obligatory and indirect language such as “please” “your records indicate” and “ask”. Furthermore, other politeness strategies within the text cater to the reader's positive face needs “we know that your owners love you very much”.

In addition to the entertaining nature of the text, the intimate nature of the language further contributes to its relatively informal register. Utilising relatively casual and personal modes of address such as “you”, “your friends” and “us” rather than “the patient” and “the veterinarian” lessens the social distance between the medical experts and the consumer and thus generates a sense of rapport between them, making them more likely to take part in what the clinic is asking of them. The friendly nature of the opening and closing statements of the text “Gosh, doesn't time fly” and “looking forward to seeing you soon” have a similar function in rendering the text more conversational and less formal.

Notions of social distance are lessened further in the sign off to the text, where in conjunction with listing the various doctor's names, their dogs have also been listed. This facilitates rapport based on common knowledge and common interests between the author and the reader.

In conjunction with the humorous and rapport building elements of the text, the crucial component is formatted to appear distinguished from the rest “The vaccination and due date is;”. This aids textual coherence in directing the reader's attention to the crux of the text.  

The surprising functions of Function Words

Psychologist James Pennebaker contends that identity-comprising qualities such as social class, economic status, gender, wealth and power dynamics of individuals can be indicated by the ways in which one uses function words. 

Functions words express a grammatical or structural relationship with other words in a sentence. They include things like " pronouns (such as I, you, they), articles (a, an, the), prepositions (to, of, for) and auxiliary verbs (is, am, have)", things which Pennebaker refers to as the ‘connective tissue of language’. After much research, Pennebaker has demonstrated that these seemingly insignificant particles of language have the ability to illustrate the power dynamic between two interlocutors and their relative social status by how frequently they use "I" in a conversation.

Pennebaker contends that "People's pronouns track their focus of attention. If someone is anxious, self-conscious, in pain or depressed, they pay more attention to themselves". His study  found that an individual with lower social status will use "I" less than those of a higher status. This is due to the fact that the individual of a lower social status will be more self conscious of how they are being perceived, and frequent use of "I" is indicative of a "verbal fidgeting"

In congruence with contemporary linguistic beliefs, Pennebaker found that when two people have a positive relationship, their linguistic features will evolve to subconsciously mimic each other. This "verbal mirroring" explains why people belonging to the same social group will often utilise language in similar ways, and further confirms the notion of language's ability to assert in group solidarity and belonging.

dint hav tym 2 wryt tytl 2 busy

In language use, Standard English is considered by many to be a baseline of excellence and correctness from which all other variants are gauged. Its potential to elicit overt prestige and connote authority makes it the default variant utilised in formal, official contexts where one needs to construct an identity of capability and of social clout.

Obversely, non standard variants of English function to promote in-group solidarity in their facilitation of covert prestige. Furthermore, any deviation from the conventions of Standard English  in formal contexts can be render one as unintelligent or incapable or even offensive in not adhering to the linguistic paradigm necessitated by the official nature of the context.

However, it seems as though Electronically Mediated Communication is facilitating a shift in these preconceived societal attitudes towards Standard and Non Standard varieties of English.

According to a recent study by Knox College in Galesburg, writers whose emails include more errors were believed to be more apathetic, and participants were more likely to assume the writer was a superior.  It seems that typo-laden, abbreviation-ridden and grammatically incorrect emails are perceived to be a sign of social dominance as it implies that the writer of the "sloppy" email is too busy to adhere to the Standard conventions of English and that their audience is not significant enough to warrant such attention to detail.

Similarly, deliberate lack of punctuation (specifically question marks) seems to insinuate a similar type of social hierarchy in by rendering the modality of a request higher to make them seem peremptory.  This phenomenon was addressed in a recent Huffington Post article by Susan Cain who contends that the elision of the question marks in question are not born from laziness, but deliberate social cues in an attempt to signal power and authority

Instigators of Language Change : Old vs. Young

A popular belief in regards to language change contends that the coinage of neologisms and use of slang and colloquial language are solely the domain of the younger generation. However, this is a simplified view of the social functions of language. Language change occurs in diverse forms for diverse needs, therefore it cannot simply be one age group that instigates language change.

Certainly for younger people, using language in new and often non standard ways functions to promote solidarity within a social group to gain them covert prestige in order to establish and continually reinforce their identity. However, adults also instigate language change particularly in their specialised field by creating jargon, adapting foreign words to their own foundation of language and creating the attitude towards language through education of younger generations.

The young have been rapidly coining new terms that have become integrated into every-day vernacular due to the ubiquitous nature of electronically mediated communication (which can be accredited to the digital revolution that is currently underway). Some of the most well known terms that have transcended their digital contexts include “lol, ceebs, wtf, omg, yolo, hashtag”. The commodification of some of these words into dictionaries such as the Macquarie, Online Oxford Dictionary and certainly their ubiquitous use in spoken language is evidence of their popularity. 

Evidence of language change isn't restricting solely to the domain of lexicology.  It is prevalent too in the syntax associated with electronically mediated technology. Due to its rapid nature, terms such as the past tense "has" are being compacted to "how's" as in “how’s your day been?”. Furthermore, the excessive use of punctuation (particularly exclamation marks and question marks) is another example of language change instigated by the young as they compensate for the need to express emotion through a medium that inhibits such expression. The excessive use of letters and capitalisation to graphemically convey the prosodic features of spoken language are employed in a similar way.

Language change can only be considered successful if the majority are implementing them regularly. Being unaware of the implicature, connotations or accepted use of a term can lead to a feeling of social instability or being "out of the loop" and thus can render one not privvy to the kind of covert prestige that adept users of language have access to. Thus proficient use of neologisms is desirable in many contexts and this encourages its pervasive nature.

The term “hashtag”, originating from twitter for technological purposes has now been integrated into spoken discourse as a result of the ubiquity of and access to social media in today's society. It is used as an intensifier that signals in group membership by "tagging" certain ideas or concepts that other people relate to. Linguist Ben Zimmer of the Visual Thesaurus states that “[hashtags] show that you’re part of a community that shares these conventions, to show that you’re playing the game.” This affirms the idea that the young drive language change as they are experimenting with language both innovating and conforming to build in group membership in order to aide them establishing and affirming their identity. Furthermore, as new language pervades general language use, other (older) people latch onto terms to be perceived as digitally aware and up to date.

It seems that compared to younger people, the language changes instigated by adults are considered to be more permanent. This is due to the fleeting nature of slang (which is the predominant area in which young people instigate change) but also due to the belief that with age comes maturity and expertise and thus adults are more successful as the young in driving language change. Language change instigated by adults is evident in the addition of jargon is specific fields such as politics. In last year’s election campaign the term “sand-bagging” was adapted from the Americanism “pork-barrelling” to refer to doling out money to marginal seats. Similarly, John Howard adapted the American term for “water-cooler” topics – that is, the dominant policy issues of the day which captivated mainstream swinging voters – to “barbecue stoppers”. These examples further exemplify how adults also are more likely to adapt terms as they are more resolute in their language therefore go to greater lengthens to adapt it to a foundation that they are familiar with.

As with slang, jargon promotes in group membership and excludes others who are not proficient users of the technical language relating to a specialist field. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with the complex language utilised within these domains, as it is often prescribed by the complexity of the concepts being discussed. The issue at hand is the discrepancy between the specialist's level of knowledge and the general public's level of knowledge and how this is accounted for (or not accounted for) when communicating. Recently, people have demanded more clarity in the language directed to them, an example of this is in on the new style guide on the www.gov.uk website published on July 26th 2013. The article poses that political figures should avoid using jargon as it promotes language manipulation by obfuscating the reality. This demonstrates that not only do adults drive language change, but that they use this to strengthen their connection to other adults, perhaps of the same profession in order to increase their sense of belonging thus authority in a field. And some also (unfortunately) use it to purposefully alienate people and enforce social distance and social hierarchy.

Attitudes towards language are based on the education one is provided with by the institution that is run by adults. Education's influence on language change is evident through comparison of past and present teaching models. Since Federation and up until 20-30 years ago, the education system took a very prescriptive approach, influencing young students to believe that their language must abide by a set of strict rules and anything that strays from these rules is unacceptable. Nowadays the education system is far more descriptive approach. This facilitates students to be more innovative with their language use. The effect of this educational approach is evident in the many linguistic initiatives constructed by the young, such as lolcat memes which initiated from a young male to his girlfriend on Facebook and grew to be worth more than 2 million dollars, and now has its own lolcats bible. This illustrates the great influence adults have on changing attitudes towards language simply by being the educators for the young.

Language change occurs as people develop their language use to better suit their needs. For the young it is to establish and continually reinforce their individual and group identities by being innovative with language as understanding the language paradigms of their various social groups and conforming accordingly. Amongst the adults, language change occurs to strengthen one’s position in a field by coining new jargon or adapting foreign words to make them unique. Furthermore it is to improve the educational system for the younger generations and thereby influence the attitude towards language use in society. Hence, language change is driven by people of all ages as they adapt to their changing needs through life.

Political Correctness and Taboo

"If we use a word, our listeners naturally assume we have used it intentionally" - David Crystal

In order to maintain an face-saving / reinforcing and positive identity when communicating with others, it is crucial that we develop the ability to anticipate the nuances of our language across various contexts and learn to control them.

Furthermore, we need to have awareness of the ever-evolving attitudes towards language use and tailor our own language in accordance to them in order to maintain a positive identity. This is exemplified in the notion of taboo. The notion of taboo involves profanity, expletives, gestures and other social behaviours that are interpreted as inappropriate or rude in a particular context. The of the degree to which something has the ability to incite shock or offence within an audience are dependent on pre existing social conventions and attitudes within a given context, the relationship between the speaker and the audience and the topic at hand.

In contemporary Australian society, the most sensitive domains relate to gender, race and sexual orientation, and this is reflected in the potential for sexist, racist and homophobic language to create uproar within the community. These notions have been exemplified recently in Australian media with the Adam Goodes incident where a 13 year old girl was removed from an AFL match after calling him an "ape" at Goodes' command. Similarly, Julia Gillard was applauded in her speech in the House of Representatives earlier in 2013 where she called out the Leader of the Opposition's misogynistic behaviour.

The Political Correctness movement began in the 1980s and saw an increasing number of people becoming aware of the potentially discriminatory implications of English and subsequently seeking to eradicate them through purporting a more neutral language. They wanted to substitute things like the "Generic-He" for a more neutralised and inclusive language. Their naive perception was that is offensive language could be eradicated, social change would follow naturally. Their lack of the nature of language saw that the offensive connotations associated with the word "disabled" for example, were soon transferred to its "neutral" replacement term "intellectually handicapped" in "disabled"'s absence.

More issues came about when there were disagreements about what exactly constitutes an offensive term and the fact that is a nigh on impossible to monitor spontaneous speech and eradicate the idiomatic habits of a lifetime. One may refer to a friend as a "fucking cunt" as a term of endearment or as one to elicit maximal offence  It is entirely context dependent. 

 

Jargon vs. Speaking Plainly

"Communication is a two way enterprise, a shared responsibility" - David Crystal

The vocabulary and grammar of medicine, law and bureaucracy is often inaccessible to the average person (average being not a specialised in a given field)

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with the complex language utilised within these domains, as it is often prescribed by the complexity of the concepts being discussed. The issue at hand is the discrepancy between the specialist's level of knowledge and the general public's level of knowledge and how this is accounted for (or not accounted for) when communicating

There are divided opinions on whether keeping language inaccessible to the general public is intention or not, and there is evidence for both arguments. Firstly some people claim ignorance to the fact that the way in which they communicate to individuals outside of their specialist field is confusing them. More insidiously, complex language to the untrained ear can be a truth-concealing obfuscation that is designed to keep people out of the loop in order to emphasise concepts like social hierarchy, social distance and notions of authority and prestige. Given that in contemporary society the solidarity / intimacy function is outweighing its function to reinforce the aforementioned notions designed to segregate people, the employment of difficult language for intentional obfuscation is frowned upon and less common. 

The Plain English Movement accounts for both sides of the coin. It was a piece of social engineering that attempted to redress societal inequalities. The intended audience was the average person struggling with the complexities of law, government, banks and insurance jargons. It has been shown to benefit both the institutions by saving them time and money in avoiding the potential consequences of poor document writing and poor reception by the general public as well as the audience who now find themselves able to read their bank statements without a dictionary in hand. 

Timeline 

1978 - President Carter ordered that all regulations be written in Plain English, which lead to a huge revision of legislation and increased awareness 

1979 - The UK's Plain English campaign was launched by publicly denouncing gobbledegook (Language that is meaningless or is made unintelligible by excessive use of abstruse technical terms) in the shredding of confusing government forms in Parliament Square

1985 - By this time over 21,000 documents had been revised and a further 15,000 withdrawn

1990 - The Plain English Movement set forth a list of criterion comprising of elements which would ensure a document was written in adherence to Plain English Standards. These included

• 15-20 word sentence length
• Easy to read format 
• Active verbs
• Conciseness
• Intimate / personal pronouns
• Short average line length

The Plain English Movement is still active today in the annual Plain English Speaking Awards which celebrate concisely informative writing and vilify obfuscation and gobbledegook by giving out the "Golden Bull Award"

In the U.S the DoubleSpeak awards are presented by the National Council of Teachers of English to a public figure who uses language that is deceptive, evasive, euphemistic or otherwise obfuscating. 

It must be remembered that sometimes there is a need for evasive terminology. Using language that is face saving and sympathetic and euphemistic can avoid emotional pain or alleviate harsh news.

Slang vs. Speaking Correctly

"The chief use of slang, is to show that you're one of the gang" - David Crystal

This quote captures the idea that the function of slang is to identify a social group which is very conscious of its identity. 

Slang can be defined as "informal words and expressions that are not considered standard in the speaker's language or dialect but are considered acceptable in certain social settings". 

Everyone belongs to a range of "gangs" or social groups and this membership can be demonstrated and enforced through utilising the language deemed appropriate in that context. The ability to do so which stems from an understanding of the values and conventions underpinning the ideology of that group

Membership to different groups can indicate a lot about one's own individual identity. Factors such as age, ethnicity, occupation gender, education and personal values can be reflected through the social groups one associates with. 

The nature of slang means that it tends not to be used for a very long time. It either become part of general usage (as in Whatever) or stops being trendy. This idea however, is subjective and not absoloute. It is never possible to be completely definite about the currency of words within the spoken mode of English. As slang can often signal in-group membership, if a particular colloquialism transcends its original social group and pervades general usage, its value within the initial group is diminished and it no longer just signals belonging to one group. 

This notion was exemplified in the 1990s with the rise and fall of the colloquialism "Bling Bling". Initially coined amongst the US rap music scene to denote any kind of exuberant clothing accoutrements, the success of the song in which it was used meant that people outside of the initial social group began to incorporate it into their vernacular. The popularity saw the word used without the reduplication and an expansion in its connotations as a result of the word being used outside of its original context (eg: Mr. Bling - tooth specialist). However, the adaptation of "Bling" by the middle class has rendered it useless to the US rapping community because it no longer signifies in group membership and solidarity for them

The high turnover rate of slang is evidence of its social function to promote in-group solidarity and exclude others. Its short lived nature is due to the fact that once a colloquialism is incorporated into the idiolects of members outside of the social group in which it was originally used, its potential to signal in-group membership is diminished. For example, the term "dropping" amongst some social groups refers to the ingestion of an illicit drug in the form of a pill.It many social groups it has replaced the now passe term "gacked". Speaking in these obscured terms ensures that passers by and eavesdroppers are oblivious to the nature of the conversation whilst promoting social cohesion based on common knowledge within a group.

Some people perceive slang to be the sole domain of "persons of a low or disreputable character" and the driving force in the deterioration of the English language. This contention is based on a prescriptivist (strive for correctness rather than appropriateness) perception of language and overlooks the value of slang in expressing insight into how we think and feel as humans as well as being a reflection of social climate and pop culture and of course a means of indicating social belonging. Slang includes some of the most vulgar, but equally expressive language in all of English, linguist Eric Partridge captured this in saying that "[slang is] the acme and quintessence of spoken and informal language". 

In an unfamiliar context where we will be pinpointed socially, such as meeting a stranger or in a job interview, we tend to adhere to the conventions of Standard English in order to maintain face. Due to Standard English's connotations of overt prestige, its ability to promote in-group solidarity comparatively less than non standard variants of English, unless we are trying to signal belonging to an elite or academic group. 

In a similar way, the quintessentially Australian, non-standard, casual mode of address "mate" not only has the communicative / transactional function of its formal, standard counterparts "Mr and Mrs", it also promotes solidarity in its friendly connotations and intimate nature. Furthermore, hyper-formal modes of address "sir" and "madame" work in the complete opposite direction to establish and reinforce segregating notions of social distance and social hierarchy.