Culture Features in American Slang 美国俚语的文化特征 毕业论文

美国俚语中的文化特征 Culture Features in American SlangAbstract:With the development of the society, slang is accepted by more and more Americans. This thesis analyses features and functions of American slang. The author draws a conclusion that American slang reflects the cultural characteristics of Americans’ humor, informality, self-confidence, anti-authority, innovation consciousness and pursuit for time efficiency.Key Words:American slang; feature; culture摘　要:随着社会的发展，俚语越来越多地为美国人所接受本论文分析了美国俚语的语言特色等此分析反映出了美国人幽默，非正式，反权威，追求时间效率，自信和具有创新意识独特的文化特征。

关键词:美国俚语;特点;文化IntroductionEnglish slang can be defined to common colloquial language, and according to the definition of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary (1985), slang is usually used as colloquial words and phrase. It cannot be regarded as Standard-English, thus this shows that, slang is Nonstandard-English. However, slang is very popular in the English-speaking countries nowadays. Slang is spoken by people in daily speech, and even magazine and literary works may find a large number of them. With the development of the society, slang is widely used by more and more people, especially in America, slang can be found favorable in the Americans’ eyes. It is accepted by both upper-class and lower-class, and especially the college students who tend to use up-to-date words that form a kind of characteristic style of themselves. Slang plays an important part in American English. It is reported that slang accounts for one of the tenth of American average vocabulary.People’s attitude toward slang varies from person to person. Some think that slang cannot be used on the formal occasion, for it is spoken by the illiterate people only and the slang terms are so coarse. Some even think that slang is the filthy language, and advocate abandoning using it. However, others hold the opposite idea. They think that slang play an important role in English language, because of its fresh, lifelike, humor and adequate expressions. One must admit the undeniable fact that slang is spoken by more and more people.In modern times, if one is not familiar with American slang he or she could not capture the slang expressions in the movie and common fictions, and, what worse, one would make mistakes when they are talking with the Americans. An example will clarify the fact. A guide asks the tourist “anybody wants to take a leak?”(Does anybody want to go to the restroom?), and, of course, what the guide said would make the tourist surprise. It is the uneducated vulgarity of expression at all. Therefore, one should bear in mind that it is very important to study language in a sociocultural context; the language has existed in close contact with culture. From the example one can know that misusing slang would result in misunderstanding in the communication. It can not tell others that one is good at English. It is not thus; moreover it shows that one just has half-back knowledge about slang.Americans speak colorful, idiomatic English that may have little resemblance to the language one studied in school. Even a native English speaker might be confused by the combination of slang that characterizes American conversation. So it is very important to capture the American slang expression in order to know others correctly.This thesis starts with the analysis of the cultural condition of American slang, and its purpose is to probe into the features of slang so as to bring the relationship between slang and society culture to light.Ⅰ.American SlangSlang is quite a controversial language, people have different attitude toward it. It is no wonder that the definition of slang is so variety. However, the slang terms have their own characters, and, of course, the definitions of it are more or less described in the same way.A. The Definition of SlangSlang is a rather special parole. It is neither the word that beyond the regular role of grammatical usage, nor rural dialect. Although it is quite different from acrolect which used on the formal occasion, people quite like to use it in daily speech. As a matter of fact, the meaning of most slang is similar to the words of colloquial style. Some consider one word is slang, while others might not think so. For example, the old may believe the word bike is slang, but the youth might not .Bicycle is trisyllabic, while bike is monosyllabic, it is so troublesome to pronounce the word with trisyllabic, and of course, the youth prefer to omit some other two syllables, and bike is spoken by the youth more often. To some certain slang, it is hard to tell the differences between slang and colloquial style. One of the definitions of it is, “the body of words and expression frequently used by or intelligible to a rather large portion of the general public, but not accepted as good; formal usage by the majority” (Flexner, 1975:3). Another saying, “slang is used to denote the frequently vivid or playful lexical usage typical of casual discourse, usually indicating membership in a particular social group”. (Quirk et al, 1985:76)According to Oxford Linguistic Dictionary（2000）, “slang used especially of vocabulary specific for example, to a particular generation of younger speakers; also as in ordinary usage, specific to a group or a profession (e.g. ‘army slang’), to colloquial style, etc”.From all above, even though people have different idea about slang, one still can find out some common characteristics of it. And what about American slang? It is found that slang can be regarded as words and phrases or particular meanings of words in common informal use, but generally it is not seen as standard in a language that used by specified expression or class. It is natural to refer it as the words that are commonly used, and can be understood by all people in America.B. The Origination of American SlangActually, many people do not know exactly when slang came into use, but it was very long ago when it appeared in Americans’ life, for instance, cuckoo has been used before 1600, enthuse has been used since 1825, and bike since 1880.Most linguistics believe that slang has a history as long as language. Slang vocabulary expressions came from a wide rage of sources. Mainly from the practice of people’s life, some slang was borrowed into. Sub-culture in American society in part contact and must be taken into account when we consider the origin of the American slang. Because sub-culture in American society laid foundation for the generation of slang. Most speakers of Standard English have always been avoiding using slang, because the kind of slang that they have been familiar with are those originating the so-called canting talk of the criminal world. For example, “on the lam” is argot; they were spoken by the criminal syndicate and the embezzling group. Drug smoker referred to nose candy, black stuff, shooting gallery to illegal drug.With the development of social economy, the changing of people’s language is becoming faster and faster. Slang flourished on the American Continent since the twentieth century. It was created and used by policeman, politician and businessman, especially college students, words like neat awesome, vicious(very good) was very popular among the youth in 90s, and like words bread(money), blood (man), cool hot(very good) at last were accepted as Standard English.There were frequent contact among the people of different groups, slang eventually spread to the limits of the sphere of influence of the place in which they arise, and bring about within that area a greater degree of linguistic conformity. There is still some slang we do not know when they came into being. The nature of the evidence is that one can infer that a new form has emerged, but one are given no idea who started the new word or why.Ⅱ. Features of American SlangIn the following passage, we will focus our study of American slang from a macro aspect: its features such as playful tones, artistic possibilities, and abundance of synonyms, its hierarchy nature and other characteristics manifested in the process of development. Through the features of slang, one can infer some characters of the Americans.A. The General Features of American SlangThere are certain general features embodied in American slang. Firstly, American slang often conveys an acerbic, even offensive attitude and lends itself to poke fun at pretentiousness. The feature of slang lies in the rarity with which it obeys propriety and it is in the area of fundament emotions that American slang is most changeable and most productive. There are many American slang terms for women involving people’s emotion and judgment. American call a good-looking woman skirt, biscuit or swan, which manifest people’s positive feelings. In comparison, an ugly female is named silly duck, cloud, black monkey, which contains people’s negative emotions.Secondly, American slang is also noted for its artistic possibilities, which are manifested by four masters of its use for literature: Artemus Ward, O. Henry, George Ade, and Walter Winchell. American slang is extraordinarily rich in synonyms; it has a veritable synonymy. In American slang, the ideas most fertile in synonymy are those of drinking, money, and the ***ual organs and etc. In Hall, B H.’s Slang Dictionary(1986)may find numerous synonyms for mild intoxication, which “beery” “bemused”, “bosky”, “buff”, “corned”, “elevated”, “foggy” “fresh”, “hazy”, “kisky”, etc.Thirdly, there is almost a hierarchy of American slang according to the difference in the vulgarity of slang expressions. The lower social classes in which slang terms originated, the more concrete and ‘immediate’ they are. It tends to be though all slang whatsoever tends to be objective. Next, brevity may not be the soul of American slang, but it is perhaps one of the chief features. Brevity is attained either by apocopate, as in vamp for vampire, mutt for muttonhead, fan for fanatic, etc, the substitution of expressive monosyllables or compound of monosyllables for a longer word or description is very rich in slang. One distinguished feature of American slang is vividness and creativeness. And because its creativeness and fast speed of innovation, it could be noted that another distinguished characteristic of American slang: that of the difficulty in assigning a correct etymology to so many of its units. For slang, the etymology depends upon metaphor and allusion and irresponsible mutilation. When a whimsicality of this kind establishes itself as a permanent colloquialism, or gets into the accepted vocabulary, the etymologist has a hard nut to crack. If the word is at all old, its history is likely to be obscure, for slang seldom get into the print until it has been in circulation for some time (Greenough and Kittredge, 1992:76)In short, in a large part, American slang is slippery in meaning, characterized by its searching for novelty, volatility as well as lightheartedness, ephemeral and its sway with fashion.1. The Linguistic Features of American SlangAfter finishing the macro analysis of American slang, now comes a micro analysis of American slang by studying slang items for patterns of form and functions through the following aspects: word-formation, semantics.In any language, most new words are formed productively that is, in conformity with patterns already established in the language rather than coinage, the invention of a word merely by putting sound together. American slang exploits existing forms and their current meanings in various ways, drawing on and often mixing resources from the sound system, the world-building process, paradigms, and the speakers’ knowledge of the culture. In this section, the most important word formation devices of American slang are introduced: compounding, affixes and shortening1.1. CompoundingCompounding is a most common word-formation method in American slang. Many American slang words are in the picturesque composition forms such as whatdyecallem, attaboy, and booze-foundary. etc. Sometimes, words of the same meaning may generate several different compounding forms, for example, yields in slang frat, fratty, frattty-bagger, fratrat, fradom, and fraout, all referring in same way to the stereotype behavior of members of a particular kind of male social organization.1.2. AffixesBesides compounding, Affixes is another important way of American slang word-formation. American slang uses many of the same prefixes and suffixes. The productive prefix in recent use in American slang is perma-‘a great amount of’. The American slang contains perma-include: permagross, permanerve, permagrim.1.3. ShorteningShortening is a common phenomenon in American slang formation. American words such as pro, mike, pix, photo and ad all belong to this type of word forming. American slang incline to curtail words, many such clippings are regarded as Standard English gradually.2. Semantics Feature of American SlangSlang embodies in itself many semantic features, one of which is that slang usually provides an alternative vocabulary for referents already named in the language. Nearly all slang consists of old words change in form or, far more often, old words with new meanings or new shades of meaning.In the process of sense-changing is the idea which wanders from word to word and from one metaphor to another: sometimes the last or even (an intermediate) sense becomes very different from the first. For instance, as McKnight observed, “in the face of wind” becomes “in the teeth of wind”.B. Americans’ Characters Reflecting from American SlangSociolinguists talk about the function of a language in an abstract sense, that is, not in term of using language to chat, to think, to buy and sell, to read and write, to greet people, etc; they more often connect language with social contexts to explore its social function, i.e., social effect.1. HumorAmerican characters could be reflected from American slang that they daily use. An element of humor is almost always present in American slang, usually as humorous exaggeration. For instance, to call a hat a lid is amusing because it puts a hat and a pot-lid in the same class. Frequently grotesque and fantastic American slang is spoken with intent to produce a startling or original effect. American slang is hardly bitter in these implied judgments. Many slang words, indeed, are arisen from pleasurable activities, from the joy of life.The humorous effect achieved by American slang is safe allow a person to test his or her interest and values in relation to those of the group without fear of losing status or esteem. Often, humor is the device for masking discomfort in talking about subjects that have traditionally not been talked casually in polite society. A woman says that she has been jilted by her lover, giving the appearance of talking the rejection lightly, even though the breaking out of the relationship between the two may actually be quite painful.Finally, besides its social function, on a lower rhetorical level the forms of American slang, which are humorous merely because the sound of the slang word is funny, such as the word skeezicks refers to a disrespectful name of a man. Such display of slang in humorous function is very rich. From what have been talked above, one could infer that American people are full of the spirit of optimism, even when they are in the discomfiture situation.2. Anti-authorityAmerican slang often oppose to the established authority. Slang is typically cultivated among people in a society who have little political power, like adolescents, college students, and enlisted personnel in the military. At the first place, slang was used to be a monopolizing language which is largely used by the underworld people, such as, sinister gang, homo***ual, girlie, prisoners and gamblers. American slang can be a verbal expression of fundamental opposition, showing a rage of attitudes from slight irreverence to downright subversives.As a matter of fact, the anti-authority effect of slang has long been noted, for, in the early years of the use of the slang term, its antiestablishment quality was obvious, and for the term was mainly applied to special vocabulary of criminals, who by definition oppose to the conventions and norms of established society. Over the centuries, the slang has been extended to apply to the vocabularies of other identifiable groups, but those who by and large live within the law; they have developed vocabulary in the opposite to the Standard English for reasons of group solidarity. Groups like these violate the conventions of propriety just as they violate civil or criminal laws.Generally speaking, American students, especially college students have strong personalities. They are not afraid of making mistakes and they are full of curiosity, pursuit new things and are crazy about them. At the same time, they have a strong sense of independence; and do not bend blindly to any authorities. They are ready to change tradition conventions and customs, like their ways of using language. They employ slang terms in their conversation to show their attitude against the society or their own way of thinking. They call male course as bears and the students’ flattering action to their teachers as apple-polishing.3. Informality American slang changes the level of discourse in the direction of informality. It reveals more or less about the speakers or the speakers’ attitude towards the subject matter or audience. The following are examples that illustrate how the effect of informality is achieved by using American slang. Sentence A in the example contains only neutral vocabulary which does not call attention to itself. In the sentence B of the example, a slang word is substitutes for a neutral term, it can be observed clearly that the result of the sentence is less informal. Example1:A. We left at three o’clock.B. We split at three o’clock. Example2:A. I saw the defendant at 11A.m., and he was aired drunk.B. I saw the defendant at 11A.M., and he was already polluted.The sentence “A” may will be informal even without slang words. However, the presence of slang words in “B” version makes the sentence blatantly and deliberately informal and restricts the situations in which they may prudently be used. Americans have always prized the seductive idea of private freedom, and empowered spontaneity.4. Time EfficiencyAmericans usually use the clipping words. There are many slang terms form like that. For instance, prof refers to profession, pro refers to professional men. Such kind of slang expression is very rich in American slang. We know that Americans place considerable value on appointments. They tend to organize their activities by means of schedules. As a result they may seem to be in a hurry, always running from one thing to next, and they are not able to relax and enjoy themselves. Foreigners see this as being “ruled by the clock”. In this country it is a way of assuring that things get done. It is no wonder that Americans use concise words, especially slang terms to express themselves in order to save time.5. Self-confidenceThe American society is the most culturally diverse society in the world. Even with this diversity, it is possible, in general, to describe attitudes and practices that are common among Americans. Americans are confident and self-confident. They always say yes to life, they think that they are on top of the world and everything is going like what they expect. In their conversations, they always vaguely express their view as to what the fact is, what the wish is and what the expectation of future is. To certain degree, this is the exaggerated use of American language; especially the American slang words. These simple but clear examples indeed display their trait of self-confidence. For examples, American people like 。