The study had the aim to find out what attitudes high school students and their teachers had towards slang expressions from the English language, in which situations the students used slang, where they learned these expressions from and if there were any differences between boys and girls. The methods used were both (a quantitative method by using) questionnaires for students and (a qualitative method by) interviews with teachers. The result shows that students were positive towards using English speaking slang and they mostly used the expressions while communicating with friends or online. The students learned slang expressions from social media platforms and other websites, music, film/television series and friends. The teachers had a neutral attitude towards slang and their view on the matter was that students had difficulties in using formal English since students learned informal English from popular culture.

The purposes of this thesis are to present a study of Jose S. Alvarez, known as Fray Mocho, and his works with particular attention paid to Memorias de un vigilante; to make a study of lunfardo, the slang of Buenos Aires - its origin, its nature, and its influence on language and literature; and to show the important place of Fray Mocho in the history of lunfardo. To accomplish these purposes, in Chapter I, I have undertaken to present a brief sketch of the life of Fray Mocho. Then I attempt to make a brief introduction to his literary work and place it into the literary history of Argentina. Chapter II contains first a discussion of the nature of and importance of Memorias de un vigilante and then a linguistic study, with definitions and etymologies, of the lunfardo vocabulary Fray Mocho gives in "Mundo lunfardo". This is a link with Chapter III which is a study of lunfardo and its historical and sociological background as well as a discussion of the sources of its vocabulary, and the nature of the language. This study of lunfardo closes with a discussion of the influence of lunfardo has had on literature and the spoken language. The conclusion is an attempt to bring together Fray Mocho and lunfardo and show his important place in the history of slang. / Arts, Faculty of / French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies, Department of / Graduate

Made available in DSpace on 2017-06-01T18:24:31Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 dissertacao_romulo_felipe.pdf: 691081 bytes, checksum: 376d66f9ae27cbfb9add98399b728f06 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-07-08 / This study aims to find the use of slang among high school students in a private school in the city of Recife. It has been assumed criptologic aspect of the use of this, as a representative of a variation linguistic identity of social group by age, as opposed to the group of adults. The identity of the teenager was also set by its language. As method will be conducted 12 interviews semidirectives, with students of both sexes, aged from 16 to 18 years old and recorded by electronic way, a college network of private schools. Through an analysis of content, there will be a lifting of slang used according the students by sex, an investigation of the significance of their use among the subjects in the daily school and extra-school, and also identified the context of use in the socio-cultural environment of the student. It will involve situations as a break from class, be in the classroom without a teacher, be in a shopping center, the beaches, among others. This research raises contributions to the thinking and perception about the use of idioms and their context of occurrence among teenagers / Este estudo tem como objetivo pesquisar o emprego da gíria entre estudantes do ensino médio numa escola privada na cidade do Recife. Parte-se do pressuposto do aspecto criptológico do uso da gíria, como uma variação linguística representativa de uma identidade de grupo social por faixa etária, em oposição ao grupo de adultos. A identidade do adolescente se configura igualmente através da sua linguagem. Foram realizadas 12 entrevistas semidiretivas, com estudantes de ambos os sexos, na faixa etária de 16 a 18 anos de idade, gravadas por meio eletrônico, em um colégio da rede particular de ensino. Através de uma análise de conteúdo, foi realizado um levantamento das gírias empregadas pelos estudantes, por sexo, uma investigação do significado dos respectivos usos entre os sujeitos no cotidiano escolar e extraescolar, como também identificado o contexto de uso da gíria no ambiente sociocultural do aluno, envolvendo situações como intervalo de aula, estar na sala de aula sem o professor, estar no shopping, nas praias, entre outros. Com esta pesquisa, espera-se suscitar contribuições para a reflexão e a percepção quanto ao uso das gírias e o seu contexto de ocorrência entre adolescentes

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Social media, movies and games all have something in common – they all have a tendency to foster slang. Adolescents of today consume these mediums virtually every day, and thus they easily adopt these slang terms faster than any other group. As they are influenced by the slang and informal style used in these mediums, this type of language use may become dominant and spill over on their academic English. The main objective of this study is to investigate the opinions of three Swedish upper-secondary EFL teachers through qualitative interviews. In the interviews, the teachers presented their opinions in relation to whether the usage of slang is evident in their students’ assignments as well as their opinions on the potential possibilities and challenges involved in working with slang in the classroom. The teachers noticed an emergence of informal language, and slang to a certain extent, in their students’ assignments. Profanities occurred as well, albeit more rarely and more so through speech. The teachers emphasized the importance of addressing slang by way of marking or discussion. They mostly saw the benefits of working with slang as a theme in the classroom due to it potentially being a fun learning experience and an opportunity to learn about cultural differences in the English-speaking world. However, the challenges were that it requires a certain amount interest from the teacher and it may take time that could be spent working on other goals.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / This study investigated teenage language and its functions. More specifically, after conducting a data analysis which revealed the most common features of “teen speak,” the features were dissected for their usage patterns and significance within the realm of adolescent life and development. The research was based on linguist Marcel Danesi’s model of teenage language, which provided a comparative basis for analysis and categorization.

The aim of this thesis is to analyze the synchronic variation in usage of the word bro in English speaking TV shows that aired 2017, by extracting data from The TV Corpus. In today’s society bro is becoming more and more frequent in use and the increase seems to be partly due to the high level of nuance the word has. It can be used in several situations. This is shown in the results where the categories of gender, age, race/ethnicity, relationship and context are presented. Combined, the examined material shows that the most common situation for the usage of bro is a white adult male saying it to his white adult male friend in a work-related context. This suggests a trend where bro has developed from only meaning brother to also mean friend or more specifically, male friend, nowadays. This kind of development is not unusual for clipped words, that is, shortened words that retain a meaning similar to the original word.  The results of this study suggest that bro is becoming more integrated into the language and that bro seems to be a word tied to a masculine stereotype. However, further studies are needed to determine all the nuances of the word bro and how it will continue to evolve in the future.

Many of us have grown up hearing or using words meant as insults or negative adjectives that were in fact names for social groups. Most of them have gone unquestioned in the mainstream consciousness, but the term Gay in the generally negative meaning has in the past years been given attention as offensive and homophobic, with debates emerging in response over whether or not this is true, particularly on the internet. It is the articles and forum threads from these debates that make out the empirical material for a qualitative study as I ask what these people’s thoughts are about this term and how it is perceived. After a qualitative coding and analysis of these texts, and interpretation of the results based on Erving Goffman’s theory of Phantom acceptance and stigma terms, Judith Butler’s theory of performativity, Ferdinand de Sassure’s theory of signifier and signified and how it connects to the community and Baudrillards theory of simulacra, this is the principal conclusion that I have drawn: For some of the people in this debate, the term Gay and its use is about homophobia and heterosexism, though mostly it’s not overt but a subconscious part of the continued dehumanization and stigmatization of homo- and bisexual people. This is a position I call The socially focused skepticism. Others distance themselves from this idea, talking about language development, the lack of inherent meaning of words and freedom of expression. Using Baudrillard for guidance, I interpret this as having a different, more abstract view of language than those who connect the term to heterosexism, and with this focus on language I name this position The language centered defense. Yet another group frame their reasoning about the term in compromise, preferring to limit their use of it to certain contexts rather than disposing the habit entirely or risk causing offense. To these people, whether or not the word is homophobic is less relevant to the discussion than showing respect for how it can be perceived, which gives their position the name The compromising position.

This thesis examines the use of non-standard language, more specifically non-standard vocabulary (i.e. slang, verlan, colloquialisms, vulgarities, foreign borrowings, and abbreviations), in a corpus of selected francophone rap tracks in order both to quantify its use and to investigate what determines its variation, focusing on the impact of diachronic, diatopic, gender and diaphasic determinants. The methodology relies on a lexicographic analysis to produce quantitative results which are then analysed qualitatively by means of extract analyses and semi-structured interviews with francophone rappers. To answer the research questions, the thesis is divided into five chapters. The first chapter presents the aforementioned methodology and the overall quantitative results from the thesis, while also introducing the notion of variation, which is then tackled in the last four chapters. The second chapter investigates diachronic determinants from two perspectives: different generations of rappers (1990/1991, 2001 and 2011) and one artist throughout his career (Akhenaton in 1991, 2011 and 2011). The third chapter looks at diatopic determinants, analysing the impact of ethnic and spatial origins. Three ethnic origins are compared (rappers of French, Algerian and Senegalese origin), together with three cities (Marseille, Paris and Brussels) and three departments (Hauts-de-Seine, Seine-Saint-Denis and Val-de-Marne). The fourth chapter focuses on gender determinants, with a comparison of male versus female rappers that also takes broader gender performativity into account. Finally, the fifth chapter examines the impact of diaphasic determinants. It analyses three rap genres (jazz/poetic, ego trip and knowledge rap), which then form the foundation for qualitative discussions of the effect of aesthetics, figures of speech, themes and performance. In conclusion, the contribution to knowledge of this work is the observation that the main determinant of high use of non-standard vocabulary is the performance of modern ego trip. The other determinants do not impact non-standard vocabulary to the same extent quantitatively or systematically, due to the complexity of the contextual and fluid identity performances involved with these determinants.

The aim of this dissertation is to prove that tsotsitaal is widely spoken in the black townships and interferes with the correct usage of standard Zulu. Secondly, the intention is to prove that the influence of Zulu on tsotsitaal is greater than that of any other African language. In chapter 2 the standard language, colloquial variety and tsotsitaal are compared and parallels are drawn between the last two speech varieties. Chapter 3 concentrates on the static and dynamic elements of tsotsitaal as far as morphology is concerned. In chapter 4, the focus is on the meaning of tsotsi words in their social context. Words and phrases which appear and sound like Zulu words spoken by the tsotsis, have a different meaning. Chapter 5 is the concluding chapter. It provides reasons why tsotsitaal is dynamic. It hints at the usefulness of tsotsitaal and its detrimental effects are also pointed out / African Languages / M.A. (African languages)