Development of Modern American Slang and its Influence.doc

ContentsAbstract.1Key Words.1 摘 要1关键词11.Introduction.22. The definition of slang23. The Background of Modern American Slang and its Sources.43.1 The Background of Modern American Slang .43.2 The sources of Modern American Slang.54. The basic features of modern American slang and social function64.1 The basic features of modern American slang.64.2 Social functions.105. American slangs current situation and prospect.135.1 The status of modern American slang145.2 Modern American slangs influence on English.145.3 American slangs prospect.166. Conclusion16Bibliography.17Development of Modern American Slang and its Influence Abstract：Modern American slang is a very important part of American English and a quite special language which has a long history and an important position in the United States. 19th century, “Westward Movement” was to promote the formation of American slang; 20th century was a period of its rapid development. In the development process, the American slang gradually formed its own style features: fashionable, humor, simple, vivid, popular and easy to understand, easy to express feelings, updated quickly. At the same time, its role in society is reflected on: the identity of the speaker status, group members to strengthen the relationship of each other; reflect the speakers level of education and culture quality and to reflect the attitude of the Americans for the social reality, provoke the vigor of language and overcome the communicational barrier For the modern American slang, scholars have different attitudes, but they can not deny that its emergence is the need of society and the times. Key Words: Modern American slangs definition; background and sources; basic features and social functions; its current situation and prospect. 摘 要：现代美国俚语作为美国英语的一部分，是一种相当特殊的语言形式，具有悠久的历史，在美国英语中占有重要的地位。19世纪美洲大陆的“西进运动”促使了美国俚语的形成，20世纪则是美国俚语迅速发展的时期。在发展的过程中，美国俚语逐渐形成了自己的风格特点：时尚、幽默风趣、简单明了、生动形象、易于表达情感、更新迅速等。同时，它在社会中的作用则体现在：体现说话者的身份；加强群体中个成员之间的关系；体现说话者的受教育程度和文化素质以及反映美国人对社会现实所抱的态度；唤醒语言的活力；克服语言交流的障碍等。对于现代美国俚语，学者的态度不一，但不可否认，现代美国俚语的出现与发展史社会和时代的要求。关键词:基本定义；背景和来源；基本特征和社会功能；现状及前景。1. IntroductionModern American slang is a very complex language phenomenon. It originally referred to jargon and cannot which used by some special classes, industries or prisoners. Some of them were vulgar, some were simple, humor which accepted by the public, and some only popular in a small range, such as within an industry, a place, a period with its short life and disappear very quickly.But today, more and more people are partial to use slang in their daily life communication and writing technique. According to inaccurate statistics, common words of Americans are about 10,000 to 20,000, of which about 10% more than 2000 words are slangs, and these words are also frequently used in daily life. Thus some linguists are thinking that if a person can not know American slang very well, it is impossible for him to communicate smoothly with Americans, even difficult to read books and newspapers, because modern American slang are often appearing in the newspapers and books.American slang is a kind of informal language and becoming more and more important in communication. Its existence is a result of cultural and historical deposition. The paper makes a simple exposition of modern American slangs background, basic features, basic features and social functions.2. The definition of slangSlang is quite a controversial language; people have different attitudes toward it. It is no wonder that the definition of slang is so variety. However, the slang terms have their own characters; of course, the definitions of it are more or less described in the same way. Therefore, it is nearly impossible to be defined clearly and there have been different definitions and many controversies. We can refer to some of them to give us a special insight into our understanding of slang. The definition of slang in Oxford Advanced Learners English-Chinese Dictionary is: very informal words, phrases, etc commonly used in speech, esp.; between people from the same social group or work together, not considered suitable for formal contexts and often not in use for long. The definition of slang in Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners is: words or expressions that are very informal situations. Some slang is used only by a particular group of people. And the definition of slang in Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English is: very informal, sometimes offensive, language that is used especially by people who belong to a particular group, such as young people or criminals. “Language, words or phrases of a vigorous, colorful, face us, or taboo nature, invented for specific occasions, or use of the standard vocabulary” is defined by the SCD. At the same time, some scholars give us many more vivid and impressive descriptions. “Slang is language which takes off its coat, spit on its hands-and goes to work; “slangs the speech of him who robs the literary garbage cans on their way to the dumps; a peculiar kind of vagabond language, always hanging on the outskirts of legitimate speech, but continually straying or forcing its way into the most respectable company is what we call slang.In the face of many various definitions, its difficult to give us an accurate definition of slang; meanwhile, there is no criterion for us to distinguish slang. Some people will think slang is the synonym of vulgar and unmeaning language, which is commonly used by low social groups and uneducated people, and the upper class should refuse using slang; another people may think slang is easy to say and convenient to communication for its free, humorous, relaxed styles, even some people hold that take American slang in place of American English for its popularity. The feature of informality distinguish slang from the standard English and writing language, the wide usage tells slang from jargon, cant, argot which are only used among some special social groups. Although many people and English learners tend to think slang is a language wastes, we can not judge that slang is good or bad just as we can not come to conclude a man is an angel or a devil. A good man also has some shortcomings; on the contrary, a bad man has his own merits. In fact, it is also hard to distinguish whether a word belongs to slang or not from the angles of linguistics and pragmatics.Now, in Britain and the United States, the prevalence of slang is much beyond the expected linguists. Slang frequently appears in the film, literature, in newspapers and magazines. In daily life, many highly educated people, but also large-scale use of slang exchanges. From Hippies to Yuppie, slang has its own set. The conservative middle class also spoke slang, and has been critical of politicians in order to establish the “People First” image, and also some occasions the use of slang. An Anglo-American country at all levels, so, the widespread use of slang, mainly due of the language of slang is extremely performance of appeal and enrichment. 3. The Background of Modern American Slang and its SourcesSlang has a long history, since the language appears, there is the slang. But American slang is different. 3.1 The Background of Modern American SlangAmerican slang was begun in “Mayflower”, according to professor Dicksons study. 19thcentury, many Americans were immigrating to the west, forming a large scale population movement in Americans “Westward Movement”. In this way, dialects of each fields and jargon of various social classes were used one after another, people passed by each other. Because of U.S. official do not emphasize the “Standard Language”, and rarely carry on “language purification”, jargon and common saying after use by nonstop to spread, it was becoming a slang used by Americans today. Meanwhile, the United States is a mixture of different ethnic immigrant country, these immigrants brought their own language, also create many new vocabulary words after a period of time to get along, so that the number of American slang is growing very quickly. In 20th century, American slang is development quickly. It is creating much slang in two World Wars, Vietnam War, Korean War, the Cold War and other periods. American society is still exist many social issues, such as: racial discrimination, civil rights movement, family disintegration, the younger generation of alcohol and drug abuse, antiwar movement, sexual freedom, homosexuality and so on. These issues were urging American slang to spring up. And with the rapid economic development and technological process of the eighties and nineties, American slang was showing a vibrant vitality: computer slang, sports slang, campus slang and other slangs substantial increase and into daily lives.3.2 The sources of Modern American SlangAmerican is a multi-ethnic country, different nations have different languages. Slang was created by varieties of nations and all classes of people in their living and working times, it reflected its languages national characteristics, history, economy, life, customs and culture. Therefore, if we want to master American slang, we must understand and study the characteristics of its nation and unique folk customs.American is a developed country which has abundant resources, advanced science and technology, so slang are numerous and complex both in subject matter and in sources.3.2.1 MilitaryDuring World War II, military slang was developed quickly because American sent some troops overseas. Such as: 1) Gear: equipment material, soldiers use it in marching and fighting. In movie Save Private Ryan, executive told soldiers: “Get your gears and necessities and we go.”This is the common used terms during the war in Vietnam.2) Ammo: a variety of ammunition. Short of ammo, so we need backups. This is the common language in army since World War II. 3) Boot: soldiers who just joined the U.S. Navy or Army, it also refers to leather leggings used to train new soldiers. This is very popular during the Second World War, so far until today. 3. 2.2 Sports, culture and music1) Nineteen hole: bar in Seoul Ministry Golf Club or a glass of whiskey after played golf. This is a fairly generic witty phrase, because there are eighteen holes in golf course, so nineteenth hole is drink whiskey.2) Rock and roll: began in 50s, once popular in the United States until today.3) Jazz: popular music in early 20th, from southern United Stated, to express their feelings.3. 2.3 Daily life1) Coaster: people who live on coast of U.S. Atlantic and Pacific. United States is a long coastline country, so residents who living in the Atlantic and Pacific coast is collectively known as the coaster. 2) Coffin nail: since 1980th, some people thought that smoking a cigarette more equal and more nail in his coffin.3.2.4 New things and new conceptsAt last, the emergence of new things and concepts give a huge promote to expand of slang. New objects, ideas require new words to describe them. With the development of media, a lot of slang words were created and widely spread. Such as: sitcom (situation comedy), phone-in (a radio or television broadcast during which telephoned questions or opinions from the public are heard), chat show (talk show), bomb (failure) etc. We can also take the modern science and technology as an example: bird (the satellite of dispatch), chip head (enthusiast of computer). Similarly, creation of slang occurs in other fields, such as sports, campus and so on. So the development of all aspects of society gives tremendous amount birth to the slang. Finally, American slang is quickly appearing and expanding under the above-mentioned backgrounds. The existence of language is restricted by cultural context of society and sentiment of the speaker.4. The basic features of modern American slang and social functions4.1 The basic features of modern American slangSlang is a language used in peoples life; the peoples language is simple and clear. The reason why the English slang is so popular and accepted, welcomed by people, on the one hand is its rich expressive power and profound thought, the other is its very practicality. Its basic features are obvious as follow: 4.1.1 Fashionable Because of the social orientation and value standards evaluation is different, American slang dozen top distinct times and once very popular. Such as “grove” originally refers to record grain, later it turned into slang, its meaning is great, popular, and fantastic. Because the pop singer once famous, their songs quickly be recorded quickly into record. As cool, the word “grove” synonym, it used until today, so grove was disappear quickly.With the development of language, a lot of old words were giving some new meanings. These words have great sense of humor. For example, the standard language used to express the original “good” words were “ good, great, excellent”, etc. have been rarely used because they are unable to convey the rapid development of the society gave rise to a variety of stimulation and excitement. So the old words are given new meaning, just like dope, tight, cool and sweet, they all can be said “good”.The sixth edition of “American Slang Dictionary, University of California, Los Angeles"” will be available, and in this the latest slang dictionary, the name of Barack Obama included, but here, “Obama” is no longer a name, it become a synonym of “cool”, such as: Youre Obama” means “you are cool”. Slang is a manifestation of social culture, it is walking in the forefront of fashion, is a synonym of new things. If you don not know its meaning, then you are out.4.1.2 HumorMuch American slang was used homophonic to achieve enough understandable, vivid powerful object weird effect, especially use YaWei rhyme gimmick to achieve vivid and humorous expression effect. For example: wiggle-waggle (摇摆,聊天,嚼舌头), tiptop (非常杰出的), super-super (特别大的,引人注目的,显着的), razzle-dazzle (狂欢,陶醉), hurry-scurry (慌慌张张), hoity-toity (神气十足), ding-ding (精神饱满的,坚强的), dilly-dally (游手好闲的) and so on. In this way, people feel living rhythm, the voice sweet, it will assist the language widely spread and smooths communication and a sense of humor.The modern American slang mainly through acronym, repeated, shortened methods to reflect its vocabulary humor. Much American slang is composed of by the first letter acronym, as we know: NATO is initials composition of North Atlantic Treaty Organization(北大西洋公约组织) , But innovative, humors of Americans have already