Slang

Shoko Fujiwara
Kei Kobayashi

Introduction

“What’s up?”, “Gotcha”, “Piece of cake”. Have you ever heard of these words
before? How about Japanese ones? Have you ever heard of words, “ マ ッ ク す る ”
( Makku suru) or “ バ リ サ ン ” (Bari san)? The English words which we mentioned
before such as “What’s up?” or “Gotcha” surprised us when we were studying abroad in
the U.S. because we had never heard of these words. In fact, dictionaries do not have the
meaning of them. However, many people use these kinds of words. What is that?

We are talking about slang in some points. At first, we are talking about slang
in general such as examples of it and its use and purpose. Next, we are going to talk
about the attitude of people to slang. Finally, we will talk about a theory which is
connected with slang..

1. Slang
a) What’s slang?
Slang is the non-standard use of words in a language and sometimes the
creation of new words or importation of words from other languages.
Slang is defined by the Longman Advanced American Dictionary as ‘very
informal language that includes new and sometimes offensive words, and that is
those used especially only by people who belong to a particular group, such as
young people or criminals’. Then slang generally implies playful, informal
speech.
In addition, people do not use slang in public such as in meeting, official
documents, announcements, speeches and scholarly books because it could be
vulgar, offensive and make people uncomfortable. If people use slang in a bad
way, it will cause him or her.

b) Its origin
1
 Slang could be from abbreviations and comparisons. Moreover, it has its root in
dialect., It used to be strongly connected with each region. It means it was
difficult to recognize the differences of slang between region and another one.
However, nowadays thanks to the advancement of technology such as the
Internet and email, the differences between them is getting smaller and smaller.
On the other hand, because of the advancement, slang has been changing.

Ex) in English

the word for “a good thing”

“swell” in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s
“groovy” in the 1960s
“cool” in the 1970s and still now

in Japanese

“うざい・うざったい” (Uzai ・Uzattai; it means annoyance)

used as the dialect of Tama, Japan in the past

used almost everywhere in Japan nowadays.

Hence, slang is often particular to a brief period of time from decades to only a
few moths. It means slang widely used and understood at one time.

c) its use and purpose

Slang is used for some purposes and it has many kinds such as African
American slang, Australian slang, Gay slang and Hip hop slang. As an another
example, there is Internet slang. Internet slang has been developed by Internet
users over the years. The purpose of it is saving keystrokes (acronym) and often
written in lower case.

E.g.) Acronym
BTW ; By The Way CU See you
FYI ; For Your Information TIA ; Thanks In Advance
Like this, the use and purpose of slang will be different from the subjects like
Internet slang. However, another purpose of slang could be to communicate with other
2
people, especially close and friendly people easily and smoothly. In addition, by using
slang, people can share and show their feelings only among them.

Ex) When a girl talks to her friend about quarrel with her parents last night
With slang
“聞いてよ～。昨日、親とケンカして。マジむかつくんですけど”
( Listen to me, I had a quarrel last night. It really annoyed me.(

Without slang
“聞いてよ～。昨日、親とケンカして。本当に腹が立つの”

2. Attitude
1) The reasons for agreement
① no interruption
Some people agree with use of slang because slang does not interrupt standard
language. Slang just adds another expression of it. In fact, the words which
people often use do not change.

② for communication
Some people think slang helps them to communicate with other people easily
and more closely. They think it gives them the same feeling.

③ language changes
Some people think language changes because of three things; laziness,
breaking castle, infectious disease. Speaking of laziness, people want to speak
easier, shorter and faster so the language which they speak change. About
breaking castle, this is one of the idea of language. Some people think language
is like an old castle. They want to keep it beautiful because they think the castle
is the most beautiful. However, in fact language changes so it is not beautiful
anymore.
Because of these things, people who agree with use of slang realize that
language changes. Same as slang..

2) The reasons for disagreement

1 it causes confusion of Japanese
According to the survey of NHK (Nippon Hoso Kyokai), about a
confusion of Japanese, the percentage of people who think that Japanese
3
 has been disturbing is more than 80 %. In addition, the number has
increased year and year. People who are over 30 strongly think of it.

2 to protect traditional Japanese

Some people think that we have to protect traditional Japanese forever
because it is our history. It is so beautiful. In fact, many young people do
not know honorific words, which are used to the older and they use slang
or bad expressions. Especially the honorific words of Japanese are rich
then they think young people should try to learn the honorific words rather
than slang or bad expressions.

3 uncomfortable
Some people feel uncomfortable to hear slang because they think it is not
Japanese or they can not understand the meaning of it. Especially the older
feel it.

3. Accommodation Theory
When we talk with other people, subconsciously we tend to change our style of
speech towards the style used by the listener. For example, we tend to speak more
slowly when communicating with foreigners, or use grammatically simple language
with babies or children. In addition, the length both pauses and utterances, the kind
of vocabulary and syntax used, as well as intonation, voice pitch and pronunciation
are all subjected to the accommodation theory. In other words, we accommodate to
others by adjusting our communicational behavior to the requisite roles.
Accommodation theory tends to occur when the speakers like each other. In
this case, to communicate is the most important for them. They do not need to care
about grammatical rules or accuracy.
From this point of view, slang and accommodation theory is similar. It is the
most important thing for people who use slang is to express their ideas and opinions
to others easily. It is useful to use slang when we do not need to speak perfectly
grammatical or politely.