Stylistic classification of the english vocabulary

4. Special Colloquial Vocabulary

a) Slang

By slang we mean non-literary words which are used to create fresh names for some things. Slang used in col­loquial speech has a great expressive force. It is mostly ironical words. For the most part slang words sound some­what vulgar. Slang is nothing but a deviation from the established norm of the language. No one has yet given a more or less satisfactory definition of the term. J. B. Gre- enough and C. L. Kitteridge define slang in these words: "Slang...is a peculiar kind of vagabond language, always hanging on the outskirts of the speech but continually forcing its way into the most respectable company" .

Whenever the notation "si.' appears in a dictionary it may serve as an indication that the unit presented is non- literary.

Besides general (standard) slang we distinguish teenager slang, university (student's) slang, public school slang, prison slang, war slang, lawyer's slang etc.

There are the following slang words for money - be­ans, lolly, brass, dibs, daughs (compare: in Uzbek for пул - якан); for head - attic, brainpen, hat, nut, upper storey, for drunk - boozy, cock-eyed, high.

Instead of "good", excellent" J.Galsworthy used rip­ping, topping corking, swell, A — 1.

Slang used in colloquial speech has a great expressive force. For example, "drag" used as a slang denotes every­thing that is dull, uninteresting, slow ana difficult to do. "it's a long drag" means a dull and long journey.

The function of slang in the written texts may be the following: to characterize the speech of the person, to pro­duce a special impression and humorous effect.

Here are some more examples of slang which have this effect: bread-basket (the stomach); cradle-snatcher (an old man who marries a much younger woman); a big head (a booster); go crackers (go mad); I'll send you an old-bob (I'll send you a shilling).

1. 
   The following stylistic layers of words are generally marked as slang. Words which may be classed as thieves' cant, like dirt (money), dotty (mad), a barker (a gun), to dance (to hang).
   
2. 
   Words derived by means of conversion, one of the most productive means of word-building in present-day English, are also sometimes classed as slang, for example, the noun "agent" is considered neutral because it has no stylistic notation, whereas the verb "to agent" is included in one of the American dictionaries as slang. It is the same with such pairs as "alter" - "to alter", "ancient" (a) - ancient (n).
   
3. 
   Abbreviations as rep (reputation), cig (cigarette), ad (advertisement), sis (sister), ma (mamma) also fall into the category of slang.
   
4. 
   Set expressions which are generally used in collo­quial speech and which are clearly colloquial, are also marked with the notation slang, e.g. "to go in for", "in a way" and others.
   
5. 
   Improprieties of a morphological and syntactical character, e.g. "How come", "I says", double negatives as "I don't know nothing" etc.
   
6. 
   Any new coinage that has not gained recognition and therefore has not yet been received into Standard Eng­lish is qualified as slang.
   

Many words formerly qualified as slang have now be­come legitimate units of Standard English. Thus the word "kid" (child), which was considered slang in the nine­teenth century, is now a legitimate colloquial unit of the English literary language.

Slang is nothing but a deviation from the established norm of the vocabulary of the language. V. V. Vinogradov writes that one of the tasks set before the branch of lingu­istic science that is now called stylistics, is a thorough study of all changes in vocabulary, set phrases, gramma­tical constructions, their functions, an evaluation of any breaking away from the established norm, and classifica­tion of mistakes and failures in word coinage.

So broad is the term slang that, according to Eric Par­tridge, there are many kinds of slang, e.g., Cockney, pub­lic-house, commercial, society, military, theatrical, parlia­mentary and others.

There is a general tendency in England and to some extent in the USA to over-estimate the significance of slang by attaching to it more significance than it deserves. Slang is regarded as the main point of colloquial speech and therefore stands above all the laws of grammar. It is highly praised nowadays as "vivid", "more flexible", "more picturesque", "richer in vocabulary" and so on.