We explain what slang is, its social function, characteristics and examples. Also, differences between slang and jargon.
What is slang?
The word slang is a loan from the French (Gallicism) from the seventeenth century, which originally designated an organized group of beggars (since slang it meant "beg", "beg" or "steal"). But over time this term ended up designating the language specific used by persons belonging to the same group, defined on the basis of their social status, their profession, their hobbies, or other common factors.
For example, it is possible to speak of "criminal slang" or "street slang", to refer to the way it is spoken in prisons or in the slums, respectively, in the sense that not everyone could understand and master the uses of saying language, thus unintentionally revealing that he does not belong to the group.
Thus, the different forms of slang are often associated with the marginal and often criminal sectors of the city. society, that is, to speaks in its most informal and colloquial variant. These codes, however, are the object of study by linguists and are considered as a factor of innovation and change in Languages, by means of the partial alteration of the lexical meanings and through the incorporation of idioms.
In some contexts it is also common to use the word germanía as synonymous slang.
Slang Features
Slang, in general terms, is characterized by the following:
- Its use is restricted to one community determined, as a way of communication in "key" and at the same time as a method to identify who belongs and who does not belong to the "circle".
- They are ephemeral, since they present constant innovation, since they must be in constant change to keep their codes updated. Many words and uses of slang are transferred to the common language and become widespread, and then they must change again to preserve their secrecy or their uses among "connoisseurs".
- They are a source of innovation in the language, as some of its uses are integrated into the colloquial speech of broader sectors.
Slang examples
Examples of slang are the following:
- Prison speech, in which a vocabulary is handled that reflects the existing power relations in a world as hostile as that usually is. It usually has words for “policeman”, for “chief prisoner” or for “submissive prisoner”, which vary depending on the prison and the geographic region.
- The codes of criminals, who assign proper names to activities and things that cannot be said in an ordinary way, as they are prohibited. Thus, for example, they have a name for each type of drug, a name for the police, and another for each type of crime.
- Youthful speech, often full of foreigners and generational terms that the elderly cannot understand without an explanation. They usually have proper names for love, sex, elders, etc.
Difference between slang and slang
From a very technical point of view, there is a distinction between the terms slang and jargon, although they can be used colloquially as synonyms. In both cases, they are linguistic varieties, that is, vocabularies that belong to a particular group or social group, but differ in their valuation:
- Slang. As we have seen, slang is typically informal and vulgar, associated with the underground sectors of society. For that reason it is not common to speak of scientific slang, for example, but of jargon. For example: prison slang, criminal slang.
- Jargon. This term is used to name the linguistic variety belonging to specialized sectors of society, often incomprehensible to common speakers because it requires training or knowledge prior to access it. For example: medical jargon, literary jargon.