British slang TimPed - DiVA portal

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The Use of Slang in British English

- A Study of the Slang used in Football Factory and Little Britain

Tim Pedersen

C-paper, 10p The University of Kalmar Spring, 2007

Supervisor: Maria Estling Vannest?l School of Human Sciences

Abstract

Spring 2007

The languages of the world are constantly changing and slang intrudes the vocabulary of many people all over the world. But what is slang and where does it come from? Are there differences in the slang that men and women use? And what is the point of using slang? It seems that the slang that was used by previous generations has either gone out of use or has now become a part of accepted standard language; basically, the youth of today reject the slang that their parents used. This would indicate that it is not "cool" to use the same slang as one's parents did and to avoid this, new slang is invented to replace old slang aiding the youth of today to be able to be shocking or amusing by speaking in a certain way.

In this essay the focus lies on the slang of British English and this is investigated by an analysis of a contemporary film and a TV-show to see how common the use of slang is in these kinds of medias. The intention is also too see if slang differs according to gender and in what different areas slang is used.

The film "Football factory" and the TV-show "Little Britain" were closely watched and all slang was noted down and categorized in terms of users and areas of use. To make this easier and to make sure not to lose any parts of the dialogues scripts were found on the internet and used as aids when analyzing. "Football factory" is a movie about British football hooligans which is a very male-dominated world. "Little Britain" is a TV-show consisting of many small sketches with very different characters of both genders but mostly played by male actors.

The results were somewhat surprising as the expectation was to find some slang in the chosen material but the amount of slang use exceeded the expectations. Slang seems to be something that people use in many different areas of use, such as, when talking about sex, drugs or other things that might be taboo. It seems that slang is a big part of the language that both men and women use. However, in the material used for this study, young men were the ones who used slang the most.

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Table of contents

1. Introduction .................................................................................................. 5 2. Background .................................................................................................. 6

2.1 The creation of slang.....................................................................................................6 2.2 Slang and gender...........................................................................................................7 2.3 Functions of slang.........................................................................................................8 2.4 Where do we find slang?...............................................................................................9 2.5 Cockney Slang..............................................................................................................9

3. Method and Material ................................................................................. 10

3.1 Method .......................................................................................................................10 3.2 Material ......................................................................................................................11 3.3 Problems and limitations.............................................................................................12

4. Results ......................................................................................................... 13

4.1 Football factory...........................................................................................................13 4.1.1 Areas of use .............................................................................................................14 4.1.1.1 Talking to or about someone .................................................................................14 4.1.1.2 Talking about sex and other taboos........................................................................15 4.1.1.3 Talking about drugs and alcohol............................................................................15 4.1.1.4 Talking about violence ..........................................................................................16 4.1.1.5 Talking about mood ..............................................................................................16 4.1.1.6 Talking about ethnicity..........................................................................................16 4.1.1.7 Miscellaneous .......................................................................................................17 4.1.2 Users........................................................................................................................17 4.2 Little Britain ...............................................................................................................18 4.2.1 Areas of use .............................................................................................................19 4.2.1.1 Talking to or about someone .................................................................................19 4.2.1.2 Talking about sex and other taboo areas ................................................................19 4.2.1.3 Talking about mood ..............................................................................................20 4.2.1.4 Miscellaneous .......................................................................................................21 4.2.2 Users........................................................................................................................21

5. Conclusion .................................................................................................. 22 6. References ................................................................................................... 24 Appendix 1...................................................................................................... 26 Appendix 2...................................................................................................... 31

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1. Introduction

-"Slang is language which takes off its coat, spits on its hands- and goes to work." ? Carl Sandburg

Slang has, whether appreciated or not, always been a part of our everyday language. Even before the birth of Christ, ancient Greek writers wrote about slang. But, as pointed out by Partridge (1970:1) "Slang is easy enough to use but very hard to write about". This is a true statement as most people use slang, but if asked to define slang, would probably have a hard time in doing so. Slang is used in many different types of media and situations. In computer medicated communication, such as instant messaging, a lot of the language used is slang, such as writing "lol" instead of "laughing out loud" or "C U" instead of "see you". However, slang occurs in oral communication all over the world. But where does this slang come from? It is likely that some of it comes from loanwords from other languages such as the word guzz which is Turkish and means "girl" and which many Swedes would know because of the Turkish immigrants in Sweden.

Another important part in the development of slang is the invention of new words; this phenomenon is very obvious within the hip-hop-culture, but it can also be words that are substitutes for already existing words such as pub, which originated from "public house", but when used frequently enough and by an increasing amount of people gains status (Andersson & Trudgill 1990:70). Today, as slang is used by more and more people one can even find dictionaries of slang on the internet to aid in the understanding of these new words.

Why is slang so popular then? Many groups use slang as a way of defining who they are and what group they belong to. Also in music, slang is very important for many artists to show which genre, be it hip hop or rock, they belong to. Another possible reason can be the film- and television-industry. Actors who are role-modals to many people use this "new cool" language all the time and wanting to be like them many people copy this language and take it "to the street".

Slang is just like any other part of language changing over time. Slang has a very definite expiry date and the slang of one generation is very often replaced with new slang by the following generation.

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Aim

The overall aim of this essay is to investigate British slang as it is reflected in a contemporary film and TV-show. More specific research questions are: - What different areas of use are represented in the slang that is being used? - What differences are there between the way men and women use slang?

2. Background

According to Andersson & Trudgill (1990:80), slang can be traced as far back as 385 BC when Aristophanes was the first writer to use slang extensively. Also Shakespeare used a lot of slang in his plays, such as, clay-brained instead of stupid. In the sixteenth century the English word blockhead was first used, and it is still in use today. Some words originate in Latin, since slang versions of Latin words have become standard versions in other languages, such as tete which means "head" in French but origins from the Latin word testa which means "pot" or "bowl"(Andersson & Trudgill 1990:70). The term "slang" itself was used by British criminals to refer to their own language whereas "cant" was the word used by the outside world (Ibid: 77).

2.1 The creation of slang

Andersson & Trudgill (1990:143) claim that slang is often considered to be bad language usage and the decay of language, rather than a necessary change. A phenomenon typical of language, however, is that the people has the power and if enough people choose to use certain words then these words gain status and are soon accepted parts of our everyday language e.g. pub and phone which were once slang versions of "public house" and "telephone". Geographical location also matters in deciding what is slang or not. The word lad (meaning "boy" or "son") is accepted in the northern parts of England but is considered as slang in the southern parts. Even journalists are beginning to use slang in their writing (Ibid: 70) which of course aids in the acceptance of such language. Slang is mainly a question of vocabulary usage as there are not many grammatical features of slang (Ibid: 73).

Hip-hop is a culture that has a language of its own (jargon) which is very hard to understand if you are an outsider, e.g. shackles and Seatown which means "handcuffs" and "Seattle" (hip-hop dictionary [www]). Within the hip-hop culture, a lot of newly invented 6

words can be found, such as, for shizzle or bling, which means "for sure" and "jewellery". This invention of new words is called "coinage" by linguists. To fully conform to the style and exclude outsiders it is also very important how to dress and what music to listen to.

Very often, however, slang is not so much about the invention of new words as it is about coming up with new meanings for already existing words, such as hot, which originally was a word to describe temperature but now has various different meanings like "sexy", "stolen", "wanted by the police" or "popular" (Andersson & Trudgill 1990: 81).

What is slang to one generation may not be slang to the next generation, since language is constantly changing, and words and expressions can move from one form of it to another. Different forms of slang quickly grow old and are replaced by new ones. For example, super, groovy and hip which all mean "really good" have been replaced by dope, kickass and phat (Yule 2006: 211). This is a very natural evolution as most adolescents do not want to sound like their parents and therefore need new slang words to distance themselves from that which was "cool" when their parents were young.

2.2 Slang and gender

Traditionally, slang has been a male dominated area. According to Stanley (in Grossman & Tucker, 1997:102), the use of slang has traditionally been a male dominated domain which is indicated by the fact that there are "220 expressions for a promiscuous woman compared to merely 22 expressions to describe the male counterpart". However, a decade later, Chapman (in Grossman & Tucker,1986:103) found an increasing use of vulgar and taboo slang amongst women which he attributed in part to the feminist movement. In 1992, de Klerk (in Grossman & Tucker, 1997:103) found that the amount of slang used by sixth- and ninth graders amongst English speaking students in South Africa did not differ between sexes in the extent of their slang vocabulary. However, both sexes still believed that slang was more appropriate for males than females. Grossman and Tucker (1997:108) proved that the gap in slang used by males and females is still closing and that it is more legitimate for females to use slang frequently in their everyday language.

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2.3 Functions of slang

Another very important aspect to consider when discussing slang is the different situations where we are most likely and most unlikely to use slang. Most people know the standard form of their first language and in formal situations such as job interviews most people tend to speak as formally as possible, avoiding slang usage to give a good first impression. Another example is that most people tend to speak in a more formal way the first time they meet new people whereas their language tends to loosen up after a while (Andersson & Trudgill 1990: 71). So the conclusion must be that when a boss speaks more informally to an employee for the first time the employee has probably advanced in the company. Even though many people use a lot of slang in their everyday language there is also awareness that it is not "correct" language usage. Style-shifting from non-standard to standard language is referred to as overt prestige and is according to Yule (2006: 209) most likely to be used by men and women from the middle class; women also use it more than men. The opposite of overt prestige is covert prestige and refers to the phenomenon that especially adolescents of lower society classes use non-standard language consciously. According to Yule 2006: 210, it is used to show solidarity with their social group by not shifting language-style to sound like another social group. And according to Eble (in Moore 1996:61), three of the most typical functions of slang are to express informality, identify group members and oppose established authority.

The point of slang is often to be amusing or shocking (Andersson & Trudgill, 1990: 78). This is also why the invention of new slang words or coming up with alternative meanings for already existing words is crucial. When words lose their shocking or amusing effect they need to be replaced with new words. This often goes hand in hand with other groups accepting these words and beginning to use them in everyday-language usage. Slang does not differ from other trends but is often invented in big cities and then spreads out to the rest of the country (ibid, 1990: 78).

It seems that slang is often a substitute for swearing or a substitute for other words that are taboo, a phenomenon referred to as euphemisms (Andersson & Trudgill, 1990: 82). Instead of saying "I have to piss" which is not very polite there is a vast number of slang words that can be used instead, such as, drain the spuds, visit the sand-box, answer nature's call or go and look at the crops. Similarly, many forms of slang for defecating or using drugs can be found. To many drug dealers slang usage is even a must; an entire conversation about drugs can take place without any outsiders knowing about it. To make this further effective the slang words

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used change constantly, making it hard for the police to infiltrate these groups (Andersson & Trudgill 1990: 79).

2.4 Where do we find slang?

According to Andersson & Trudgill (1990: 72), people use a lot more slang when speaking than when writing. However, in novels, many authors are likely to use slang, especially in dialogues as this is a good way of showing what the characters are like. Consider the following example, Well now, I be ding-busted. This is a line from The adventures of Huckleberry Finn where the run-away black man Jim is talking to Huck saying "well now, I'll be damned". By consciously writing in this way, Twain gives life to the character Jim as a poorly educated slave using a far less formal language than other characters in the book (Andersson & Trudgill 1990: 72). In other forms of written media one is more likely to see slang in tabloids than in broadsheets, and perhaps there is a connection with the fact that broadsheets are considered to contain more legitimate news whereas more gossip-like news are found in tabloids?

People who are admired will often be copied by others so a lot of the slang used is spread via, for instance, the film or music industry. Others who are likely to be influential when it comes to slang usage are comedians, talk-show hosts, politicians and sport-stars. TV-shows that become very popular and are aired for many years are most likely to influence their audience, such as Seinfeld (Battistella 2005: 8). For instance, the expression regift (meaning "to take an unwanted gift and give it to someone else") from the TV-show Seinfeld seems according to Battistella (ibid), very likely to become standardized slang.

2.5 Cockney Slang

The perhaps most commonly known British dialect due to the export of British films such as, Snatch, Lock stock and two smoking barrels, Football factory and Mean machine is the Cockney dialect which is spoken in the London-area. According to Holmes (2001: 214), these Cockney TV and film heroes help to promote a positive attitude towards the dialect as it spreads all over the world. A characteristic of Cockney is rhyming slang such as saying bees and honey instead of "money" or Apples and pears instead of "stairs" (Ibid: 127). There are also expressions which are even harder to understand as they demand some kind of pre-

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