Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'English slang'

This study investigated the extent to which Saudi students were interested in American academic slang terms and expressions. The goal of this study was to examine their knowledge and perceptions of academic slang as L2 learners living in the US. In this study, both qualitative and quantitative methodologies were employed. The data were retrieved via an online survey. A written questionnaire was completed by 50 undergraduate SIUC students from Saudi Arabia. The vocabulary task results showed that Saudi L2 learners do not have sufficient knowledge of American academic slang. Saudi students, especially females, revealed a positive attitude towards learning American academic slang in order to communicate successfully in American universities. This research highlights the importance of presenting international students with academic slang as an important register frequently used in academic life.

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 besomething 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 thatboth men and women use. However, in the material used for this study, young men were theones who used slang the most.

The purpose of this thesis is to explore how the approaches identified for the translation of Taiwanese Mandarin dialogues into English subtitles is different from those described in research studies which examined the translation of English film dialogues into Mandarin subtitles using data gathered from a Taiwanese movie entitled Cape No. 7. Taiwanese Mandarin is significantly influenced by the Tai-yu dialect, and in order to carry out the translation of Taiwanese Mandarin, it is important to deal with the functions of the dialect and related culture-specific items (CSIs). Therefore, the researcher of this thesis has investigated whether the translator of Cape No. 7 successfully applied a variety of translation strategies and prioritized the translation criteria well, to enable the target audience to receive the same message of the film as the source audience, especially when subtitling is constrained by time and space. There are two research areas which have been examined: slang and humour. The data analysis of slang scenes included Tai-yu slang and swearing, while humorous scenes were divided into three areas: puns, irony and metaphor. The research data have been analysed by means of analysis diagrams, which were trialled in a pilot study, described in Chapter Three. The pilot study lead to a new categorization based on previous researchers’ taxonomies (Aixelá, 1996; Davies, 2003; Tveit and Fong 2005, as cited in Yang, 2006), and this was applied to the analysis diagrams. According to the findings from the analysis chapters (Chapter Four & Five), the translator of Cape No. 7 preferred to use mostly the paraphrasing strategy in translating Tai-yu slang and humour, and the synonymy strategy in conveying swearing. In addition, the translator often strengthened swear words rather than toning them down in the English subtitles. However, when subtitling humorous scenes, the translator preferred to incorporate two strategies to deal with the cultural barriers when conveying the humorous effect. The compensation strategy was not used often in slang translation. In regard to the translation criteria, pragmatics and accuracy appeared to have been deemed more important by the translator than other criteria. Surprisingly functional equivalence did not seem to have been the translator’s first priority, as suggested by earlier research. Overall, this research study appeared to show that the translator of Cape No. 7 considered the paraphrase strategy to be the most efficient strategy for maintaining CSIs, and that pragmatics and accuracy were the translator’s most important criteria, which differs from the findings of previous research studies.

The aim of this work is to find out how slanguage is translated from English into Lithuanian, identify its effect on the language and compare its frequency in the ST vs the TT. Slanguage items are used all over the world and it is not always possible to translate them directly into the TL or find the exact equivalent for certain slang words because of the differences between languages and cultures. Hence, the translation methods of softening, direct transfers, stylistic compensation are suggested by linguists to solve problems of slang and taboo words translation and to achieve the translation which is linguistically correct and acceptable by the reading audience of the target culture. The present thesis is divided into six main sections and has fourteen appendices. Chapter 1 introduces the aim and goals of the research as well as discusses the material and methods that are used in the thesis. In Chapter 2 the term slanguage is defined, its classification is described and the usage of slanguage in the Lithuanian and English cultures is compared paying specific attention towards the use of slang and taboo words in the language. Chapters 3 and Chapter 4 deal with the definitions of terms slang and taboo words, identification of their role and functions in the language as well as presentation of their types in more detail. The main translation problems of slang and taboo words with respect to the cultural and linguistic differences are identified in Section 5.1 of Chapter 5... [to full text]
Šio darbo tikslas – sužinoti kaip slengo kalba yra verčiama iš anglų kalbos į lietuvių kalbą, nustatyti jo įtaką kalbai bei palyginti slengo kalbos vartojimo dažnį originaliame ir išverstame tekste. Slengo kalba yra naudojama įvairiose pasaulio šalyse, kurių kalbos ir kultūros skiriasi, todėl surasti tinkamos reikšmės žodį verčiant tekstą yra sudėtinga. Lingvistai siūlo naudotis vertimo metodais, kurie padėtų išspręsti vertimo problemas bei padarytų tekstą lingvistiškai teisingą ir priimtiną skaitytojams: sušvelninimas, tiesioginis vertimas, stilistinė kompensacija. Šis darbas yra sudarytas iš šešių pagrindinių skyrių ir keturiolikos priedų. Tikslas, uždaviniai, tyrimo medžiaga ir metodai yra aptariami pirmame skyriuje. Antrame skyriuje yra supažindinama su terminu slengo kalba, šios kalbos klasifikacija bei slengo ir taboo žodžių vartojimu lietuvių ir anglų kalbose. Slengas bei taboo žodžiai yra apibrėžiami, jų vartojimas ir funkcijos kalboje yra aptariamos trečiame ir ketvirtame skyriuose. Pirmame penkto skyriaus poskyryje apibūdinama slengo ir taboo žodžių vertimo problemos, atsiradusios dėl kultūrinių ir lingvistinių skirtumų, o antrame poskyryje yra aprašomi vertimo metodai: sušvelninimas, tiesioginis vertimas, stilistinė kompensacija. Šeštame skyriuje yra atliekama slengo kalbos analizė lyginant originalų ir išverstą tekstus. A priede yra pateikiami sušvelninimo metodo pavyzdžiai, B priede – tiesioginio vertimo pavyzdžiai ir C priede – stilistinės kompensacijos... [toliau žr. visą tekstą]

Some youth in London speak a non-standard variety of English whose lexical items are difficult for non-speakers to understand. This study collected naturally produced speech samples from students of various ethnicities and class backgrounds who spoke this dialect. It also polled students about their identity, as well as about their use of particular slang words. The recordings were glossed to determine the kind of slang used, as well which populations were more or less likely to use slang. The surveys were analyzed to determine relevant background characteristics of those who used slang versus those who did not. This study concludes that one’s geographic background, as well as one’s class and peer group, impact the variety of English spoken. The idea of language as a method of counter culture is advanced, claiming that speakers are using this dialect as a way to signify resistance against the highly rigid class systems of the U.K.

This research analyses some of the slang expressions with the meaning ‘to die’ found in Dictionary of Modern Slang with regard to metaphor and metonymy and whether they have been active when creating the identified slang expressions. It further examines the frequency of these expressions in a large language corpus, and identifies the processes involved in the most frequent expressions. The main findings show that the domain ‘departure’ is the most frequent domain for metaphorical conceptualizations of dying, which suggests that death, like life, can be viewed as a journey. One can speculate that this metaphorical mapping could go back to religious origin, where death is not seen as the end. Several of the expressions are still used within the English language, and the most frequent expressions in the corpus were metonymic in nature and have developed into idiomatic phrases, which are frozen in form.

Thesis (MPhil)--University of Stellenbosch, 2008.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The non-standard “way of speaking” associated with gang members on the Cape Flats is the focus of the present study. This thesis is not about gangsters and gang culture, neither is it an attempt to analyze their use of language. Rather, it is an investigation of the linguistic markers of the language variety spoken by gang members on the Cape Flats, according to the film Dollars and White Pipes. This film portrays the true story of Bernie Baatjies and is set in Hanover Park, an area on the Cape Flats characterized by a high level of unemployment and low levels of education. During the Apartheid years, people of colour all over Cape Town were displaced: they were forced to move to barren land and start rebuilding their lives all over again. The youth perceived their parents as cowards for not fighting back against the system. Their anger with their parents led to the formation of gangs on the Cape Flats. These gangs resort to violence, using it as a means of dominating others and showing power through claiming territory. Gang members establish in-group distinctiveness through speech divergence. In this thesis, the notion of establishing membership of a specific linguistic community, in this case gang membership, by means of vocabulary use is examined with reference to concepts such as slang, anti-language and social judgments based on linguistic aspects. It is shown that the linguistic repertoire of the Cape Flats gangsters as a speech community can broadly be categorised as non-standard Afrikaans, non-standard English and English-Afrikaans code switching. In order to examine the linguistic markers of the language variety spoken by gang members on the Cape Flats, utterances in the film that were judged non-standard were transcribed orthographically. The standard version of each utterance was also identified. Non-standard words and phrases were then grouped according to language and parts of speech. These non-standard words and phrases were in turn presented to real–life gangsters from the Cape Flats in order to obtain judgements on their authenticity. Research approaches and methods drawn on in the thesis are Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and Discourse Analysis (DA), both of which are briefly discussed.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die nie-standaard “manier van praat” wat geassosieer word met bendes op die Kaapse Vlakte is die fokus van hierdie studie. Hierdie tesis handel nie oor bendes en die bendekultuur nie en is ook nie ʼn poging om hul gebruik van taal te analiseer nie. Dit is eerder ‘n beskrywing van die linguistiese merkers van die taalvariëteit wat deur bendes op die Kaapse Vlakte gepraat word, volgens die rolprent Dollars and White Pipes. Hierdie rolprent is die ware verhaal van Bernie Baatjies en speel af in Hanover Park, ‘n area van die Kaapse Vlakte gekenmerk deur ‘n hoë vlak van werkloosheid en lae vlakke van opvoeding. As gevolg van Apartheid is mense van kleur regoor Kaapstad verplaas: hulle is forseer om na dor land te verskuif en om hul lewens van oor af op te bou. Die jeug het hul ouers gesien as lafaards omdat hulle nie terug baklei het teen die stelsel nie. Hulle woede teenoor hulle ouers het gelei tot die vorming van bendes op die Kaapse Vlakte. Hierdie bendes het hulle gewend na geweld. Geweld is gebruik in ʼn poging om andere te domineer en om mag ten toon te stel in die aanspraak op gebied. Bendelede bewerkstellig spraak uiteenlopenheid as ʼn metode om in-groep onderskeibaarheid daar te stel. In hierdie tesis word die idee van bewerkstelliging van lidmaatskap van ʼn spesifieke linguistieke gemeenskap, in hierdie geval bendelidmaatskap, by wyse van die woordeskat wat hulle verkies om te gebruik, bekyk met verwysing na konsepte soos groeptaal, anti-taal en sosiale oordeel gebaseer op linguistieke aspekte. Daar word gewys dat die linguistiese repetoire van die bendes van die Kaapse Vlakte as spraakgemeenskap, gekategoriseer kan word as nie-standaard Afrikaans, nie-standaard Engels en Afrikaans-Engels kodewisseling. Om die linguistiese merkers van die taalvariëteit wat deur bendes op die Kaapse Vlakte gepraat word te bekyk, is uitings in die rolprent wat nie-standaard ge-ag is, ortografies getranskribeer. Die standaard weergawe van die uitings is ook geïdentifiseer. Nie-standaard woorde en frases is gegroepeer volgens taal en woordsoorte. Hierdie nie-standaard woorde en frases is aan werklike bendelede van die Kaapse Vlakte voorgelê om betroubaarheidsoordele te verkry. Die navorsingsbenaderinge en metodes waarop gefokus is, is Kritiese Diskoers Analise (KDA) sowel as Diskoers Analise (DA), wat beide kortliks bespreek word.

Some people might regard the language of hip-hop as being crude, sexist and inappropriate. Nevertheless, hip-hop culture can also be considered as one of the underground sources of word-formation and language change in mainstream English. Young people have always been a source of language variation and lexical innovation whether we like it or not.

This essay is focusing on three words frequently used in hip-hop lyrics, namely pimp, queer and chick. The aim of the study is to analyse the semantic change on these words as they are used in hip-hop music and find out whether hip-hop culture has had an influence on the mainstream usage of these words.

The method used was to study the usage and frequency of these words in hip-hop lyrics and analyse whether there was a similar use in a large diachronic newspaper corpus of American English. The material was predominately found in The Original Hip-hop Lyrics Archive (ohhla.com) and The TIME Magazine Corpus (corpus.byu.edu).

The results of this study show examples of semantic change in both hip-hop lyrics and mainstream American English and it is concluded that hip-hop culture has an influence on mainstream language above all among the youth.

Studien undersöker hur de engelska slanguttrycken och talspråksmarkörerna i ungdomsromanen Paper Towns av John Green översatts till nederländska och svenska. En analys av slanguttrycken och talspråksmarkörerna i romanens första kapitel, utifrån Lambert & van Gorps modell (1985), visar vilka översättningsstrategier som översättarna valt och vilka översättningsnormer dessa är ett uttryck för. Resultatet visar att översättningarnas preliminära data pekar mot en adekvansinriktad översättningsstrategi. På mikronivå visar resultatet en mer acceptansinriktad översättningsstrategi vid översättning av slang och talspråksmarkörer, med en något större källspråksinriktning i den nederländska översättningen.
The study investigates how slang and spoken language markers in English in the Young Adult novel Paper Towns by John Green have been translated into Dutch and Swedish. An analyse of the expressions found in the first chapter of the novel, based on the method created by Lambert and van Gorp (1985), shows the translation strategies and the underlying translational norms. The results of the analysis of the preliminary data of the translations points towards adequate translation strategies. At a micro level, the results indicate more acceptable translation strategies regarding the translation of slang and spoken language markers, with slightly more source-orientation in the Dutch translation.

This diploma thesis is concerned with the comparison of student slang word-formation processes in Czech and English gained in a form of a questionnaire spread among Czech and English students of secondary schools and universities. The thesis is composed of two parts the theoretical one and the practical one. The theoretical part deals with varieties of Czech national language, with slang in general, it is focused on student slang and on productive ways of forming slang words in both Czech and English. The essence of the practical part is to perform a comparative analysis of word-formation processes of selected words and also to make a dictionary of student slang expressions.

In the highly developed field of Persian-English lexicography a major gap exists in the area of colloquial, slang, and argot in Persian. To date, no Persian-English Dictionary of Persian colloquial slang, or argot language exists. This study fills this gap. The dissertation proper tells the story of the process and the fully covered /vāv/ section treats current slang and argot headwords and phrases including slang and secret languages of smugglers, drug dealers, prison inmates, the military and the teenagers. The dictionary which will be referred to as The Persian-English Dictionary of Slang (PEDS) presents a sample of 200 headwords beginning in the letter; [Arabic character] /vāv/. This study provides a sample of how the work is generated. The whole dictionary contains 15000+ headwords.
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Gauteng is one of South Africa’s nine provinces, and is representative of a diversity of languages and cultures. It is a linguistic and cultural melting pot with all eleven official languages spoken in the province. Because of the language contact situation in this province, languages tend to influence one another and this results in situations wherein a majority of speakers are bi- or multilingual. Instances of code-switching, code-mixing, and lexical borrowing (or adoption) are also abounding. In Gauteng, young and old black people tend to use black urban speech varieties. Nonstandard black urban speech varieties such as Tsotsitaal and Is’camtho have been studied extensively in South Africa. The study of black urban language varieties in Gauteng, particularly in English, has not received much attention from sociolinguists and has only been discussed in passing by scholars (see Calteaux, 1994). Studies on Tsotsitaal and Is’camtho have attempted to discuss the structure of and reasons for the employment of these varieties. In conducting the research on black youth slang in English, this study is an attempt at contributing to available research on slang in South Africa. Studies on slang have focused on other language groups and regions. However, no attempts have been made at describing the slang of black youth in Gauteng Province, particularly those who are not L1 speakers of English. The present study aims at contributing to the study of non-standard black urban speech varieties such as Tsotsitaal and Is’camtho. The current study tries to provide a sociolinguistic description of the slang used by black youth in Gauteng, who use English as a second language (L2) or additional language (AL). The research begins with definitions and explanations of concepts relevant to the investigation. The study defines such terms as ‘slang’, ‘black’, ‘youth’ and ‘youth culture’ amongst others. The theoretical approach used in this study is also discussed in this section. Black youth slang in English (hereafter referred to as BYSE) in Gauteng (GP) is discussed in relation to other non-standard black urban language varieties such as Tsotsitaal and Is’camtho. This serves to explain how BYSE differs from the two varieties. The functions of slang as outlined by previous researchers on the subject are also discussed, with the intention of using these as a benchmark to the present study. This study used both qualitative and quantitative methods of research. These included a combination of written questionnaires, interviews (group discussions), and personal observations. The two methodologies were necessary in an attempt to arrive at a better comprehension of the slang used by the group under investigation. The data gathered served to investigate the reasons for using slang and the functions the words they employ serve, by looking at the slang as used in particular contexts as well as at the lexical items they employ. The study also looks at how their use of slang tends to draw on the lexicon from other languages spoken in the Province. The data gathered from the written questionnaires was then sent to Statkon, at the University of Johannesburg, for analysis. The researcher further used interviews (group discussions) and personal observations to augment the results from the questionnaires. The researcher adopts the notion of slang as a register according to use and discusses the findings according to Halliday’s theoretical stance of language as social practice (1978). Emphasis is on dimensions such as field, mode and tenor of discourse as relevant to this study in an attempt to explain the contexts of situation in which the youth under investigation use slang. The research also considers other social aspects of language variation as relevant to this study. The study concludes with recommendations on the need for further research on the language of youth. Amongst others is the recommendation it makes about the study of youth language (particularly slang) and its educational implications in the language classroom.
Dr. Anne-Marie Beukes

碩士
國立高雄第一科技大學
應用英語系口筆譯碩士班
103
Abstract With the development of economic globalization, intercultural communication is in a rapid growth, among which films constitute an important channel. As the foreign films pour into Taiwan, Taiwanese films also begin to enter the international market. As a medium of information transmission, film subtitle translation plays a more and more important role. A high-quality subtitle translation can attract more audience and better convey cultures. As a new field of translation, film subtitle translation has attracted a great deal of interest among researchers and become a current focus for research. In Europe and America there has been an upsurge in studies of multimedia translation, translation strategies and quality control of subtitle translation. However, domestic studies on subtitle translation haven''t caught sufficient attention and have been lagging behind, which contributes negatively to the quality of Taiwanese film subtitle translation. This research uses five translation strategies (direct translation, paraphrase, cultural substitution, adaptation, and omission) to examine slang found in four Taiwanese films. According to the findings, the translators of these films preferred to use mostly the paraphrasing strategy in translating Tai-yu slang. The frequency of using this strategy is about 60 percent. This strategy makes it possible to express the translated text in a plainer and simpler way than the source text so that the original implication between the lines can be easily revealed.

碩士
國立雲林科技大學
應用外語系
104
This study examines how intelligible Taiwan Mandarin slang (TMS) expressions are to Chinese people, how TMS differs from corresponding English slang expressions, and what are the strategies used to translate TMS into English. To this end, a total of 120 Chinese students were recruited to complete questionnaires and ten of them were interviewed to further investigate their understanding of the TMS under examination. In addition, an American translator was also recruited to translate the TMS and provide corresponding English slang expressions for exploring the differences between TMS and English slang expressions. For the analysis of translation strategies, this study employed the translation taxonomy proposed by Pederson (2005). The findings revealed that most of the TMS were intelligible to the Chinese participants. However, some of them were not understandable to the Chinese participants. On the other hand, the differences between the TMS and the corresponding English slang expressions were categorized into were five aspects concerning: (1) attitudes, (2) stories, (3) celebrities, (4) the local Taiwanese language, and (5) metaphors. Regarding the English translation of the TMS, three strategies used by the American translator were found, including cultural substitution, paraphrase, and annotation,. The results concerning the intelligibility of the TMS to the Chinese were further interpreted from cultural differences between China and Taiwan. First, some of the TMS were originated from Taiwanese; second, they were associated with Taiwanese culture and background, and third, they were replaced by other expressions more common to Chinese students. This study may be helpful to English teachers, translators, those interested in Taiwanese culture, and those who would like to share TMS expressions in intercultural communication with foreigners.

This dissertation offers an examination of the ways in which English writers in Internet discussion groups—that is, newsgroups and web forums—draw upon techniques of semantic change to create slang words. The dissertation hypothesizes that the techniques involved will be similar to those found underpinning semantic change in other varieties of the English language, both the standard form and other, offline varieties of modern slang. However, the precise constraints of the online platform—its basis in text rather than speech and gesture—will also lead to some differences in how the semantic change is carried out. The hypothesis is put to the test using diachronic analyses of 67 slang words, which are represented in data drawn from a variety of Internet discussion groups dating from 1980 to the present day. In analysing these words, the dissertation also examines whether the techniques documented are explainable within established theoretical frameworks of semantic change, particularly whether they conform to the tendencies in the directionality of semantic change identified by Elizabeth Close Traugott as part of her Invited Inferencing Theory of Semantic Change.

This thesis explores how the term bitch functions as an ideograph in a heavily mediated, third wave moment. Bitch is important to study due to its potentially negative implications for women and feminism. The study attempts to expand rhetorical scholarship’s current understanding of not only the ideograph, but third wave feminism and the current mediated moment. This thesis uses Oprah Winfrey’s announcement to ban the word bitch from her network, OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network), as a case study. I argue that the media that responded to Winfrey’s announcement contributed to a single, overarching narrative that reinforced that the word bitch is harmful to women. This thesis begins with Chapter One, which is an introduction and rationale that explains why the prevalence of bitch in a mediated society is worthy of study. Chapter Two is a review of the literature that explores the history of the word bitch and a consideration of third wave feminism. In Chapter Three, I review the methodology that guides this study by discussing feminist rhetorical criticism, how previous scholarship has treated mediated texts, and consideration of the ideograph. In Chapter Four, I analyze Oprah Winfrey’s ban of the word bitch from OWN. In Chapter Five, I articulate how bitch functioned as an ideograph, the role the media played in the case study, and a consideration of implications for rhetorical scholarship and directions of future research.
Literature -- Critical orientation -- Analysis -- Bitch and empowerment
Access to thesis permanently restricted to Ball State community only
Department of Communication Studies

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)
This study investigated teenage language and its functions. More specifically, after conducting a data analysis which revealed the most common features of “teen speak,” the features were dissected for their usage patterns and significance within the realm of adolescent life and development. The research was based on linguist Marcel Danesi’s model of teenage language, which provided a comparative basis for analysis and categorization.

Diploma thesis Language in athletics is focused on stratification of Czech national language and deals with vocabulary and its layers. The thesis describes slang and different aspects of slang in detail, brings a closer view to a language processes, to the beginning of sports slang and to a sport journalism. Furthermore, thesis describes a history of Czech athletics, the origin of terminology in physical education and the origin of Czech athletic terminology. The thesis uses linguistic research for a description of current athletic terminology and completes it by a new slang expressions. This diploma thesis contains both a vocabulary of athletic terminology and slang extended by some equivalents of English and Russian terminology. Key words: language, athletics, sports slang, athletic slang, terminology in athletics, czech stylistic, analysis, linguistic research, vocabulary, comparison between Czech, English and Russian