Slang and group languages
643 mots
3 pages
Geoffrey Gonnard Professor Riley English 110 Group languages In France, appearance of contemporary slang seems concomitant with massive urbanization of the suburbs in the 1970’s, and the creation of large popular quarters intended to place the populations of workmen and employees, in majority immigrants. This one is made up gradually starting from a base brought by traditional slang, with words as “condé” (cops) or “daron” (dad in slang), supplemented by new words from various origin, like “garrot” coming from Arabic and probably brought by the lexicon of the population immigrant, or of new creations resulting from old mechanisms like the “verlan” (backward). This is this whole of words which characterizes nowadays the modern popular slang. On the other hand, the effective marginalization of most of the “young people of the suburbs,” which knows in particular a level of study lower than that of the young people in general and a higher unemployment rate, supported the development of this language, by effect of fold on oneself. Many more issues have to be handled when slang is considered in a conversation and also in the society in general. For instance, some research has been made about the use of slang in the early age and more particularly, there is a lot of slang on kids TV. The reason is that some parents have been worried that their children would pick up bad habits when they listen to slang on television and start using phrases that they should not use. But the real question is: Is the way people speak and write really influenced by what they see? Do people change their behavior and communication according to the TV program they watch daily, or are they able to determine the limit between the language on television and in reality? What is sure is that children tend to be more influenced, and the slang on television definitely has more impact on them. Another issue that can be considered with slang is the way it is used in persuasive speech.