Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T17:44:32.411Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Exploring the ‘shashification’ of teenage slang

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 September 2018

José Antonio Sánchez Fajardo
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The study of the paradigmatic traits of teenage slang has shown that a sense of togetherness is predominant (Eble, 1996; Allen, 1998; Mattiello, 2005, 2008; Smith, 2011). This cohesive linguistic device is not consciously intended to exclude unwished members from conversations or common understanding, but the idea of relying on a preserved sense of solidarity and acceptance is a human urge, especially among teenagers or young adults (cf. Mattiello, 2005: 13). These features are a necessary starting point to understand that the colloquial nature or social restriction of these words and phrases are precisely aimed to ‘establish or reinforce social identity within a group or with a trend or fashion in society at large’ (Eble, 1996: 11).

Type
Research Article
Information
English Today , Volume 35 , Issue 3 , September 2019 , pp. 49 - 54
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

This term has been used to show a parallelism between the process of ‘zazzification’ (Wescott, 1978) and that of ‘shashification’ in the formation of slang words. However, despite their common motivations, these processes rely on different phonological nature: whereas in the former, the voiced sibilant /z/ replaces a voiceless one /s/, no pronunciation shift takes place in the latter. The process of shashification is characterized by a respelling of clipped units ending in /ʃ/, which only affects the morphology of the words.

References

Adger, C. T., Wolfram, W. & Christian, D. 2007. Dialects in Schools and Communities. New Jersey/London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.Google Scholar
Allen, I. L. 1998. ‘Slang: Sociology.’ In Mey, J. L. & Asher, R. E. (eds.), Concise Encyclopedia of Pragmatics. Amsterdam: Elsevier, pp. 878–883.Google Scholar
Ayto, J. 1998. Dictionary of Slang. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Barnhart, C. L. 1973. ‘Of Matters Lexicographical: Keeping a Record of New English, 1963–1972.’ American Speech, 45, 98–107.Google Scholar
Bolinger, D. L. 1950. ‘Rime, assonance, and morpheme analysis.’ Word, 6, 117–136.Google Scholar
Bolinger, D. L. 1965. Forms of English: Accent, Morpheme, Order. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Crystal, D. 2003. A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics (5th edn.) Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
Eble, C. 1996. Slang and Sociability. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Gold, D. 1986. ‘An Introduction to Jewish English.’ JLR, 6, 94–120.Google Scholar
Hickey, R. 2014. ‘Phonological change in English.’ In Kytö, M. & Pahta, P. (eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of English Historical Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jakobson, R. 1960. ‘Linguistics and poetics.’ In Sebeok, T. A. (ed.), Style in Language. Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press.Google Scholar
McCumber, V. 2010. ‘–s: The latest slang suffix: for reals.’ Working Papers of the Linguistics Circle of the University of Victoria, 20, 124–130.Google Scholar
Maddieson, I. 1984. Patterns of Sounds. With a Chapter Contributed by Sandra Ferrari Disner. (Cambridge Studies in Speech Science and Communication). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Markel, N. N. & Hamp, E. P. 1960. ‘Connotative meanings of certain phoneme sequences.’ Studies in Linguisics, 15, 47–61.Google Scholar
Mattiello, E. 2005. ‘The pervasiveness of slang in standard and non-standard English.’ Mots Palabras Words, 6, 7–41.Google Scholar
Mattiello, E. 2008. An Introduction to English Slang. A Description of its Morphology, Semantics and Sociology. Milan: Polimetrica.Google Scholar
Nash, W. 1993. Jargon. Its Uses and Abuses. Oxford/Cambridge U.S.A.: Blackwell.Google Scholar
NOW: Davies, M. 2018. News on the Web Corpus. Online at <https://corpus.byu.edu/now/> (Accessed January 15, 2018).+(Accessed+January+15,+2018).>Google Scholar
OED3: Oxford English Dictionary Online (3rd edn.) Oxford: Oxford University Press. Available at <https://en.oxforddictionaries.com> (Accessed March 14, 2017).+(Accessed+March+14,+2017).>Google Scholar
Partridge, E. 1984. A Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English. London/New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Rennison, L. 2005. ‘ … And That's When It Fell off in My Hand’. London: Harper Collins.Google Scholar
Smith, R. 2011. ‘Urban dictionary: Youth slanguage and the redefining of definition: What's up with meep and other words in the Urban Dictionary.’ English Today, 27(4), 43–48Google Scholar
Spears, R. A. 2000. Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions. NTC's Publishing Group.Google Scholar
Thorne, T. 2005. Dictionary of Contemporary English. London: A&C Black Publishers.Google Scholar
Wales, K. 1990. ‘Phonotactics and phonoæsthesia: The power of folk lexicology.’ In Ramsaran, S. (ed.), Studies in the Pronunciation of English. A Commemorative Volume in Honour of A.C. Gimson. London: Routledge, pp. 339–351.Google Scholar
Wescott, R. W. 1978. ‘Zazzification in American Slang.’ Forum Linguisticum, 3(2), 185–187.Google Scholar
Yorkston, E. & Menon, G. 2004. ‘A sound idea: Phonetics effects of brand names on consumer judgements.’ Journal of Consumer Research, 31, 43–51.Google Scholar