Slang In America
For hundreds of years, English has been continuously changing. Words that
were
unacceptable 300 years ago are now commonplace. English has always had
a
trademark of being a comfortable language, the language of the common
people (MacNeil
143). Change in the grammar and diction of a language is
natural, and English is
always confronted with changes. Among them are the
use of slang, clipped word
endings, and new dialects. Some Conservatives do
not like changes because they
claim that standard English is a perfect
language; they do not want to corrupt
it. Others simply do not like change.
Neither group of Conservatives has any new
arguments, and nothing to fear
from change. Slang worries Conservatives the most
because it affects the
vocabulary of English. American English, especially, is
always adding new
words to its vocabulary for social, scientific, or artistic
reasons. The
scientific and artistic words do not bother these people; only the
social, or
slang, words do. Slang is usually created by children or teens who
seek
social status (Morrow 137). Because kids are the source of new slang,
some
adults look down on it with the assumption that kids are unintelligent
and
simply rebelling against established English grammar and diction.
However, most
of the adults did the same thing when they were children.
Adults have been
frowning on slang for generations (Crystal 104).
Conservatives also look down
upon slang because slang is not used by people
of high status. If they hear
someone speaking in Jive, they will be angry
because Jive is not the way that
high class people speak. People who do not
like slang are usually prejudiced as
well. They do not want to hear other
ways of talking because it deviates from
the way they talk. Also, much slang
comes from other languages, of which
Conservatives might also be
prejudiced. The dialect that a person uses may make
him comfortable, but this
is not considered. If a language is not comfortable,
why would you want to
speak it? Language has always changed to fit the paradigms
of society
(Crystal 105). For example, in Shakespeare's time, many contractions
used
today were considered poor English. Rarely could a person of high
social
status be found using "don't" in a sentence. Today, however,
people
may use contractions without fear of being scorned by society. This
simply
illustrates The same types of people who opposed contractions in the
past are
opposing slang and new dialects of English. They do not realize that
the way
they speak differs from the way that their predecessors spoke. People
opposed to
language change only defend their dialect, which will die out
anyway, and prove
their intolerance of change. Language will be thought of
differently in the
future because new mediums of communication will be used,
the largest one being
the Internet. Today, many people are using the Internet
to "talk" to
people all over the world. The Internet has its own language,
which
Conservatives view as computer slang. No matter what diction or
dialect you
speak, you still have to type out an Internet message in standard
Internet.
There are words used specifically for the Internet, usually
acronyms that are
universally understood, that will probably appear in
dictionaries in the future.
Conservatives have no reason to bother with
whether a person's dialect or
diction will be understood in spoken language,
because most communication will
be typed, not spoken, in a neutral Internet
language. Conservatives claim that
the lack of standard English is due to an
education deficiency. They explain
that the reason some slang is created by
kids in inner-city areas is that the
kids drop out of school, because the
kids are stupid, and therefore never learn
standard English. In reality, the
kids drop out of school because they are told
that the way they speak is
stupid (Seymour 123). The Conservatives are not
willing to help the kids with
"bad" dialects. Perhaps this is because
of a prejudice, sort of "once slang,
always slang" mentality. The
Conservatives should use the kids' dialects
to help the kids learn standard
English. Conservatives have one reason to
oppose language progression: fear.
Conservatives have a fear that the
language they speak will not be the primary
one. For this reason, they will
put down other dialects simply because these
dialects are not standard
English. Standard English is just another dialect,
however, and thinking one
dialect greater than another is mere bigotry. If
Conservatives had their
way, people would never be able to express themselves in
new ways because
there would never be any new words. There would be academies
for English,
academies that go against every principle of freedom to which
speakers of
English are heir.
Bibliography
Crystal, David. "The Prescriptive
Tradition." Language Awareness.
4th Ed. Eds. Paul Eschholt, Alfred Rosa,
Virginia Clark. New York: St. Martin's,
1986. 101-107. MacNeil, Robert.
"English Belongs to Everybody."
Language Awareness. 4th Ed. Eds. Paul
Eschholt, Alfred Rosa, Virginia Clark. New
York: St. Martin's, 1986.
140-144. Morrow, Lance. "If Slang is Not a
Sin." Language Awareness. 4th
Ed. Eds. Paul Eschholt, Alfred Rosa, Virginia
Clark. New York: St.
Martin's, 1986. 135-139. Seymour, Dorothy Z. "Black
Children, Black
Speech" Language Awareness. 4th Ed. Eds. Paul Eschholt,
Alfred Rosa,
Virginia Clark. New York: St. Martin's, 1986. 122-129.