Age and Teen Slang

• What did Penelope Eckert say about the different ways of defining the concept of age?

  She said that sometimes it can be problematic to look at age as an influential factor.

  • Chronological age. (Number of years since birth.)
  • Biological maturity (physical maturity)
  • Social age (life events, such as marriage and having children)

  Therefore, we need to consider Age is a persons place given time in relation to their social order. For example, a 20-year-old in university might not have the same language as a married 20-year-old with two children.
• What findings did Eckert find from her ‘Teenage Talk’ study?

  • Slang which she suggested, was due to wanting to distinguish themselves from older generations. Therefore, this would naturally involve plenty of neologisms. (New words.)
  • Fillers such as ‘like, okay, right’ were common practice
  • Rising Intonation (phonological features) especially among girls
  • Double negation was common eg: ‘that ain’t no good‘ ‘I ain’t got no time for this’

  she concluded that linguistic change is more common in teenagers than any other age group, and it has the most variation in speech patterns
• What did Martinez discover?

  Teenagers use negatives more frequently than adults been spoken language. One third of these happen in orders, suggestions and refusals. He says this is because teenagers are often more direct when they speak because they are not afraid of FTAs
• What did Berland find?

  Teenagers use tag questions, more frequently ‘innit, yeah, right’.

  These are implements from social class too. Working class teens use ‘innit’ as a tag more often, whereas middle-class teams use ‘yeah’
• What did Stenstrom find?

  Teens use more non standard grammar features. Common features - multiple negation, use of ‘aint’ ellipses of auxiliary verbs, non standard pronouns (e.g; theirselves)
• In her book ‘The Life of Slang’ what did Julie Coleman say about slang? (5 things)

  • Slang is lexical and semantic, (words, and meanings) not grammatical or phonological
  • It is not register (so it does not involve context, dependent structures, as well as words)
  • It is not really a language in its own right
  • It is not jargon
• Coleman outlines a range of conditions that need to exist for slang to grow and develop. Can you name them 4?

  • A standard official accepted form of the language, which it exists within and rebels against.
  • Hierarchy
  • A real or perceived threat to individuality and self expression
  • A sense of group identity at the bottom of the hierarchy
• what linguistic features were investigated in Emma Moore's study?

  • Use of 'were' instead of 'was': For example, saying "I were late" instead of "I was late."
  • Negative concord: The use of double negatives, such as "I didn't do nothing."
• What did Emma Moore investigate?

  • Participants: 48 teenage girls (aged 12-15) from a school in Eden Valley, Bolton.
  • Method:
  • Ethnographic study (long-term observation of natural speech).
  • Identified different social groups among the girls.
• What were Moore's main findings?

  • The Populars
  • Liked going out, rebellious, had high status in school.
  • Used more non-standard "were" to fit in with their social group.
  • 
    
  • The Townies
  • More rebellious, associated with anti-school attitudes and working-class culture.
  • Used the most non-standard forms.

  
  

  • The Geeks
  • Academically driven, engaged in school activities.
  • Used mostly standard English.

  
  

  • The Eden Valley Girls
  • Middle-class, from rural areas, part of after-school clubs.
  • Used mostly standard English.
• What are Moore's conclusion?

  • Social group membership was more important than social class or gender in determining language use.
  • Non-standard grammar was used to signal group identity, similar to findings from Jenny Cheshire and Lesley Milroy.
  • This study supports sociolect theory—how people speak depends on their social networks and communities.