On Defining Slang

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					                                    On Defining Slang

        Every adult speaker has a concept of slang--knowing at the least that some words
and expressions transgress generally accepted norms of formality or appropriateness and
in some way do not fit the measure of what "good" language is. Despite such recognition
by almost all speakers, scholars with formal training in linguistic analysis have almost
ignored slang--though they acknowledge having the same intuitions about this type of
vocabulary as do all speakers. In truth, most linguists have given no more thought to
slang than have people who claim no expertise in language. In the English-speaking
world in particular, the description of the form and function of slang has been left largely
to lexicographers rather than to others who study language for a living.
        Yet even within the practice of dictionary making, slang is problematic. Slang
items often confound the category labels of lexicographers. In his overview article
"American Lexicology, 1942-1973," James B. McMillan identifies the fundamental
problem of slang lexicology as a problem of definition: "Until slang can be objectively
identified and segregated (so that dictionaries will not vary widely in labeling particular
lexemes and idioms) or until more precise subcategories replace the catchall label
SLANG, little can be done to analyze linguistically this kind of lexis, or to study its
historical change, or to account for it in sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic contexts"
        However, practitioners of lexicology are not solely or mainly responsible for the
lack of an adequate definition of slang. After all, slang words and expressions are in
large part short-lived, slippery in meaning, characteristic of marginalized groups, oral,
and highly conditioned by social situation. These are all characteristics that militate
against the frequent and consistent occurrence of slang in the files on which dictionaries
are customarily based. Moreover, the sociolinguistic and psycholinguistic contexts in
which slang is embedded cannot readily be captured by any system of discrete labels.
        The major stumbling block to a workable definition of slang comes from the
assumption among linguists that slang is peripheral to language. Even among
sophisticated language scholars, slang is a curiosity, a quirk, an embellishment. Many
take interest or pleasure in slang but do not take slang seriously as a frequent or
significant component of ordinary language use or as an object of study. To this way of
thinking, slang is ornamentation--like an earring. It may convey novelty, beauty, or
information about the social status of the wearer, but an earring does not affect the nature
of the ear or its function in hearing. Thus, if slang is included in general linguistic
description at all, it fits as an optional or extraneous part --or perhaps as a deviant
substitute for what is viewed as the neutral, normal, or standard form (Eble, 1984).
        Slang is not the only component of language to be put to the side.
Suprasegmental prosodic features, a wide range of vernacular uses, dialects of low
prestige, and other ordinary realizations of living language are understudied for much the
same reason. The prestigious written form of language is taken as the norm, even by
linguists. Parts of language that are poorly incorporated into the general literary form
(like suprasegmentals, colloquial expressions, and taboo vocabulary, for example) are,
therefore, easy to set aside.
        Linguist H. A. Gleason made this point almost thirty years ago (1973, 32).
                 We have taken as normative what is really the anomalous
                 kind of language--legal contracts, examples out of logic
                 texts, and modern descendants from the old classical
                 examples in grammar books. To this core we have added
                 so much of ordinary language as is not distinct from it--or
                 rather, so much of ordinary language as we have not yet
                 noticed to be distinct from it. The malapropisms, poetic
                 figures, popular language play, and ordinary double-talk we
                 hear all around us may after all be the really typifying
                 human language, extreme cases only of the ordinary sort of
        The supposed paradigm shift in linguistics that came with the advent of
transformational-generative grammar in 1957 did nothing to bring slang, poetry, non-
prestigious dialects, and the like into the mainstream of language study. On the contrary,
the ideal speaker-hearer construct and the primacy of competence over performance
merely reinforced the practice of equating language with its standard written form.
        However, the language that people experience in the ordinary course of their lives
is much more varied and complex than is the written norm. In particular, ordinary
language is laden with social information. Language is by nature social. It is the property
of a community of speakers. People rarely speak, or write, with only themselves as the
audience. It should not be surprising then that some components and forms of language
are socially motivated. Slang is such a linguistic phenomenon. Slang is one kind of
vocabulary that serves the social nature of language. In an important article in 1978
Bethany Dumas and Jonathan Lighter make the crucial point that slang cannot be
identified by any appeal to form, meaning, or grammar or as a component of any kind of
autonomous linguistic system. Slang must be identified by its social consequences, by
the effects its use has on the relationship between speaker and audience.
        Dumas and Lighter posit four criteria for identifying a word or phrase as slang
(1978, 14-16).
                 1. Its presence will markedly lower, at least for the
                 moment, the dignity of formal or serious speech or writing.
                 2. Its use implies the user's familiarity either with the
                 referent or with that less statusful or less responsible class
                 of people who have such special familiarity and use the
                 3. It is a tabooed term in ordinary discourse with persons of
                 higher social rank or greater responsibility.
                 4. It is used in place of the well-known conventional
                 synonym, especially in order (a) to protect the user from the
                 discomfort caused by the conventional item or (b) to protect
                 the user from the discomfort or annoyance of further
They conclude that "when something fits at least two of the criteria, a linguistically
sensitive audience will react to it in a certain way. This reaction, which cannot be
measured, is the ultimate identifying characteristic of true slang" (16).
        None of the four criteria is formal, for slang is not distinct in form. And only
number 3 may be said to be loosely semantic. But all four concern the relationships of
the participants, and the "ultimate identifying characteristic" is the consciousness of
shared knowledge between speaker and hearer. In other words, Dumas and Lighter's
formulation requires that the type of lexis called slang be recognized for its power to
effect union between speaker and hearer. Whether or not the particulars of their
definition are necessary or sufficient, Dumas and Lighter are right. Slang cannot be
defined independent of its functions and use.
        Despite the difficulties of defining the term, slang does have some consistent
characteristics (Eble, 1996, 12-24). Slang is lexical rather than phonological or syntactic,
though, in English at least, body language and intonation are often important in signaling
that a word or phrase is to be interpreted as slang. Nor is there a peculiarly slang syntax.
Slang expressions do not follow idiosyncratic word order, and slang words and phrases
typically fit into an appropriate grammatical slot in an established syntactic pattern.
Furthermore, the productive morphological processes responsible for slang are the same
ones responsible for the general vocabulary, i.e., for English, compounding, affixation,
shortening, and functional shift (26-37).
        Novelty and ephemerality are qualities often associated with slang. This is
because slang is the linguistic counterpart of fashion, offering a means to express both
uniqueness and willingness to conform to a group, as does fashion (Eble, 1999). Most
slang items enjoy only a brief time of popularity, bursting into existence and falling out of
use at a much more rapid rate than items of the general vocabulary.
        Another often-cited characteristic of slang is its group-identifying function. It is
well-documented that social groups are fertile breeding grounds for an idiosyncratic
vocabulary to enhance their solidarity. Groups that operate on the periphery of society,
such as con artists or drug dealers, seem particularly adept at creating slang. However,
association with a group is not essential to slang. With the possibilities of instant and
widespread communication, the group-identifying functions of slang for the population at
large may be diminishing in favor of identification with a style or attitude rather than with
a specific, easily delineated group.
        Slang is not a unique or isolated type of lexis. Slang is part of a continuum of
words and expressions that serve the social and interpersonal functions of language more
than its ideational function. Thus slang is similar to--and sometimes is difficult to
distinguish from--other kinds of vocabulary like regionalisms, vogue words, jargon,
obscenity, and colloquialisms. Slang shares some characteristics with each of these.
        My sense of what constitutes slang vocabulary is based on collecting the group-
identifying vocabulary of undergraduates at a state university in the United States for
almost thirty years. For most of those years I talked and wrote about slang but
deliberately avoided defining it. Many currents of the human spirit converge in slang,
making slang in many ways like poetry and art. Like those other verbal and visual
expressions, slang is just as elusive of definition. I am convinced that one of the verbal
accomplishments of human beings universally is poetry. I also know that I can usually
identify a string of vocal sounds in my own language as poetry and that that label
represents a meaningful way of classifying a portion of human linguistic performance.
Yet I cannot adequately define poetry. Nor can poets or scholars. Defining slang is as
difficult as defining poetry, and for the same reasons. Slang and poetry are identified in
large part by social and psychological effects.
        Nevertheless, keeping all the above caveats in mind, I offer this definition from
Slang and Sociability: In-Group Language Among College Students: "Slang is an ever
changing set of colloquial words and phrases that speakers use to establish or reinforce
social identity or cohesiveness within a group or with a trend or fashion in society at
large" (1996, 11).


Dumas, Bethany K. and Jonathan Lighter. 1978. "Is Slang a Word for Linguists?"
American Speech 53: 5-17.

Eble, Connie. 1999. "Lexicon à la Mode." Conference paper, Linguistic Association of
Canada and the United States, University of Alberta.

Eble, Connie C. 1984. "Slang: Deviation or Norm?" The Tenth LACUS Forum, 1983,
ed. Alan Manning, Pierre Martin, and Kim McCalla, 409-16. Columbia, S.C.: Hornbeam

Eble, Connie. 1996. Slang and Sociability: In-Group Language Among College
Students. Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press.

Gleason, H. A., Jr. 1973. "Grammatical Prerequisites," Lexicography in English, eds.
Raven I. McDavid and Audrey Duckert, 27-33. Annals of the New York Academy of
Sciences 211.

McMillan, James B. 1978. "American Lexicology 1942-1973," American Speech 53: