American slang in mainstream magazine writing

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American slang in mainstream magazine writing
AACL 2008 BYU March 13-15 2008

• Anna Belladelli
• University of Verona, Italy

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The study of ephemeral American English takes an
open mind, patience, and wide-ranging interests
one must explore traditional sources of words and
grammatical patterns, like books and magazines
but one must look at out-of-the-way magazines,
not Time or Newsweek (Adams 2000 384)
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What is slang?

• SLANG SHOULD NO LONGER BE DESCRIBED AS
• Appendix of standard language
• Curious vocabulary
• Created at the peripheries of society
• Used secretly, occasionally
• SLANG IS
• Ordinary competence of language users (Eble 1996)
• Unsanitized vocabulary
• Vehicle of identity and cultural heritage
• Used extensively

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Starting Point Cosmopolitan (2007)

• Slang the alleged speech of the peripheries
  is used by the center ? the magazine itself
• Indeed, it is widely used in
• HEADLINES
• SUBHEADS
• CAPTIONS
• Conversely, it is hardly found in
• QUOTATIONS ? the experts and interviewees
  voice
• LETTERS ? the readers voice
• BODY OF THE TEXT

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Where is slang?

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Where is slang?

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CosmopolitanSection You, you, you (2007)

• Top five most frequent slang lexemes
• CHICK
• HOT
• BUDDY
• COOL
• PAD
• All basic slang lexemes (Moore 2004)

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Corpus

• TIME Magazine Corpus (1923-2006)
• online, free-access corpus
• mainstream weekly magazine
• interface by Mark Davies (Brigham Young
  University)

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Buddy
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Buddy - Collocates

• (Function NOUN)

• (Function NOUN)

• (Function ADJECTIVE)

• his
• a/the/Ø
• his adj.
• my
• old adj.
• old
• your
• Army
• bosom
• drinking

• 177
• 172
• 102
• 28
• 27
• 27
• 16
• 15
• 12
• 12

• good
• war/wartime
• your adj.
• their
• wounded
• her
• golf/golfing
• high school
• my adj.
• her adj.

11 10 8 8 7 7 6 6 6 4
16 13 10 5 3
movie system list comedy film
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Buddy as Social Label

• It always describes a male-male(s) bond.
• Only 3.4 of occurrences (1923-2006) has a female
  or mixed referent

• IMPOSED LABEL
• (2.5)
• The journalist, or a male third party (e.g. male
  interviewee), describes a couple or group of
  female or mixed friends as buddies

• SELF-ATTRIBUTED LABEL
• (0.9)
• A female describes her own male or female
  friend(s) as buddy/buddies

children love affairs socially inappropriate
behaviors
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Chick
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Chick - Collocates

• (Function NOUN)

• (Function ADJECTIVE)

• a/the/Ø
• Dixie
• white
• this/these
• his
• his adj.
• biker
• hot
• young
• Commando

• 51
• 29
• 12
• 8
• 5
• 4
• 4
• 4
• 4
• 4

6 3 2 2

• flick
• lit(erature)
• rock
• thing

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Chick as Social Label

• It always describes a young, clueless, and
  attractive woman, although the reference can be
  serious, sexist, playful, or critical, according
  to the context.

IMPOSED LABEL (78.6) It is often used in movie
summaries to describe a female character, and in
quotes by male third parties (e.g. interviewees).
In 4.8 of cases, a female is imposing the label.

SELF-ATTRIBUTED LABEL (21.4) In the last two
decades, a gradual linguistic riappropriation is
taking place, and sometimes its advocates manage
to participate indirectly in mainstream
discourse(s).
to define her own group
to typecast other women
members of the star system
COSMOPOLITANS FICTIONAL WOMAN
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Concluding Remarks

• STARTING POINT Cosmopolitan 2007
• Chick and buddy are the most frequent slang
  lexemes, used by the fictional idealized woman as
  imposed (only apparently self-attributed) labels
  on real women.
• Slang hides a conservative evaluative structure
  (Caldas-Coulthard 1999)
• THIS STUDY Time Magazine 1923-2006
• Chick and buddy originated within male discourses
  and their use has increased through the decades,
  also following historical events and cultural
  turns. There is some room for linguistic
  riappropriation.

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Anna Belladelli
Thank you

• anna.belladelli_at_univr.it

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References

• ADAMS M. (2000), Ephemeral Language, American
  Speech, 75(4) 382-384.
• CALDAS-COULTHARD C. R. (1999), Women who pay for
  sex and enjoy it, in N. COUPLAND and A. JAWORSKI
  (eds.) Discourse. London Routledge. 523-540.
• EBLE C. (1996), Slang and Sociability. Chapel
  Hill and London The University of North Carolina
  Press.
• FAIRCLOUGH N. (2001 1989), Language and Power.
  London Longman.
• LIGHTER J. E. (1994), Random House Historical
  Dictionary of American Slang. New York Random
  House.
• MOORE R. L. (2004), Were Cool, Mom and Dad Are
  Swell Basic Slang and Generational Shifts in
  Values. American Speech, 79(1) 59-86.