- vocabulary is an area of language where change is especially rife
- young people are usually the ones who change a language rather than the old
- Slang - a specific type of vocabulary used by a social or professional group to express an identity of some sort
- Slang is a reflection of societal and conceptual developments
- specialised vocabulary is not necessarily informal
- Historical connotations - it originally referred to secret means of communicating in the criminal underworld
- It is now a method of making those who can share in the communication feel included while excluding those who can't
- creates a sense of identity for a specific group
- Young people play an important role in lexical change, often creating new words
- This is a means of expressing identity/solidarity and excluding undesirables (often adults)
- This also creates a sense of rebellion
- Creativity is especially high in certain lexical domains - a reflection of the source of the creativity
- e.g. source languages (often those spoken by immigrants) and social milieus (certain areas with a high concentration of youth/immigrants)
- The rapid spread of words through modern media contributes to lexical change
- Foreign/Dialectical borrowing - youth language often uses elements from foreign languages and dialects of French
- e.g. bagnole is from Northern French and la taule (prison) and le frangin (younger brother) are from Lyon
- A lot of examples from foreign languages - truc (Spanish),schlof (drunk - German), toubib (doctor - Arabic), shooter, sniffer, dope (English)
Semantic Change:
- Pre-existing words can assume informal, slang values
- Certain lexical fields contribute slang more than others
- e.g. animal vocabulary - les flics, les poulets, les perdreaux, les condors - words for police based on animal imagery
- also shows speakers attitude towards police
- Humour is often used in slang
- e.g. 'écraser le champignon' (to drive fast, step on it)
- Food imagery in slang
- e.g. boîte à ragoût - jam packed, une viande froid (dead person)
- Slang often offers a wide variety of choice for expressing one common concept
- e.g. fauché, à sec, dans la panade etc = broke
- Slang frequently makes use of pronouns which don't actually refer to anything
- e.g. J'en ai marre, j'en ras-le-bol
- this meaningless pronoun is referred to as a lexical chunk or lexicalised units
- could refer to some older lost part of the phrase - e.g. "tu me casses les pieds" becomes "tu me les casses"
- In slang, words sometime assume the opposite of their original meaning
- e.g. "faire un malheur" can mean something is great
- Slang consists not just of different use of existing vocabulary but also the formation of new words
- Often from a change of word category
- e.g. Flingue (gun) derived from 'flinguer' (to shoot)
- e.g. être classe, être galère - nouns used as adjectives
- Certain suffixes are very productive in slang
- e.g. aille, asse, ard
- soiffard (heavy drinker), la flicaille (cops), vignasse (cheap wine)
- Often involve breaking up the word in some way
- e.g. shortening - ciné, apparte, métro
- Or shortening and then adding another ending (iche, oche)
- e.g. fastiche - easy (facile - fac + iche), cinoche - cinema
- Repeating the first syllable is also a possibility
- e.g. jojo = joli, mimi = mignon, dodo = dormier
- New words are created by rearranging elements of old words
- e.g. 'largonji' from 'jargon' - argon + j
- lofoque - louf - fou
- lerche - cher
- Insertion of letters into the middle of words also occurs
- e.g. gosse + av = gavosse
- Verlan(isation) - word reversal, a kind of backwards slang
- e.g. chicha = haschich, rebier = bière, féca = café
- this rearrangement of letters and sounds is very Arabic in origin, which reflects the strong Arabic influence in contemporary French society
- Short words are sometimes repeated
- e.g. foufou = fou
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