Lexical Innovation
A study of slang, colloquialisms and casual speech
Published on 1. January 1981
Book
Paperback/Softback
117 pages
978-90-272-2518-4 (ISBN)
Description
In addition to borrowing from various foreign sources, the main origins of slang terms are the activation and revitalization of existing morphological and lexical material. Metaphorical manipulation of lexical items, as the main device used for the production of slangisms, shows remarkable similarities in languages otherwise quite different from each other. Slang is analyzed as a kind of substandard language variation which any full-fledged language is bound to develop because it is experimental in that it is born from insubordination and protest against the stress experienced in the speech communities of large cities and is always characterized by that element of playfulness which is the hallmark of creative language in general.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Amsterdam
Netherlands
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 240 mm
Width: 160 mm
Weight
255 gr
ISBN-13
978-90-272-2518-4 (9789027225184)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
01/1981
1st Edition
John Benjamins Publishing Company
€84.49
Available for download
Content
1. 0. By way of introduction; 2. 1. Substandard language; 3. 1.1. Borrowings: foreign sources; 4. 1.2. Loans from other sociolects or dialects; 5. 1.3. The fascination of antiquity; 6. 1.4. Ascendance and decline; 7. 1.5. Meaning reception and semantic shift; 8. 1.6. The ephemerity of slangisms; 9. 1.7. Neologisms; 10. 2. Structures and manipulations; 11. 2.1. Dissimilative morphophonemic manipulations; 12. 2.2. Assimilative/associative manipulations; 13. 2.3. Onomatopoeia and morphophonological symbolization (Lautsymbolik); 14. 2.4. Revitalization and activation of the morpheme potential; 15. 2.5. Proper names and generic nouns; 16. 2.6. Intensifiers; 17. 2.7. Invectives and expletives; 18. 2.8. Syntagms; 19. 3. Slang, and the universe of metaphorical language; 20. 3.1. Contiguity relations; 21. 3.2. Reduction vs. extension of semantic content: quantitative manipulations; 22. 3.3. Qualitative manipulations: euphemisms and pejoratives; 23. 3.4. Componential re-arrangement: focusing and shifting of semantic features; 24. 3.5. "Fertile" semantic areas; 25. 3.6. Metaphorical parallelisms; 26. 3.7. Downright absurdities; 27. 4. Some reasons for variability: rules and their users; 28. 4.1. Oral communication; 29. 4.2. Rule-abiding and rule-transcending linguistic behaviour; 30. 4.3. Subcultures under innovational stress and their languages; 31. 4.4. Persuasive Language; 32. 4.5. The poeticity of slang; 33. 4.6. Language born from fear: language taboo; 34. 4.7. Pathological and developmental linguistic deficiencies; 35. 5. Some purposes: distance, parody, re-interpretation and re-evaluation; 36. 5.1. The evaluation of reality by re-interpretation and re-naming; 37. 5.2. Stigmatized language variants: innovative deviation; 38. 5.3. Emotionalization and the Promethean principle of innovation; 39. 5.4. Aggressiveness and Fun; 40. 5.5. Language as a toy, a game; 41. 5.6. The insufficient translatability of connotations; 42. 5.7. Conventionalization in the making; 43. Footnotes; 44. References