Language Gender, Slang

Language , Gender , and Slang

I . Introduction

If the feminist critique of language is correct , and much of language reflects and embodies masculine and male experience (Cameron 1998 , 9 then it should come as no surprise that slang , which is one particular mode of language , should reflect the same masculine and male experience However , it seems that little quantitative research had been done on slang directly until relatively recently . The first study was Kutner and Brogan 's research (1974 , just over 30 years ago . The object of this study is to test

my peer 's knowledge of slang , and how aware they are of its usage . One of the common ideas about slang is that slang words change fast , from generation to another the other is that slang is not mainstream . But where it comes to gender and slang , slang words have proven rather stable and common , even the vulgar slang - being a virgin or a whore has had meaning since time immemorial

But first , I will define slang and give a little bit of background about its study since the 1970 's . What is slang ? Slang refers to worlds and dialects that are not used in mainstream culture . As such , it can be the marker of a subculture , or of areas of discourse or ideas that are taboo in mainstream thinking . A subset of slang are what we normally take to be slang , namely vulgar , sexualized , or derogatory language For the purposes of this , we will focus on slang that has a particularly gendered aspect - that is , words that are used to designate male ' and female ' genders in slang language . These slang words include , but are not limited to : Chick , bitch , babe , and guy , dude , and stud . The fact that these slang words are common where it comes to talking about the relationships between the sexes , on s such as sexual attraction and gender relations (activities and relationships .According to Flexher (1975 , who produced the first dictionary of slang the use of slang and the creation of new slang is almost exclusively the purview of males (xii . Women tend to use the language that is invented for them by males . This may account for the disbalance of terms in a gendered distribution : there are more slang terms to designate female or feminine behaviors , and more of these terms are negative , and much more negative than its male /masculine counterpart : for example , compare bitch and asshole . First off , you would almost never call a man a bitch unless you were trying to feminize him , but you can call women assholes without masculinizing them . Second , bitch has a more negative charge than asshole , which might even carry a positive charge . These are just some informal observations that may or may not holdup under the scrutiny of a quantitative study

Males may use slang more because they are more at home in all of language , and so this violation of language norms becomes possible There is a sense in which the use...