Language in Use 157-158
This unit has two goals: to encourage observation of words people use, and
of their attitudes to them; and to relate this observation to the capacity of
language for inventing and discarding words. Its aim is to show how popular
notions way in which people actually use language.
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[1] The aim of this session is to get the class to see that words regarded is slang by one generation may not be so regarded by another. This may be done by discussing, with the help of examples given by the class, what they understand by slang. These should be written on the board, and the class asked to write down which words and phrases they judge are likely to be disapproved of by parents.
[2] The aim of this session is to plan a field-study Working in small
groups, the class plan to approach people outside to ask for examples of, and
attitudes towards, slang. The results of the study should be available for the
next session. It is important that representatives of different generations
are approached, for example, grand-parents, parents, elder brothers and sisters,
younger brothers and sisters.
[3] The aim of these sessions is to establish that the word 'slang'
refers not only to a fact of language but also to an attitude towards language.
The examples obtained by the field-study groups form the basis for the discussion.
Three basic points need to emerge:
(a) that one man's slang is another man's habitual way of speaking
(b) that the slang of one ace group may carry little meaning for another
(c) that the slang of one period can become ordinary usage for the next.
The work of this unit may be extended to consider the problem of slang in writing.
This may be done by looking at:
(a) the guidance given by Fowler, Partridge, Vallins and various dictionaries.
This should be looked at in the light
of the experience gained through the field work
(b) the novelist's use of slang.