Lexical Innovation
A study of slang, colloquialisms and casual speech
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.
[Pragmatics & Beyond, II:5] 1981. x, 117 pp.
Publishing status: Available
Published online on 21 November 2011
Published online on 21 November 2011
© John Benjamins Publishing Company
Table of Contents
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0. By way of introduction | p. 1
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1. Substandard language | p. 3
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1.1. Borrowings: foreign sources
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1.2. Loans from other sociolects or dialects
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1.3. The fascination of antiquity
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1.4. Ascendance and decline
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1.5. Meaning reception and semantic shift
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1.6. The ephemerity of slangisms
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1.7. Neologisms
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2. Structures and manipulations | p. 23
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2.1. Dissimilative morphophonemic manipulations
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2.2. Assimilative/associative manipulations
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2.3. Onomatopoeia and morphophonological symbolization (Lautsymbolik)
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2.4. Revitalization and activation of the morpheme potential
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2.5. Proper names and generic nouns
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2.6. Intensifiers
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2.7. Invectives and expletives
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2.8. Syntagms
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3. Slang, and the universe of metaphorical language | p. 35
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3.1. Contiguity relations
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3.2. Reduction vs. extension of semantic content: quantitative manipulations
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3.3. Qualitative manipulations: euphemisms and pejoratives
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3.4. Componential re-arrangement: focusing and shifting of semantic features
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3.5. “Fertile” semantic areas
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3.6. Metaphorical parallelisms
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3.7. Downright absurdities
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4. Some reasons for variability: rules and their users | p. 59
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4.1. Oral communication
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4.2. Rule-abiding and rule-transcending linguistic behaviour
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4.3. Subcultures under innovational stress and their languages
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4.4. Persuasive Language
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4.5. The poeticity of slang
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4.6. Language born from fear: language taboo
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4.7. Pathological and developmental linguistic deficiencies
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5. Some purposes: distance, parody, re-interpretation and re-evaluation | p. 69
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5.1. The evaluation of reality by re-interpretation and re-naming
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5.2. Stigmatized language variants: innovative deviation
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5.3. Emotionalization and the Promethean principle of innovation
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5.4. Aggressiveness and Fun
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5.5. Language as a toy, a game
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5.6. The insufficient translatability of connotations
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5.7. Conventionalization in the making
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Footnotes | p. 87
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Subjects
Linguistics
Main BIC Subject
CF: Linguistics
Main BISAC Subject
LAN009000: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General