There are two quick snippets of articles here about slang which show how it's viewed on one hand as light, frothy and fun, and on the other hand seen as a darker marker of criminal behaviour and gang affiliation.
In the first article, on a BBC News School Report webpage, regional variation in slang usage is looked at and different words for "attractive" and "good" discussed. They quote the linguist Paul Kerswill, one of the key researchers into multi-ethnic youth dialect/ multicultural London English and mention a quick unscientific slang survey that they carried out.
In the second article, from The Daily Telegraph, slang use is one of many different behaviours flagged up as a sign that young people might be getting involved with gangs.
Follow EngLangBlog on Bluesky
The old Twitter account has been deleted (because of both the ennazification and enshittification of that site) so is now running on Bluesk...
-
As part of the Original Writing section of the NEA, students will be required to produce a commentary on their piece. This blog post will pr... -
As lots of students are embarking on the Language Investigation part of the Non-Exam Assessment, I thought it might be handy to pick up a fe...
-
When Dan asked what he should post about next on this blog, one of the most common responses was this, the World Englishes topic. Maybe ...