A Sociolinguistic Analysis Of American Slang

American slang is one of the language varieties in English language. It used to be considered as low, vulgar language, which ought not to be admitted as legitimate language. Today, slang is widely used by people from all walks of life. American slang words and expressions manifest American culture and the characters of American people, also American society. Along with the globalization and economic development, more and more countries are involved in it, America as one of big powers, whose language becomes more and more influential. The study of American slang can help us achieve a better understanding of American culture and American people. This thesis attempts to make a study on American slang from sociolinguistc perspective, which is from the descriptive approach to analyze American slang instead of traditional prescriptive approach, and tries to put American slang under the discussion of language and American society. The first part of this thesis mainly talks about the general aspects of slang. As we know, Sociolinguistcs, as an interdisplinary study of language use, attempts to show the relationship between language and society. The second part of this thesis discusses American slang from American mainstream culture and subculture aspects—how American slang is influenced by American culture and how it is used in American subcultural groups. It focuses on the relationship between language and culture. The third part of this thesis talks about the social functions of American slang, that is, why people use slang in their conversation, what the functions slang serve in society. This part starts with the function of language, and combines the theories on the functions of language and...