| Slang is more a sociolinguistic than a purely linguistic idea and is best understood in the theory of modern society and culture. Dictionaries usually define slang with at least two senses. First, slang is the special, restricted speech of subgroups or subcultures in society and, second, it is a highly informal, unconventional vocabulary of more general use. This dissertation is concerned with both senses, but especially with why and how restricted subgroup speech becomes general slang. Slang in use is a marker of social differences and, as such, is a vocabulary that has become used and understood with social purpose beyond the boundaries of the subgroup that originated the lexical items or their special meanings.In general, the study of American slang has been mainly confined within three areas: rhetoric, semantic and dictionary compiling. The rhetorical view treats American slang as colloquialism and euphemism in style. It reveals the features and classification of American slang in detail. The semantic analysis regards American slang as transference and elevation of meanings. This approach explores its origin and formation in terms of their semantic features. The lexicographical approach, widely adopted by scholars, mainly deals with the meaning, etymology of each American slang term and its relation to other terms, while offering no further information about American slang. These analyses are specific and clear-cut as to what American slang is and how it is formed and classified, but they all neglect the important fact that language and language use are deeply rooted in human society, and any adequate account of language cannot be separated from its socio-cultural and communicationalcontext. As a result, they often fail to tell us why and how American slang are originated in the first place; how the use of American slang varies with time, place, participants, subject matter, medium and form of society; and how American slang influences language and communication. To answer these questions, this dissertation uses a sociolinguistic approach to the study of American slang. Inspired by the theoretical insights of modern linguists, we explore the creation, use, and diachronic change and synchronic study of American slang based on the relations between language and culture, and language and context. The major topic of this dissertation is: American slang, as a socio-cultural phenomenon, should be examined in its socio-cultural commum'cational context.This dissertation consists of the folio whig five chapters.Chapter One presents an introduction which first offers a general review of origin and development of slang and dictionary compiling of American slang. Then it briefly reviews the past studies of American slang so as to put forward the topic of the dissertation - to analyze American slang sociolinguistically.Chapter Two discusses the definitions of slang and further demarcates the term 'slang' by contrasting slang with several levels of English vocabulary such as 'standard usage', 'colloquialisms', 'dialects' and 'cant, jargon and argot' and so on. Its characteristics, the uniqueness of American slang itself, are rooted in American society.Chapter Three first discusses the relationship between language and culture which is one of the theoretic foundations of the dissertation and argues that sociolinguistic theories are indispensable to the study of American slang. Based on the argument it discusses sub-culture groups, generation mechanism, socio-cultural and psychological conditions, and diachronic change and synchronic study of American slang.In Chapter Four, it is found that not only the use of American slang cannot be isolated from the communicational context in which they are use, but also its social functions are natural consequence of the interaction between language and society. Any change of one or more factors of a communicational event, i.e., users, setting, subject matter and medium, will influence their decision of whether to use American slang or not as well as when, where...
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