Peculiarities of slang formation

Though a great majority of slang words as well as their grammatical and phonetic features existed long before standard language appeared almost all slang acquired its present form due to some processes of word formation. It is slang that reflects the dialectics of language development in the most expressive way.

Most philologists like M.M. Makovsky, E.M. Beregova agree that slang words are mainly formed by the same means of word formation as in the language in general and English language in particular.

In the development of slang the peculiarities of individual word formation are of great importance. Many semantic changes and new interpretation of words first appear on an individual level and only then penetrate various language layers, particularly social dialects and oral speech.

According to V.G. Viluman new interpretation of already existing words plays a key role in formation of slang. This is achieved by figurative usage, narrowing and expansion of the word meaning. Many slang words appear as a result of shortening and composition of words whereas the role of affixation in this process is insignificant. The researcher also considers phonetic adaptation of borrowed words as a productive means of slang formation.

According to M.M. Makovsky the most typical feature of English and American slang in the sphere of word formation is transformation of some meaningful words into half-suffixes, e.g.: the word “monkey” is often used as a half-suffix in the meaning of “worker, mechanic” like in “air monkey”, “company monkey”.

Shortening of words and creation of so-called “blends” like “brunch” (breakfast + lunch) are also typical of slang words formation. Very often reduced forms of words are used, e.g.: circ (circumstance), cert (certainly), def (definitely).

Some slang words are also formed by the means of composition of the first (or the first and the last) phonetic elements or syllables of synonymic words. This process is called “acronymy” and is found not only in abbreviations like “snoff” (Saturday night only friend / female) but also in common words, e.g.: “cod” (cozen + deceive) - to lie.

Many slang words acquired their specific meaning as a result of ellipsis in some word combinations, e.g.: slang word “to create” obtained its meaning “to make a scandal” due to its frequent usage in the combination “to create a scandal”.

So, the process of formation of slang words both follows some general rules of a language and has its own peculiarities. A wide variety of such formation means as figurative usage, narrowing and expansion of the word meaning, shortening and composition of words, transformation of some meaningful words into half-suffixes, “blending”, acronymy and ellipsis make slang one of the most dynamic language layers, that vividly reflects the rapid changes in a language.

Contents Teaching staff

Stoyko-Gota S. Common Problems in Teaching English Literature in

Non-Native Contexts……………………………………………………………….4

Kozachyshyna O.L. Language as a Means of Manipulation in Advertising……...5

Kryshtalik Ganna Grammatical Compression in Newspaper Headlines………….7

Kuzmina S., Tripses J. Fulbright Collaboration………………………………….8

Ivakhnenko O.A. Priorities for Phonology in the Pronunciation Class…………..9

Strilchuk A. The Linguocognitive Implications of Teaching English Phraseologisms to Ukrainian-speaking Students………………………………….10

Tripses J. Tripses Fulbright Projects……………………………………………..12

Грачова Ірина Вітчизняна граматична традиція: проблема визначення статусу слів-квантифікаторів…………………………………………………...14

Lavrenchuk Yaroslav Language as a Vehicle and Instrument of Thought……...16

Забужанская Инна Цветовая номинация в аспекте вторичной языковой картине мира………………………………………………………….17