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I'm writing an article for my university's student magazine about current trends in college students' language. I was wondering if Martha or Grant (or other forum-posters) had any recommended sources for me to use. I already found some books and articles at the library about college slang in general, written by Connie Eble, but these were all written in the 90s or earlier. I'm looking more for information on super-current language trends (like 2008 slang, etc). Any internet articles/blogs you guys can direct me to? Thanks!
Kari, you might contact Connie directly and ask if she'd be willing to share the last couple of compilations of slang she has collected from her students. She is kind enough to share them with William Safire, me, and some other people.
A question: college has long been a rich source of slang, which serves, I suppose, as a sort of sign of membership in a closed group. The same is true of any institution, I suppose, but there's this long tradition of college slang.
Here's my question: has there been an evolution in college slang over time? What I mean is, my hypothesis would be that each college had more specific, idiosyncratic slang in the past, when communication was slower and less frequent, than now. I would expect that new slang travels faster now, and that there is more shared slang than college-specific slang. Does Grant have any info?
A follow-up: is the volume of idiosyncratic slang inversely proportional to the size of the college?
Marc, it's a complicated topic, but the short answer is that the transmission of slang is perhaps less likely with faster communication because then it loses its novelty, its sense of insiderness, or its sense of forbiddenness too quickly. Fast transmission of slang is like virulent disease: if it's too quick, it kills off its hosts and then can't be spread. People are very cautious about using language that has lost its attractiveness.
As far as idiosyncrasy goes, all college campuses have slang that doesn't spread. It usually has to do with campus buildings, the kinds of classes the campus focuses on, rules or laws particular to the place, the kind or importance of sports teams, and the kinds of entertainments offered (or not) by the surrounding town.
Thank you, Grant, for your recommendation. I emailed Connie, so we'll see if she deems me worthy. I'm thinking of putting something into the article about how campuses are good environments for the development of slang because of the close proximity of so many young people. I'm also going to include a list of Marquette-based slang (that's where I go to school), which is, as Grant mentioned, mostly names of buildings.
Grant, I read in another thread that you get Google notifications (or something) of articles pertaining to language news. Do you know of any off the top of your head that would be of use for my article? I don't want the whole article to be about slang; I want it to be about the state of language among young people today and what is affecting language trends.
Thanks again!
Kari, most such articles from the popular or student press are written by people who have ill-informed opinions based upon little but borrowed peeves, and they don't even seem to be very informed about the peeves, either.
However, there are a few academic articles specifically about online language that might be of interest. Though they do not specifcally tackle offline language, which is a different creature, they might still be enlightening.
The best summary of research about online communication, especially texting and its forms, is David Crystal's new book, “Txting: the Gr8 Db8″ from Oxford University Press. We'll be talking about his book on a future show.
A more academic summary of the work that has been done in this area is Crispin Thurlow's paper, “From Statistical Panic to Moral Panic: The Metadiscursive Construction and Popular Exaggeration of New Media Language in the Print Media.†You can find it here:
http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol11/issue3/thurlow.html
I also generally recommend the Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, where the above paper is found. Many of the articles are great frontline research into this subject. Thurlow, in particular, is worth paying attention to. Some other papers to check out, located there and elsewhere:
IMing, Text Messaging, and Adolescent Social Networks.
Wired whizzes or techno-slaves? Young people and their emergent communication technologies.
Martha Barnette
Grant Barrett
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