Slang: The Language of A Generation

When I was with friends over Thanksgiving Break, they used a word that I had never heard before “bae.” I stopped the conversation, thinking I'd heard wrong, but they quickly informed me that 'bae' was simply another word or endearment for a significant other. They laughed at my ineptitude with common slang and I did too. Still, it reminded me that the use of slang by youth, teenagers, and young adults remains an intriguing occurrence. Every generation, without fail, comes up with their own slang. The youth of each generation change existing words' meanings, create whole new words, and systematically engender a new way to express themselves.

Slang does not just spring up in dictionaries and in conversation, like all parts of language it has a starting point and a purpose. Tom Dalzell, in the PBS article “The Power of Slang,” states that slang often originates in subcultures with a need to communicate without outsiders understanding. When these subcultures are portrayed and featured in media, they can become widespread as the meaning expands beyond the original meaning used by the subculture. One example is seen in the lexicon of organized crime, whose slang achieved mainstream acceptance “once media (books, radio, movies and television) began to explore the criminal underground.” (Dan Zarrella) In the same way slang within a subculture allows the members to communicate without exposure, it also enables members to identify outsiders. For the younger generation, this may seem unnecessary, given the ease of distinguishing younger people from older people. However, with the slang of a younger generation, it goes a step further. When older individuals understand youth slang, it appears that those individuals more easily grasp the feelings, frustrations, and manners of a generation. This way, slang can be used to identify individuals who are friendly to the subculture, in this case that of a younger generation.

As each generation's identity differs, the slang used by each generation is different as well. Even then, nothing is static. The language of a generation is constantly evolving, adding more words to fill up semantic gaps, changing along with the culture and the progress of the world. However, slang is not only new words, but also words that have undergone linguistic changes. In the case of 'bae,' the endearment 'baby' underwent a morphological change, a clipping, to 'babe' and now to 'bae.' Additionally, Dan Zarella noted, slang can often be attributed to old words given new meanings, like 'swerve' or 'literally.' ('Literally is particularly interesting because its new meaning means the opposite of its original meaning.) At the same time, youth slang is being developed, it is also being spread and sustained faster and easier than ever before. Horizontal transmission of slang (peer-to-peer), rather than vertical transmission (parent-to-child) ensures that in today's technology friendly world, the newest slang can be heard and used and spread from subcultures faster than than it ever was before.


Unfortunately, slang use drops off with age. Dalzell commented that “as we move into our twenties, we gradually stop acquiring new slang and then ultimately just stop.” Eventually, we are left clinging to the slang of our generation, although that usage decreases with time as well.

Tom Dalzell "The Power of Slang" http://www.pbs.org/speak/words/sezwho/slang/
Dan Zarrella "How and Why Slang Spreads" http://danzarrella.com/slang.html