Slang

A slang is a Registre of language or a speech particular to a social group, i.e. a Sociolecte, which aims at excluding any third from the communication. The slang initially has as a function of crypter the message, with for aiming which an uninitiated person does not include/understand it. It also has an identity function because it allows the mutual recognition of the members of the group and the demonstration of their separation of the company by a different language. It is necessary to distinguish the slang from the Jargon, which is specific to an occupational class and is supposed in theory not to have this cryptic aiming.

Functions and origins of the slang

  • the use of the slang is also a way of circumventing the Tabou S founded by the company. The language running testifies to a certain reserve to evoke certain realities explicitly. The slang, but also the familiar language, then makes it possible to indicate these realities by a diverted language, stripped of the Connotation S immediate related to the words of the usual register. That explains why the slang Lexique is particularly rich in certain fields like the Sexualité, but also the Violence, the Crime S and the Drogue. This function of skirting of the taboos is used by the common slang in the first case, by the Pègre in the second.

  • There does not exist a slang, but of the slangs (or slang parlures , to take again the expression of Denise François-Geiger and Jean-Pierre Goudaillier). Various social groups developed, at different times, their own speech. The importance of the cryptic and identity functions varies between the slangs. It is noticed that the current trend privileges the identity one on the cryptique one: the French contemporary of the cities in particular needs less to mask its message than to mark the membership of its group and, by opposition, its rejection of the productive company.

  • It is necessary specifically to notice also that, so that the thirds are maintained in the incomprehension of the communication, the slang must constantly renew its processes of expression, its lexicon. The existence of dictionaries of slang of course cancels all the effectiveness of the definite words. Many terms originating in the slang passed besides in the familiar register , even in the language running (for example, to burglarize and its derivatives results from the slang burglarizes “room”). Thus, certain words or expressions have a crowd of slang translations, the palm returning in the terms like “money”, “woman” or “to make love” which have more than one thousand of equivalents in slang.

At the end of the Middle Ages, the Breton emigrants in France were numerous and spoke French badly. Their gibberish already was ridiculed in a joke in connection with their supposed arguments on the market of the cesspools. They would have claimed the monopoly of it. From there, slang by homophony with rear kaoc' H, the m… spoken by the gueux ones about Brittany or rear kork.
  • In the beginning (little before 1630), the word Argot indicated the world of the beggars, then towards 1700, the “Jargon” of gueux, then the speech of the robbers. Slangs also developed in other social groups, and each profession, each district has its clean “slang”.
  • In France, the concept appears with the XIIIe century and is identified into of Provence under the name of “jargon”. François Villon uses with the XVe century the term of “jobelin”, then at the next century “gibberish”, “narquois” or “blesquin appear”, in particular. The first French text entirely centered on the life and the jargon of the small drapers and gueux is published in Lyon in 1596 at Jean Jullieron. It is about the generous life of Mercelots, Gueux and Boesmiens signed by Péchon de Ruby. This text will know 5 republications until in 1627 and will be at the origin of the development of the slang literature. It contains with final lexicon of 150 words of slang which will evolve/move from one edition to another. It is only towards 1630 that the word slang appears with the direction of " world of the mendiants" in the work published by Olivier Chéreau, Jargon or Language of the Slang reformed .
  • It is especially the literature which diffuses “the underworld slang”, of the Mémoires of the ex-convict Vidocq with the Mystères of Paris of Eugene Sue while passing by Victor Hugo, “the slang, it is the verb become convict! ”, and the Mohicans of Paris of Balzac, and more still under the Third Republic with Emile Zola, Francis Carco, Edouard Bourdet and Jacques Perret to quote only them. Let us note that through these works, it is rather the “Parisian” slang which is clarified.
  • the “Parisian” slang remains very long-lived with Paris until the years 1950. The sociological evolution of the Parisian population mainly explains this “death” of the Parisian slang which is not really any more practiced in the street but, which made a long time the joy of the readers of novels like San Antonio, of the spectators of films dialogued by Michel Audiard or of the listeners of songs of Pierre Perret, of Renaud or sketches of Coluche. Today, of the young authors of novels such as Anthony Michel and his character Toni Truand take again this kind of language.
  • the Verlan is an evolution of the slang which after several decades of sleep took a new rise in the years 1970. Other forms of languages coded since then took the relay, without however finding the creativity of certain typical expressions of the “traditional” slang.

Common slang

The common slang, sometimes called jargot , is a familiar speech derived from the slang but which lost the cryptic and identity functions of them. It is not specific any more to a group, and is primarily used in a ludic aiming: the speakers “play” to largely reproduce a speech connoted. It in general takes again “exceeded” slang vocabulary, given up by the social group which is the origin as soon as it was included/understood by thirds. The “French connected” of the years 1980 is a typical example of common slang.

Processes of development of the slang

To work out a speech which is clean for him, a social group has recourse to various means. Most important is lexical: besides one associates generally the slang only with one particular vocabulary. However, there can be also a modification of the Syntaxe, even if it is less importance.

In fact, the slang is always known for its vocabulary, but that does not mean that it follows the syntactic rules, grammatical, phonetic, pragmatic… of the standard language. The formation of the sentences, the pronunciation, the intonation, the gestural one… are very different from the official standard and thus take part in the distinction of the group. Nevertheless, the processes other than lexical used by the slang are in general not clean for him: they are generally characters of the familiar or popular Langage.

As for the processes of lexical development, they are of two types: either semantic (modification and play on the directions of the words), or formal (creation or modification of words). When the lexical development is formal, one often attends a déconstruction of the language running: the slang deforms, mixture, déstructure, cutting… the words and enfreint the rules. This déconstruction lets show through the will of the social group to dissociate itself by rejecting the established company.

The processes described here relate to the slang French current, and more particularly the French contemporary of the cities.

  • Proceeded syntactic

    • Change of lexical Class of the words: in general, it is about the use of an adjective in the place of an adverb. Example: it ensures grave for “  it is vraiment very bon  ”.
  • Proceeded lexical
    • Semantic S
      • Metaphor: picturesque expression which indicates a thing.
      • Métonymie (including Synecdoque): designation of a thing by one of its components.
      • Polysemia and Synonymy: plays on the multiple directions of the words.
    • Formal
      • lexical Composition.
      • Derivation or Resuffixation of existing words by means of popular suffixes ( - ard , - adze , - oque , - ax , - ullages …). Examples: jerk and bitch derived from material idiot , pourrave derived from rotted , matos derived from .
      • Apocope: truncation of one or more Syllable S finales of a mot. Examples: fart for detonator (joined), tox for drug addict .
      • Apheresis: truncation of one or more initial syllables of a mot. the apheresis, very rare until now French, is particularly present in contemporary French of the cities. Examples: blème for problem , zik for music (after a passage by the verlan zikmu ).
      • Redoubling, possibly after truncation, of a syllable. Example: zonzon for prison .
      • Systems of coding. Among these let us quote:
        • the Verlan, proceeded very much used since 1980. Examples: keuf verlan of cop (via the passage by a hypothetical dissyllabic stage keufli ), rabza verlan of Arab .
        • Javanese, consisting in adding the sound front (or any other sound) between the consonants and the vowels. For example Marcel - > Me av' arc front el .
        • Louchébem (or largonji), consisting to replace the initial consonant by a L , and to defer it at the end of the word with a termination (initially created by the louchébems of Laripette). To stop - > L oucher' bem' ; With hair - > with L oil' EP . The word mild nutter entered the usual vocabulary. Insane - > the foque ou'
      • Siglaison: denomination of a reality by initials, and possibly creation of derived starting from these initials. Examples: LBV for Libreville , CCT for fallen from the truck (stolen).
      • Loan S with other languages. Examples: loony of the Arab mahbûl “  fou  ”, bédo (joined) of the gypsy, go (girl) of the wolof.

This list is inspired by the classification of Marc Sourdot (opus quoted below).

Examples of terms of slang

  • Money : artiche, ace, aspine, aubert, oats, balls, butter, let us biftons, blanquette, corn, balls, braises, bubble, Cairo, carburizes, Carmelite friar, chels, craisbi, casing, fafiots, fifrelins, flouze, fodder, fresh, money, wafer, galtouse, ganot, gibe, grease, grisbi, Japanese, coils, mesh, mornifle, némo, bone, sorrel, wicker, dough, weighs, picaillons, pimpions, plaster, dough, radish, rafia, rounds, sauce, welding, talbins, trêfle, thune…
  • Femme : weasel, bends, middle-class, frangine, crack, gisquette, gonzess, gonze, greluche, greluse, grognasse, meuf, chick, nière, hammer, headstock, sister, mouse, star, mole…
  • Manger : becqueter, to puff out, boulotter, briffer, cartoucher, to break the crust (or paves it), to break seed, claper, croûter, galimafrer, grailler, jaffer, mastéguer, morfiler, tortorer…
  • Policier : archer, bignolon, bourdille, knock, cop, cop, keuf, matuche, Pandora, young partridge (- > drauper), chicken (- > poulagas, poulardin, pouleman), royco, DEK (- > dekiz, kizdé), chtar, schmitt, pigs, beufs…
  • Siège of the PJ : large birdcage, house umbrella, house of poulagas, house pullmann, KFC (in bond with chickens)…
  • To make love : to kiss, screw, fornicate, troncher, to charge its bread, to procreate, stuff, smash, copulate, harpoon, line out, file, line, bouillave, to collapse, motoculter, to explain the hour, to play the charts, flasher the bios, défragmenter, to install its random access memory, to configure the between-legs, to cut out, break, massacre, soak its cookie, to gash, soil, remove rust from, débarouler, to butter the crescent, to stuff…
  • To be drunk : buttered, bitu, stuffed, malted, full, dries, round, torn, with block…

See too

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