美国俚语的文化特征

美国俚语中的文化特征

背景：

日期：2009-4-16 作者：佚名编辑：点击次数：3172

销售价格：50元论文编号：lw200904161410209909论文字数：25000

论文属性：职称论文论文地区：美国论文语种：中文

关键词：美国俚语特点文化 American slang feature culture

Abstract

With the development of the society, slang is accepted by more and more Americans. This thesis analyses features and functions of American slang. The author draws a conclusion that American slang reflects the cultural characteristics of Americans’ humor, informality, self-confidence,

anti-authority, innovation consciousness and pursuit for time efficiency.

摘要

随着社会的发展，俚语越来越多地为美国人所接受。本论文分析了美国俚语的语言特色等。此分析反映出了美国人幽默，非正式，反权威，追求时间效率，自信和具有创新意识独特的文化特征。

Introduction

English slang can be defined to common colloquial language, and according to the definition of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary (1985), slang is u sually used as colloquial words and phrase. It cannot be regarded as Standard-English, thus this shows that, slang is Nonstandard-English. However, slang is very popular in the English-speaking countries nowadays. Slang is spoken by people in daily speech,and even magazine and literary works may find a large number of them. With the development of the society, slang is widely used by more and more people, especially in America, slang can be found favorable in the Americans’ eyes. It is accepted by both upper-class and lower-class, and especially the college students who tend to use up-to-date words that form a kind of characteristic style of themselves. Slang plays an important part in American English. It is reported that slang

accounts for one of the tenth of American average vocabulary.

People’s attitude toward slang varies from person to person. Some think that slang cannot be used on the formal occasion, for it is spoken by the illiterate people only and the slang terms are so coarse. Some even think th at slang is the filthy language, and advocate abandoning using it. However, others hold the opposite idea. They think that slang play an important role in English language, because of its fresh, lifelike, humor and adequate expressions. One must admit the undeniable fact that slang is spoken by more and more people. In modern times, if one is not familiar with American slang he or she could not capture the slang expressions in the movie and common fictions, and, what worse, one would make mistakes when they are talking with the Americans. An example will clarify the fact. A guide asks the tourist “anybody wants to take a leak?”(Does anybody want to go to the restroom?), and, of course, what the guide said would make the tourist surprise. It is the uneducated vulgarity of expression at all. Therefore, one should bear in mind that it is very important to study language in a sociocultural context; the language has existed in close contact with culture. From the example one can know that misusing slang would result in misunderstanding in the communication. It can not tell others that one is good at English. It is not thus; moreover it shows that one just has half-back knowledge about slang.

Americans speak colorful, idiomatic English that may have little resemblance to the language one studied in school. Even a native English speaker might be confused by the combination of slang that characterizes American conversation. So it is very important to capture the American slang expression in order to know others correctly.

This thesis starts with the analysis of the cultural condition of American slang, and its purpose is to probe into the features of slang so as to bring the relationship between slang and society culture to light.