Abstract: With the development of society economic, people's language changes faster and faster. American slang is a language of common and colloquial, although it cannot be regarded as Standard English, it is very popular in English-speaking countries nowadays. American slang is fashion, random, rhymes, short-lived and conducive to emotional expression. This paper analyzes the American slang language features and its use of social groups.

　　Keywords: Slang,characteristics, user groups,m.seolinyi.cn

　　Preface

　　American slang can be defined as a common, colloquial language, but not Standard English. It has been active in the American continent from the twentieth century, created and widely used by the police, politicians, businessmen and university. With the frequently contact among different groups, Slang breaks through in their original spreading ranges, resulting in language integration in greater range and popular in society as a whole. Slang is a commonly used language in daily life, a lot of slang can even be found in magazines and literary works. With the development of society, Slang is more and more popular, especially in the United States. Slang both the upper class and the lower classes are generally accepted in the United States, especially university students tends to use the latest vocabulary to form a unique style.

　　American slang in English plays an important role, according to reports, the use of American slang accounted for one-tenth of the vocabulary. Peoples’ attitude of slang varies with different individuals. Some people think slang cannot be used in formal occasions; they believe that only the illiterate and vulgar people would use slang. Some people even think that Slang is a contamination language and advocates to abandoning the use of it. Also some people think that Slang plays an important role of the expression of the English language as it is fresh, lively, and humorous. However, we have to admit that Slang has been accepted by more and more people.

　　American slang language characteristics

　　(A) Unconventional and pursuit of novelty

　　The basic characteristics of slang is unconventional and pursuit of novelty. The so-called novelty is not to say that people create new words. Most slang is the extended meaning of common words and phrases. People use association or metaphor to give a new meaning of the common words and phrases; we called old words to add new meaning. By using the practices of transfer word meaning, Slang has a sense of humor and vivid. For example: What a boss the tone to the song! I'm tired of living in such a plastic society! It’s not hard to see that the above slang examples are used in formal occasions. “Boss” and “Plastic” has been given a new connotation by transfer rhetoric. The expression “good” in Standard English such as good, excellent and great have been used sparingly, because they have been unable to convey the state of stimulation and extreme excitement with the rapid development of society, so those old phrases have been given a new meaning. Such as: You got a new car? Cool! That was a sweet play! In this sentence, “cool” and “sweet” are used to express the meaning of “great”. And one for the “joy” word “gay”, in addition to said basic meaning, also means “gay”. People are tired of platitude and desire for novelty, so they create some new slang. These words associated with the original meaning, some unrelated. This arbitrary also reflects the American personality: everything is conventional and seeks novelty.

　　(B) Rhyme

　　Rhyme plays a big role in the composition of American slang. Most English slangs are results of simplified through a variety of word-building one or several words, of which by overlapping two similar structure and rhyme morpheme as a rhythm, short and easy to remember words by innovating part of the words. Such some alliteration words as ding-dong, tip-top, and some rhyme as wavy-navy, chit chat, Willy-nilly, lead- head. These slangs are catchy, easy to understand and remember, greatly enrich and enhance the expressiveness of the slang. In addition, several other slang-constituting also highlight this feature, such as the first letter of the VIP, the shorten such ex-husband or ex-wife as“exo”, the decorated method sitcom (= situation + comedy). These words’ pronunciation is short and strong, easy to remember and dissemination.

　　(C)Emotional expression

　　Slang, which is based on emotion, can express speaker’s feeling to a large extent. American slang often conveys a mean, even disgust attitude or mockery. For example, most American slangs for women often involve emotion; American will describe a beautiful lady as “skirt, biscuit swan ”to show its positive emotion. In contrast, they will describe an ugly lady“silly duck, cloud, black monkey” to show its negative emotion. When you say “I miss you”, the person might not feel how much you miss him, but when you say something exaggerated like“I’m dying to see you”, this expression will fully and vividly express your feeling. Let’s take a look at Budweiser’s advertisement: There were two men (African American) chatting on phone, A said to B: Whaaasup?(a simplified version of What’s up, which means what are you doing?), B answered: Whaaaaaasuuuuup? (B is more exaggerated than A), which makes them closer.

　　American slang’s social group users

　　(A)Political sub-cultural groups

　　Americans do not believe their government or influential politics, because they did a lot of shady things to achieve their political status. People normally call those who work for the government G-man (Government man), or garbage man, because they think the government is useless. Although Americans lost confidence in their government, the government is still playing a very important role in decision making. Such a big group has their own slang vocabulary and language. For example, they call actors who get involved in politics activists, things happened at back or did not go through normal channels are called backchannels, if they hold series of political election activities, they move into a campaign mode. In the election, description of election policy or related regulation is called issue positioning. Ugly season, which means during the first period of election, in order to win the battle, candidate disclose other’s ugly past to win people’s support. During this period, anything related to election calendar or side information are called dope story. If someone unexpectedly wins the election, he is called a dark horse. A person who is not disciplined or restrained is called cowboy. Powerful candidate has strong muscle (normally refer to strong shoulder, background or political scheme). Violation of other’s power is called rat-fucking by peers. Once a candidate has successfully become a president, he will normally deliver a speech, which is called Rose Garden Rubbish—because it is held in white house raised garden. If this president has some political scandals, for example, scandals related to sex, people will call it sex-gate, or this president will be called Velcro president—which means a president is surrounded by scandals

　　(B)Youth group

　　College students, high school students and some youths are the major consumers of slang in America. Although college and high school students uses different slangs, plus slangs differ from place to place, they share a same characteristic, that is they express a special humor. For example, Freshie stands for freshman, male teacher is called bear, slowstudent is called birdbrain (comparing to bird’s body, it has a small brain), skip class is cut class. For most students, using these special slangs is a kind of habit and a psychological feeling of not being left behind.

　　(C)internal of special group

　　In some industries or groups, such as gangsters, police, military, drug group and etc. due to its specialty, it developed its own slangs. These slangs are relatively close; they are mostly used in internal information communication. They are often used to strengthen user’s status. Meanwhile, slangs are used to seek speaker’s recognition. Camp was used among gays at first, they called bars they often visited cambar. The following two examples are normally used among police and drug takers. Did you collar the skell? (Did you catch the drunken man? (Hou Rui Wei, 1988: 173)An actor has fewer licenses to get high during work 2 hours than does a musician.)Actors cannot take drugs like musicians during the play.

　　Conclusion

　　Slang, which with the rapid development and popularity in modern American English, reflects the course of history and the life and ideas of all walk of society. As language learners, from the view of language and culture to study slang, will help us understand the development of the whole time of English, the essence of the English’s changing and the society and culture of English-speaking countries.