2461 COMMON SLANG IN DAILY CONVERSATION IN THE AMERICAN TV SERIES “GLEE” Vo Thi Hong Linh, Le Huynh My Uyen, Nguyen Thi Thuy Linh, Nguyen Minh Nhut, Tran Le Minh Faculty of English, Ho Chi Minh City U[.]
COMMON SLANG IN DAILY CONVERSATION IN THE AMERICAN TV SERIES “GLEE” Vo Thi Hong Linh, Le Huynh My Uyen, Nguyen Thi Thuy Linh, Nguyen Minh Nhut, Tran Le Minh Faculty of English, Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology (HUTECH) Supervisor: Ngo Binh Anh Khoa (MA) ABSTRACT Slang is a part of language that can be of great significance to native speakers and language learners alike, for it is heavily present in daily interactions Hence, it is important that the commonlyused slang in daily conversations should be identified so that foreign learners can remember and use it in real situations For this paper, the common slang was determined and collected from the American TV show ‚Glee,‛ This show was selected because of its popularity and reflection of American culture and daily life Keywords: Daily conversations, Glee, slang INTRODUCTION Language is, as commonly believed, one of the most prominent factors which separate humans from other species, and it is as diverse as the people all across the globe Hence, how people use language for communication is different from one another In every language in general, and English in specific, in addition to the standard language which appears in dictionary and which is taught at school, there also exists a variation known as slang, coined because of the need to adapt to new or different aspects of society as well as social prestige Despite being an important part of our daily interactions, slang does not receive the amount of attention it deserves in the standard curriculum, but that does not compromise its significance in communication Hence, the study of slang is one of great importance to language learners and teachers alike LITERATURE REVIEW Slang, according to the Oxford, is defined as a type of language consisting of words and phrases that are considered to be informal, which more commonly appear in speech rather than in writing, and which are generally exclusive to a specific context or people (Hornby & Palmer, 2010) Likewise, Finegan (2008) proposes that, in general, slang has a particular popularity among teenagers and college students In addition, according to Akmajian et al (1998), who opine that slang includes certain features, including (1) the informality of the language in use, (2) the rapid changes, and (3) its association to a particular social group of people (e.g teenagers, students, or even criminals and more) 2461 In society, slang, as stated by Adams (2009), is used to establish social dynamics with others, which also outlines social spaces as well as social identity (p 57) It means that when slang is used, the user projects an image of himself or herself onto others, which he or she would, at the same time, like others to recognize Thus, Adams (ibid.) opines that slang can be playful, or be a humorous form of rebellion against the standard language Furthermore, a slang must be recognized as such in communication in order for it to be considered a slang (Adams, 2009, p 62) Slang is present in multiple languages across the globe, and English is no exception, for social media, the Internet, movies, video games, and even daily interactions are filled with slang in contexts which is ever-changing and ever-evolving just like the people who coin and use it As a result, the English language is continuously updated with slang, marking its importance to linguists and language learners as well Therefore, it is undeniable that in order for one to be able to develop competency in English, one must be able to recognize slang in communications of all manners and forms METHODOLOGY This paper focuses on American-English slang expressions The authors are interested in commonly used American-English slang in the American TV series ‚Glee‛ because it is one of the famous serial drama comedies in the U.S which won Emmy awards, Satellite awards, Golden Globes, Teen Choice Awards and many other awards Furthermore, ‚Glee‛ is a collection of episodic stories about the daily life of the teenage cast in different situations at school, home and in various types of culture, gender, sexuality, and relationships ranging from platonic to romantic, which is appropriate for the scope of this research In other words, this TV series can be considered as an example of American society Thus, the authors believe that the slang used would be authentic and reflect the common usage of such slang in real daily conversations in the United States By following the definitions of slang that were proposed by Adams (2009), the researchers manually and meticulously examined the available scripts of all of the episodes aired in seasons of the TV series ‚Glee‛ (all of which were retrieved from: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/episode_scripts.php?tv-show=glee for authenticity), and later listed the slang appearing the most frequently throughout the twenty-one episodes, whose frequencies would be calculated in percentage For simplicity, only the top ten slang would be chosen for inclusion in this paper After that, discussion and conclusions would be drawn from the statistics obtained RESULTS AND FINDINGS The findings regarding the frequencies of the most commonly slang used in ‚Glee‛ are summarized in the Table on the following page 2462 Table 1: Most commonly used slang and frequency of usage in ‚Glee‛ Stt Slang Definition number of times used Percentage Gonna Going to 2,486 42.20% Guys A group of people 1,310 22.24% Wanna Want to 486 8.25% Cool Awesome, great 366 6.21% Dude A man 308 5.23% Gotta Got to 291 4.94% Sweet Attractive, good or nice 276 4.69% Ain’t Am not/is not/are not/do not/does not 189 3.21% Beat Exhausted 150 2.55% 10 Hang out To spend a lot of time in a place 29 0.49% 5,891 100% Total DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION Our findings reveal that, according to statistics, among the top 10 of the slang commonly appearing in the episodes of ‚Glee‛, the five which are ‚gonna,‛ ‚guys,‛ ‚wanna,‛ ‚cool,‛ and ‚dude‛ are the most commonly used slang In particular, the word "Gonna" appears 2,486 times, accounting for 42.20% in total Furthermore, in each of Glee’s episodes, ‚gonna‛ appears approximately 25 times on average "Guys" is at the second place in terms of frequency with 1,310 occurrences, accounting for 22.24% "Wanna" appears 486 times, accounting for 8.25% while "Cool" occurs 366 times in the episodes, accounting for 6.21% The last position is "Dude" which appears 308 times and accounts for 5.23% in general For illustration, here are some examples taken from the scripts: I'm gonna start story-boarding our choreography tonight Who's gonna be the judge? Hope you guys are up for this competition Hey, guys, how's it going? I wanna pit these kids against one another For the first time Which is why I wanna celebrate with a cocktail The Panther isn't cool with anything except doing exactly what she says without question Which makes me very cool And we'd like to talk to you about Glee Club What's up, dude? Dude, you're totally Following the findings, it can be seen that the use of slang is common in ‚Glee‛, and by extension, in the daily conversations in the United States reflected through the episodes of the TV series, 2463 especially the top five which have been previously mentioned Therefore, in order to understand ‚Glee‛ in specific and in conversations in the US in general, it is recommended that learners of English should familiarize themselves with the slang listed in Table so that they can, as proposed by Adams (2009), obtain a social identity and attempt to fit in with the native speakers Moreover, for teachers of English, it is also recommended that more attention should be paid to the teaching of such slang at school so that their students can develop a familiarity and recognition of the common slang, which, as mentioned previously, would help them tremendously when communicating with the native English speakers Last but certainly not least, since slang is commonly available in ‚Glee‛, it can be said that the series itself, along with other series with similar formats which reflect American society, could serve as the medium through which the teachers and learners of English can build up their knowledge and recognition of the common slang used by American people within the United States REFERENCES [1] Adams, M (2009) Slang: The people’s poetry Indiana: Oxford Press [2] Akmajian, A., Demers, R A., Farmer, A K , & Harnish, R M (1998) Linguistics: An introduction to language and communication 4th Ed London: The MIT Press [3] Finegan, E (2008) Language: Its structure and use 5th Ed USA: Thomson Wadsworth [4] Horny, A S., & Palmer, H E (2010) Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary Oxford: Oxford University Press 2464 ... Following the findings, it can be seen that the use of slang is common in ‚Glee‛, and by extension, in the daily conversations in the United States reflected through the episodes of the TV series, ... RESULTS AND FINDINGS The findings regarding the frequencies of the most commonly slang used in ‚Glee‛ are summarized in the Table on the following page 2462 Table 1: Most commonly used slang and... American- English slang expressions The authors are interested in commonly used American- English slang in the American TV series ‚Glee‛ because it is one of the famous serial drama comedies in the U.S