Sade Majekodunmi.
Slang has become a major controversial subject that has been surrounded by many debates. Some people believe that slang is useless and corrupts the English language whilst other people differ with this and believe, it’s a way for young people to entertain themselves.
Slang is often related to some negative and informal things, indeed, in the past slang has been defined negatively. Merriam Webster’s dictionary in the 1800’s for instance, defines the word negatively by stating that it is vulgar and an unmeaning language, others disagree with this and believe slang has played an important role in the English language, the English language changed from Old English to New Modern Day English, maybe Slang is the next step forward.
Besides, slang is an art of communication. When we are talking about young people, which based on my humble thought is referring to the students or the teenagers, they speaks and express themselves by using slang words. Slang is used to differentiate them and show their identity. That may be one of the reasons why slang can enter language so easily, become vogue and be forgotten very fast, in fact several elements of slang have faded, however, many still remain and have changed their original words e.g. ‘phone’ replacing telephone and ‘TV’ replacing television or ‘bike’ replacing bicycle. These days youths and adults employ slang in their daily linguistic repertoire for instance ‘big man ting’ this phrase is simply used to say ‘are you serious’ .
Academically, slang is taught as a part of speech e used sparingly and as only appropriate away from classrooms or professional settings, it is believed that academically students perform poorly in formal language tests because they're out of practice when it comes to using proper grammar and also believe slang prevents young people to become potential employers as well as prepared for the future. Linguists Bethany Dumas say that slang is frowned upon because it is markedly lower prestige than Standard English and it tends to appear first in the language of groups of low status, this is a prime example of what many people of higher status consider slang to be, since they are taught to believe this from an early age.
Slang words are said not to be part of standard English, they are considered informal and are used in various groups in certain