Teenage slang

Question 1

Who is Sue Fox?

Answer 1

A language and age theorist who studied the MLE language.

Question 2

What is MLE?

Answer 2

MLE (Multicultural London English), is a new and evolving language within major U.K. Cities. The language has been referred to as ‘Jafaican’, as it has many African and Jamaican influences and is also spoke by mainly people with non-white ethnicities.

Question 3

Give three examples of people who speak the MLE language…

Answer 3

• Dizzee Rascal
• Tinie Tempah
• Mo Farah

Question 4

What did the Lillian Baylis school ban? Why?

Answer 4

The Lillian Baylis school, in London, banned their students from speaking the MLE language. This is due to the negative connotations of the accent, also the informality.

Question 5

What is a dialect island?

Answer 5

Places such as Newcastle and Liverpool, go against the language change around the UK. When many of the cities’ accents are ones which people aren’t proud of, these two places have had the same accent for a very long time, as they are proud of their heritage.

Question 6

What is meant by identity when discussing accent and dialect?

Answer 6

Identity is the possession a person has, it being either strong or weak varying on where they’re from. It means that a person is either proud or not of their hometown, in most cases not being proud is the main finding.

Question 7

What did Penelope Eckert say about teenagers in our society?

Answer 7

Eckert states ‘teenagers have negative stereotypes within our society’. To sum her theory up, Eckert basically says that teenagers decide to take this on board and rebel even further, creating their own anti-language and slang terms, rebelling against the older generations

Question 8

What did Martinez say about teenage slang in 2011?

Answer 8

• teenagers use negatives more than adults
• teenagers are much more direct and to-the-point
• teenagers aren’t afraid to use FTA’s

Question 9

What did Berland say in 1997?

Answer 9

• teenagers use more tags, such as; ‘yeah’, ‘innit’, ‘right’
• these are influences from social classes
• ‘working class’ teenagers use tags a lot more than those of a ‘higher class’

Question 10

What did Senstrom, Anderson and Hasund say about teenage slang in 2002?

Answer 10

• teenagers use more non-standard grammatical features than adults
• they use more common features; multiple negation, use of ‘ain’t’, ellipsis of auxiliary verbs and non-standard pronouns

Question 11

Give some examples/terms of what Senstrom, Anderson and Hasund said in 2002 - the terms teenagers use a lot…

Answer 11

Ain’t

Innit

H-dropping

TH fronting

MLE features

Negative attitudes