Despite its increasing popularity among the general public, particularly young people, many academic linguists have avoided approaching slang as a field of study.
Their reluctance to take slang seriously is perhaps to do with strong linguistic positions, a longstanding conservatism, or simply an aversion to linguistic innovation. Or, perhaps it is to do with the fact that it is the study of standard varieties of English which should be prioritized in academia. Nevertheless, it does not change the fact that slang keeps flourishing as separate and independent branch of language system. We are very fortunate to have researched the slang which is particularly marked by gender and to observe how gender manifests itself through the means of speech. We discovered that just looking at words is not enough – one should always keep a broader picture in mind, since the semantics may vary depending on the background of the speaker.
The tendency for using gender markers while naming people of a nation has been discovered in both languages. In most cases it is caused by stereotypes that exist or personal relations with another country. The word ‘????’, however, appeared for entirely different reason – a distinctive feature of Polish language and its sounds. It has been argued that women are often being looked down at even in the everyday language. Indeed, we observed the phenomenon of women’s objectification that presented itself in such expressions as ‘big booty Judy’, ‘chica’, ‘???????’.
They all belong to the slang words denoting personal appearance. Men, on the other hand, are being ‘discriminated’ for their negative personal traits in Ukrainian as well as English. Therefore, there is no need to get all sour about this. The only sound conclusion we reached is that in 2018 trying not to offend someone with the words we use is like walking on a minefield. When talking about slang functions one can say it is used for many purposes, but generally it expresses a certain emotional attitude; the same term may express diametrically opposed attitudes when used by different people.
Many slang terms are primarily derogatory, though they may also be ambivalent when used in intimacy or affection. Since most slang is used on the spoken level, by persons who probably are unaware that it is slang, the choice of terms naturally follows a multiplicity of unconscious thought patterns. There are many other uses to which slang is put, according to the individual and his place in society. Without any doubt it also helps ease social intercourse and either to soften the tragedy or to “prettify” the inevitability of that (euphemize or dysphemize). All of these can be observed in the gender-marked expressions we analyzed.
All in all, the thing we definitely proved is that the slang is directly dependent on the events that happen all around the world and is affected by numerous extra-linguistic components. In our case these were the countries’ mentality and social life. With that being said, the topic of gender-marking and slang is of great fascination and there should be more works dedicated to it.
