Adolescent Language Essay

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ADOLESCENT LANGUAGE1 PENELOPE ECKERT We often hear the adult lament that adolescents are irresponsible, sloppy, imprecise, faddish, profane and overly-flamboyant speakers of English. Some worry that they may even hurt the language, as though they were tagging the lexicon with graffiti or kicking up the grammar with their Doc Martens. Adolescents have a special place in American ideology, and it stands to reason that their language would be the object of ideological construction as well. This projection of social stereotypes onto ways of speaking is a common process around the world. Susan Gal and Judith Irvine (1995) have used the term iconization to refer to this projection, which involves stereotyping both the speakers and their speech patterns, and viewing the latter as unfolding naturally from the former. It is traditional to view adolescents in our society as sloppy (they leave their clothes on the floor), rebellious (they don’t do what they’re told) and irresponsible (they forget their pencils). This view of adolescents is visited on their language, which is apparently sloppy in its imprecision, rebellious in its supposed use of slang and profanity, and irresponsible in its greater use of non-standard grammar. Apparently adults put their clothes away, do what they’re told, and always have writing utensils handy. It remains an empirical issue whether any of the popular characterizations of adolescent language are valid. But what is more interesting is their sheer existence. Why does our society focus so much on adolescents, their behavior and their language? Adolescence is not a natural life stage. It is quite peculiar to industrialized nations, where people approaching adulthood are segregated from the adult world, and confined to schools where they are expected to interact and identify primarily with those their own age. In many ways adolescents’
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