The Pervasiveness of Slang in Standard and Non-Standard English

The primary aims of this paper are to highlight the pervasiveness of English slang across speech, and to show its originality of forms and meanings. I shall illustrate some relevant morphological and semantic aspects characterizing present-day English slang, in particular British and American slang, my hypotheses being that slang stands out for (a) its innovative word-formation processes, and (b) its new meanings and the semantic areas it typically covers. In this way, I wish to enhance the value of slang by demonstrating that this creative phenomenon of a language may cast some light on the possible development of its lexicon and grammar.