Cultural Differences In American Slang

Communication is extremely intricate. Although the general language used to communicate is fairly standardized for a given community there are definite variations within certain groups, including, regional, ethnic, gender, occupational, socioeconomic, and age groups. Among the variations are characteristics such as dialects, accents, and slang.

Differences among varied ethnic groups are based largely on the region and the culture of that group. As Dr. Carol Kinsey Goman stated, “Each culture has a set of rules that its members take for granted” (2011). For the most part, each country has its own culture. The United States, though, has many different nationalities represented, for example, Louisiana; which has a strong presence of Cajun and Creole cultures and dialect.

Accents also signify the differences in language styles which are generally indicative of the region a person is from. The South and Midwest regions display variations of the “southern drawl”, while those from the east coast have their own variety of accents depending on which state they are from. People from various countries who learn English also have distinct accents indicative of where they reside.

Slang is another variation of communicating within certain groups of people, which can involve vocabulary specific to certain occupations, socioeconomic levels, regions and age groups.

Each generation adopts its own set of slang that may be created by taking existing words and assigning an alternate meaning or making words up. Some examples are, “copacetic” from the 1950’s, “groovy” from the 1970’s, “tubular” from the 1980’s, and “low key” from today’s generation. What I realized thinking back on these slang terms is that most of the time they are created by the youth of that generation, thus perpetuating the “generational gap” experience between teenagers and adults. One dynamic I notice is teenagers will change their verbal and topic choices when an adult enters the

room.
Sign language is no different. Within the community of people who use sign language whether they are Deaf, hard of hearing, or a hearing signer there lies a variety of signing styles and registers. Again, there are differences within age groups, occupations, ethnicities, socioeconomic status, and gender. One thing I notice is that if Deaf are hanging out and talking then a hearing signer enters the room, the Deaf will adjust their signing style for the hearing signer. Each individual has their own style of signing and there are regionally specific signs. Some examples are, “Sunday”, “slow”, “soon”, and “birthday”. Regardless of whether we focus on spoken or signed languages, we will find variations within different communities.

Sources:

Goman, C.K. (2011). Communicating across cultures. Retrieved from https://www.asme.org/engineering-topics/articles/business-communication/communicating-across-cultures.