Culture Features in American Slang 美国俚语中的文化特征.doc

Culture Features in American Slang 美国俚语中的文化特征 Abstract With the development of the society, slang is accepted by more and more Americans. This thesis analyses features and functions of American slang. The author draws a conclusion that American slang reflects the cultural characteristics of Americans’ humor, informality, self-confidence, anti-authority, innovation consciousness and pursuit for time efficiency. Key Words American slang; feature; culture 摘　要 随着社会的发展，俚语越来越多地为美国人所接受。本论文分析了美国俚语的语言特色等。此分析反映出了美国人幽默，非正式，反权威，追求时间效率，自信和具有创新意识独特的文化特征。 关键词 美国俚语;特点;文化 Introduction English slang can be defined to common colloquial language, and according to the definition of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary (1985), slang is usually used as colloquial words and phrase. It cannot be regarded as Standard-English, thus this shows that, slang is Nonstandard-English. However, slang is very popular in the English-speaking countries nowadays. Slang is spoken by people in daily speech, and even magazine and literary works may find a large number of them. With the development of the society, slang is widely used by more and more people, especially in America, slang can be found favorable in the Americans’ eyes. It is accepted by both upper-class and lower-class, and especially the college students who tend to use up-to-date words that form a kind of characteristic style of themselves. Slang plays an important part in American English. It is reported that slang accounts for one of the tenth of American average vocabulary.People’s attitude toward slang varies from person to person. Some think that slang cannot be used on the formal occasion, for it is spoken by the illiterate people only and the slang terms are so coarse. Some even think that slang is the filthy language, and advocate abandoning using it. However, others hold the opposite idea. They think that slang play an important role in English language, because of its fresh, lifelike, humor and adequate expressions. One must ad