文档介绍：DICTIONARY OF
CONTEMPORARY
SLANG
THIRD EDITION
TONY THORNE
A & C Black ț London
First published in Great Britain 1990
Paperback published 1991
Second edition published 1997
Paperback published 1999
Third edition published 2005
This paperback edition published 2007
A & C Black Publishers Ltd
38 Soho Square, London W1D 3HB
© Tony Thorne 1990, 1997, 2005, 2007
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the
permission of the publishers.
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN-10 0 7136 7529 2
ISBN-13 978 0 7136 7592 0
eISBN-13: 978-1-4081-0220-6
ISBN-10 0 7136 7529 2
ISBN-13 978 0 7136 7592 0 Text production and proofreading
Heather Bateman, Emma Harris, Katy McAdam, a McKee
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INTRODUCTION: SLANG IN THE 21ST CENTURY
Slang and Society
Slang derives much of its power from the fact that it is clandestine,
forbidden or generally disapproved of. So what happens once it is
accepted, even in some cases embraced and promoted by
‘mainstream’ society? Not long ago the Oxford English Dictionary
characterised slang as ‘low and disreputable’; in the late 1970s the
pioneering sociolinguist Michael Halliday used the phrase
‘anti-language’ in his study of the speech of criminals and
marginals. For him, theirs was an interestingly ‘pathological’ form
of language. The first description now sounds quaintly outmoded,
while the second could be applied to street gangs – today’s posses,
massives or sets – and their secret codes. Both, however, involve
value judgements which are es