language and community in slang

In order to understand why people use slang we need to look at the role of language in creating and maintaining community identities

In particular the concept of register , style and verbal repertoire will be important .

Communities whether they are large or small are network of social interaction.

Withini large community such as city and countries , many smaller interaction exist for example family networks. networks of friends or people who share the same interests or occupation.

Any social group can be seen as a network of people who regularly interact a speech network .

In all but the smallest and most isolated societies any person will be a member of many different speech networks and will interact different people for different activities . So any large community can be thought of as a set of interlocking smaller networks.

Although we refer to these as speech networks they include any form of communication whether face to face or remote spoken or written online communication included .

Any social group has a tendency to develop distinctive ways of behaving .

These forms of behaviour serve to emphasize the solidarity of the group members and to distinguish them from others who do not form part of the group.

Speech is no exception to this general tendency families develop their own private ways of talking , friends often develop slang and groups such as biologists and coalminers develop their own jargon