Exploring College Slang

Joe McVeighAlexis Mussomeli

Middlebury College

Slang—an active introduction

Take two minutes to write down the most common slang terms that you can think of.

What is slang?

• Informal, one or two words, considered non-standard

• Varies by age, region, or other demographic factors

• May relate to illicit activities or may be vulgar or vituperative

• Over time may change to standard status

Student difficulties with slang

• Undergraduate international ESL students

Origins of the project•New first-year international students at Middlebury

•William Safire article in New York Times

•Checking with NS undergraduate informants

Methodology

• Slang Collection assignment in undergrad TESOL methodology course

• Results of the initial collection

• Problems with the initial collection

• Forming of project team– Alexis Mussomeli—editor– Ellie Molyneux & Natalie Sammarco—surveys– Katie Moon & Uma Tantri—web design

Project – Initial EditAlexis Mussomeli

• Duplicates

• Idioms

• Non-local items

• Standardization of definitions

Project – SurveyEllie Molyneux & Natalie Sammarco

• Smaller lists of words

• Survey construction

• Email requests

• Responses

• Survey results

Survey Objectives

• Obtain demographic information– First language, friend group, affiliations

• Determine frequency of slang use– “How often do you hear this…” vs. “say”

• Determine variability in slang meaning

• Investigate correlations between demographics and reported slang frequency

Hypotheses

• International and ESL students with less interaction with NSs probably hear and are aware of fewer slang terms

• Variations in frequency

• Most students would be aware of the words in the survey

Method

• 4 surveys

• 39 words per survey

• 156 words total

• Randomly distributed

Participants By Year

200834%

200919%

201015%

201132%

Participant Origins and First Languages

81.7% domestic students

17.7% internationalstudents

15.2% ESL students

84.7% native

English speakers

Middlebury 2007: 10% international

N = 203

Is there a connection between reported slang frequency and . . .

. . . social house residence ?

. . . class year ?

. . . gender ?

. . . international student status ?

Results

Is there a connection between reported slang frequency and social house residence?

Percentage of first years vs. seniors who often hear or very often hear the word…

0102030405060708090

jangler rager Proctorcrush

LNDP

2008

2011

Percentage of men vs. women who often or very often hear the word…

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

Roll Bail

Male

Female

SausageFest

Bangin’

Percentage of NNS vs. NS students who never hear the word…

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

eye sex fro-yo fess up fly foxy

NNS students

NS students

Facebook stalk

ferreal fives fo’ shizzle

Survey Limitations

• Relatively small sample size– Confirmation bias, fatigue, correlation vs.

causality

• Self-reporting vs. discourse analysis approach

Project – Web ImplementationKatie Moon & Uma Tantri

• Dictionary – navigable or downloadable

• Categories

• Audio files

• Resources

• Practice materials

The Web Site

https://segue.middlebury.edu/index.php?action=site&site=slang-glos

Project – Idioms Team

• Dictionary of idioms with definitions

• Downloadable from web site

– Sophie Elphick & Ley Lacbawan

Suggestions for Teaching Slang

• Memory game

• Sentence matching

• Crossword puzzle

• Listening fill-in-the-blanks

Questions and Discussion

Electronic Resources• Middlebury College Slang Project

https://segue.middlebury.edu/sites/slang-glos

• Introduction to TESOL Course Web Sitehttps://segue.middlebury.edu/?&action=site&site=intd1028a-w08

• Joe McVeigh dot org – presentation resourceswww.joemcveigh.org

• Urban Dictionarywww.urbandictionary.com

• The Online Slang Dictionarywww.onlineslangdictionary.com

• The Internet Slang Dictionarywww.noslang.com/dictionary.php

Thank you