equal lexicon in english and russian slang.

Slang is needed to denote the frequently vivid or playful lexical usage typical of casual discourse, usually indicating member-ship in a particular social group. There is no sure test for deciding when an expression is slang or something else. From the point of view of standard English, slang is an intruder. Despite the fact that slang means many things to many people, some general comments can be made about the types of language called slang.
As it can be can seen from the theoretical part of the term-paper, slang is an important part of people’s everyday life. Lexicon in Russian slang can be borrowed from English or English slang may have Russian equivalents. Two Russian magazines have been analysed and the found borrowings were studied. More commonly, the slang lexicon in the Russian la ...

CONTENTS 3
INTRODYCTION 4
1 SLANG AS A PHENOMENON OF A LANGUAGE 5
1.1 Slang in the System of a Language 5
1.2 The Reasons of Slang’s Usage 9
1.3 Slang in the English Language 12
1.4 Slang in the Russian Language 14
2 EQUAL LEXICON IN ENGLISH AND RUSSIAN SLANG 16
2.1 Equal Lexicon in English And Russian Slang in Various Magazines 16
2.2 Equal Lexicon in English And Russian Slang as a Part of the Languages 18
CONCLUSION 24
BIBLIOGRAPHY 25

Slang derives much of its power from the fact that it is clandestine, forbidden or generally disapproved of. It is communications technology in general and not only the Internet that is enabling slang, especially the most pervasive English-based slang, to globalise. Another technical development – text messaging – has triggered changes in the culture of communication, especially among young people, and brought with it, like telegrams, or Internet chatrooms, a new form of abbreviated code. Therefore, equal lexicon in English and Russian slang is an significant part of the language system.
The subject of the research is English and Russian slang. According to the subject, the aim of our research can be laid down, which is to study equal lexicon in English and Russian slang. This aim determi nes more specific problems of our research:
- to describe slang and its features;
- to define the features of English and Russian slang;
- to analise equal lexicon in English and Russian slang with examples.
To achieve the aim it is important to analyse two Russian magazines to find out if there are any slang words borrowed from English. Additionally, four dictionaries of English slang have been chosen as a theoretical base.
Thus, it can be concluded that the object of the research is equal lexicon in English and Russian slang.
Several research methods were used in the work, namely comparison, description and context analysis.

It is a variant of Russian slang while in English the sentences are the following: “In the episode of fighting with a Model Boy, Tom teases the boy about his hat: “Smarty! You think you are some, now, don’t you? Oh, what a hat!” And the boy answers, ”You can lump that hat if you don’t like it. I dare you to knock it off – and anybody that I’ll take a dare will suck eggs.”
On the other hand, the author emphasis that newly coined forms, dialect words, slang, taboo-words, foreign (third language) terms are equivalent-lacking. She also pays attention to the fact that “dialectal words are colloquialisms, or slang, that is they evoke certain social associations” [p.206]. Proshina gives an interesting example of possible equal lexicon in English and Russian slang: “A non-traditional way of rendering Russian words in the speech of English teenagers was found by the translator of Anthony Burgess’s novel ”Заводной апельсин”, V. Boshniak. Burgess used Russian words, sometimes distorted, but written in Latin letters, to make the text sound strange for an English-speaking reader, to produce an ironic effect upon the receptor. This is mostly youth slang or neutral words, the meaning of which is incomprehensible for an English reader. To produce the same strange effect upon the translation reader, the translator borrowed a transliterated form of these Russian words and wrote them in Latin letters: Тут мы уже выступали этакими pai-malltshikami, улыбались, делали благовоспитанный zdrasting…” [12, pp.207-208]
2 EQUAL LEXICON IN ENGLISH AND RUSSIAN SLANG
As we can see from the theoretical part of the term-paper, slang is an important part of people’s everyday life. Commonly, people are “addicted” to it so much that they do not recognize it in their speech. However, phonetics as well as lexicology is highly interested in studying it as a lingual phenomenon the main function of which is expressional (or emotive) one. In other word, slang exists because of the human’s necessity to express themselves in an easier, non-literary way.
Therefore, slang is a part of a person’s communicational intentions which are based on his or her desire to present the feelings, thoughts, etc. in a simplified way. However, there are common and different features of slang in various languages and lingo cultures which characterized the forming, existence and reforming of their lexical unit. Due to globalization and the Internet, more and more lingual units seem to coincide either on the phonetic level or on the lexical one. As a result, we can speak about equal lexicon in English and Russian slang.
More commonly, the slang lexicon in the Russian language used by the younger generations is a result of borrowings from English. Unconscious transcription, transliteration, calque or substitution can take place in that case as more and more subjects are to be named. The examples can be found in various fashion magazines. First of all, we should study that type of equal lexicon in English and Russian slang by analyzing two magazines (“Elle Girl” and “Maxim”) which are considered to be two Russians editions.
For example, the word “мейк” is formed by borrowing from the English word “make-up”: we should mark that there are shortening (there is no “up” in the Russian equivalent) and transcription (“make” is read as [meɪk]). “Make-up” is defined in Oxford dictionary as “cosmetics such as lipstick or powder applied to the face, used to enhance or alter the appearance”. The etymology of the word shows that “make up” is one of the phrasal verbs that has been substantivized to a noun. It is obvious, that lexical units from that lexical field are mostly connected with fashion both in Russian and in English. Moreover, people of these two nationalities do not just use cosmetics, they “need an example or a piece of advice” from a designer (“дизайнера”) – a person who plans the look or workings of something prior to it being made, by preparing drawings or plans; here transliteration can be seen as well. What is more, the manipulations with the appearance lead to a creation of a special “look” (“лука”). It is rather interesting that in Russian the equivalent is the homonym to the word “лук” (onion) whereas in English “look” is understood as “a person’s facial appearance considered aesthetically, a style or fashion”. As we can see, transliteration is not always successful if we speak about equal lexicon in English and Russian slang and Russian slang borrowed from the English language.
According to the existing cosmetics` strategy, the whole idol is being built by choosing borrowed slang from English. For example, we can find such lexical units on the pages of “Elle Girl” as “принт, клатч, топ, пуловер, неопрен, деним”. They are borrowed from English as well as the previous ones (print, clutch, top, pullover, neoprene, denim), while “print”, “pullover”, “denim” and “top” are transliterated. Thus, instead of the word “сумка”the word “клатч” can be seen borrowed from English where it originally means “to clutch” (to catch) and creates a concept like “take and go”. There are also various “стритстайл” and “стритстайлеры” from English “street style” who are always ready to make “селфи” (“selfie” from «self»).
От the one hand, “Elle Girl” represents not only lexical units connected with cosmetics and clothes but also with relationships. As a result, there are such words as “бойфренд” (boyfriend), and “бойблогер” (boyblogger), and “партнёр” (partner), and even “дарлинг” (darling) or “бейби” (baby). As it is known, the words “Твиттер” (Twitter - a program that enables people to chat), “твиттер” (twitter – a message), “твит” (twit) habitually go with “хэштег” (hashtag оwhich is formed from hash and tag). On the contrary, there are more derivatives in Russian: “твиттерить” (compare with “to twit”) or “твитязь” which has no equivalents in English as in the given word the Russian suffix “яз” is added to the borrowed root «твит»; the new word means a person who twits so often that he is considered to be an extraordinary user of Twitter.
On the other hand, “Maxim” does represent similar lexical units, for example, “мейк(ап)”, “селфи” and “бренды” can be seen there. Additionally, we can find out more examples, for instance: “фотошоп” (Photoshop – a program enables people to edit photos) and so on and so forth. The word “Интернет” is also a borrowing from the English language: nonetheless, it is difficult to say whether it is slang or not. There is no doubt that the word “спам” (spam) is a borrowing as well as slang. The examples to be mentioned are “сайт” (site), “ивент” (event) and “афтепати” (after party) which is also known “виайпи” (WIP). More examples of equal lexicon in English and Russian slang found on the pages of “Elle Girl” and “Maxim”:
a. фанфик (fanfic from fan fiction),
b. хоррор (horror from horrow film),
c. чир-данс-шоу (cheer dance show),
d. скутер (scooter from to scoot),
e. хетчбек (hatchback from a hatch plus back),
f. секс-коуч (sex coach),
g. покемоны (Pokémon),
h. мимимишечки (mimimi),
i. бугага (bugaga).
For more materials for the analysis we have used the Internet and tow dictionaries titled as “Alternative English Dictionary” and “Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English”. Both semantic and derivational equivalents were found among lexical units formed as a result of metaphor, imitation of a sound, word-formation, affixation, reduction and conversion as well as the process of borrowing. For instance, we need to compare:
a. imitation of a sound: “ticker” (a clock) with Russian “тикалка” (a hearth) which represents identical semantics which is completeв with affixation; “cuckoo” or “coo-coo” with Russian “ку-ку” – the sound which is used to show that someone is mad;
b. metaphor: “дородка” with “line”, “жирный” (rich) with “fat cat”, “торпеда” (a person who must kill whatever it will cost him) with “torpedo”, “отмывать” (to earn dirty money) with “to launder” (to do waching), “резинка” (a condom) with “rubber”;
c. word-formation: “фуфлогон”, “фуфломёт” (a talkative person) with “gatemouth”;
d. affixation: “передоз” with “overdose”;
e. reduction: “мерс” (Mercedes Benz) with “mere”;
f. conversion: “давала” (feminine gender, past tense of the verb “давать”) with “stank” (Participle II of the verb “to stink” which means “to smell badly”).
The lexical units of both languages are in paradigmatic relations not only inside the slang’s subsystem but also with commonly used words, for example:
g. homonymy: “джентельмен” (a respectable man) and “джентельмен” (cheap wine), “blind” (a person who cannot see) and "blind" (drunk);
h. synonymy: “дезик”, “дембуд”, “дизик”, “заяц”; “митрич”; "pinko", "red" (communist);
i. antonym: “дуборно” (cald) and “жарко” (hot); “bleed”, “blood” (black, about a person) and “white”.
As a result, the following scan be produced to sum up the possible connections among slang and various figures of speech both in Russian and English:
Picture 1 – Slang and Other Processes of the English and Russian Languages
Additionally, lexicon in Russian slang can be borrowed from English like it has been shown previously in the example with “bugaga” and “бугага”:
a. Yum-yum;
b. Gaga;
c. Cор;
d. Hit;
e. Ouch;
f. Teddy-boy;
g. Yak-yak;
h. Nope;
i. Yep;
j. Zombie.
However, connotation of some of them can be different. “Yum-yum” (compare with “ням-ням”) is positive and “cop” (compare with “коп”) is negative in both languages. More comparisons can be found below:
Picture 2 - Equal Lexicon in English and Russian Slang
However, it is not only Russian slang lexicon borrowed from English. As “Dictionary of Contemporary Slang” shows, the opposite process leads to the appearing of the slang taken from the Russian language. The lexical unit can be borrowed not as a whole, for example, the word “beatnik” means someone following a beat lifestyle or modes of dress. “The term was coined by newspapermen to deride the self-styled members of the beat generation but was later adopted by beatniks themselves; the ‘-nik’ suffix came from Russian and was meant to identify the beats with god-less Communism (as well as being a derogatory word-ending in Yiddish terms such as nudnik)” [15 p.31]. One more American slang connected with the Russian language is “bupkes” or “bupkiss” which has two meanings: an insignificant amount or trivial matter, nothing or none. “The words are a borrowing from Yiddish, which adopted them from the Russian for ‘beans’, a term widely used colloquially (in expressions such as ‘not worth a hill/row of beans’) to suggest items of little value” [15, p.73].
“Urban Dictionary: Fularious Street Slang Detined” compiled by Aaron Peckham gives a wide spectrum of English slang which includes not only word forms but also examples with numerals. These material is especially important in our research as it gives an opportunity to analyze equal lexicon in English and Russian slang. For instance, the symbol “*” is used both by Russian anв English people to correct a typo that was just text messaged. Let us compare:
Joe: Well, that was really spupid.
Joe: *stupid
Аня: Не думаю, что такая идея вообще атуальна.
Аня: *актуальна
What is more, the symbol can also mean something placed after a statement in advertising to say that the statement is not completely true, compare:
FREE ROOT BEER FOR LIFE!*
*only valid for 45-year-old war veterans in EJ Paso
БЕСПЛАТНЫЙ ВХОД НА ПИВНУЮ ВЕЧЕРИНКУ ДЛЯ ТЕБЯ!*
*Для девушек, достигших возраста 18 лет
Finally, it can be used to bleep out cuss words or in place of a letter when typing or writing:
Holy sh*t! Look at her! She is a real *!
Это же пи*дец! Он же не сотрудник, а настоящий *!
The phrase “10 on that” has the Russian equivalent “сотня/сотка на то/это” which is usually used with the verb “ставить” or “ставлю” (and is more specific) to agree strongly to a statement or to emphasize what has been said:
Man 1: I sure do hate hangovers.
Man 2: 10 on that, brother.
Мужчина 1: Смотри, какая девушка!
Мужчина 2: Ставлю сотку на то, что она и не взглянет в нашу сторону.
There are two very similar phrases - “20-minute rule” and “правило 15 минут/настоящего студента” in English and Russian accordingly. In English it means the rule that gives you the right to leave your place of employment 20 minutes after your boss leaves the building. The Russian variant is typically used if speaking about students and their right to leave a university or an Institute and go home after 15 minutes of waiting for a professor.
The English phrases “24/7” and “24/7/365” have Russian equivalents as well. However, they exist in a changed form of “двадцать четыре часа в сутки” or “двадцать четыре часа в неделю 365 дней в году” (the last is less popular). The first one is used as slang for something that happens often:
That dude is stoned 24/7.
Мой отец работает двадцать четыре часа в сутки.
The numeral “5” has special slang meanings both in English and Russian. In English it can have the following meanings: 1. The number of fingers on one hand, or a hand slap involving the hand and this many fingers. 2. The police. Short for “five-o”. 3. A number between 4 and 6. 4. Short for “five minutes”. Nevertheless, the Russian phrase “пять” as well as “пятёра” has only the first meaning which fully coincide with the English one:
Nice job on the 7-Eleven, man, give me 5!
Отличная работа, дружище! Дай пять!
What is more, the expression “5 of 5” can be defined as a way to say that one is doing well. The Russian “5 из 5” or more natural “на 5 баллов” has a similar structure:
Guy 1: How's it going?
Guy 2: 5 of 5, man.
Парень 1: Как отдохнули вчера?
Парень 2: На пять баллов!
As for non-numeral equal lexicon in English and Russian slang, “Urban Dictionary: Fularious Street Slang Detined” has produced several examples that are worth mentioning. First of all, “a random” has its Russian equivalent in a form of the adjective “рандомный”; in both cases it means someone (usually of the opposite sex but not always) whose number you have but whom you do not really know: you may have met them once or twice but may have never even met them at all