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The rise of a jargon It is a phenomenon that occurs within a speaking community, when people who share certain characteristics, adopt a particular way of expressing themselves that is understandable for the members of that group but practically incomprehensible for all those outside of it.
HowSocial phenomenon, jargons or slang are associated with a differentiating notion and to a certain extent make the true meanings of the words remain displaced or hidden.
In this sense, it is not by chance that jargon often arises in marginalized environments, such as that of inmates or individuals involved in illegal activities (drug traffickers, pimps), although jargons often arise between groups as well. of young people or adolescents, who seek to differentiate themselves from the rest of society.
The arrival of the Internet has created countless words that undoubtedly make up a new jargon shared by thousands of people around the world.
Jargon in the world of work
In addition, people dedicated to various professions use their own jargons, sharing particular speech codes, even when there is no intention to hide the real meaning of the words from other individuals.
Thus, understanding a conversation between lawyers can be a difficult task in law matters; as if two surgeons talk about future surgery. In these cases the term "technolect" or "professional jargon" better describes the situation.
- See also: Professional jargons
Slang for regional variations
Sometimes the word slang is used in the sense of dialect, that is, to the particular ways of expressing oneself in a language due to regional variations.
The origin of this kind of "local jargon" accounts for historical processes in a given period. In the case of Argentina, the emergence of lunfardo represents a rather special situation: this slang was born in the River Plate region at a time when waves of immigrants of Italian and Spanish origin arrived in the city.
The lunfardo was nourished by a variety of terms and expressions originating in those languages (like the so-called "cocoliche"), in addition to others that belonged to the gauchos, added to various variants of language, such as the transformation of words by alteration of the order of the syllables.
These resources have been widely used by people from "the underworld", not to name something openly certain things. Various tangos and milongas testify to these linguistic events.
Examples of jargon
- Button (for ‘police’ or ‘informant’ in popular slang)
- Marriage (That's what they call a chorizo and a blood sausage on the grills)
- Strung up (for ‘out of place’ or ‘distracted’ in adolescent and youth slang)
- A male / a female (‘Man’ and ‘woman’ in police slang)
- NN (unidentified individual ─ from the English ‘No Name’ in police slang)
- Roll (for 'problem' in Spanish youth slang)
- Sing (for ‘reporting’ in the jargon of criminals)
- Donkey, burrero or camel (to refer to whoever carries drugs in the lingo of drug traffickers)
- Cut it off (for '' finish it '' or 'stop insisting on something' in adolescent and youth slang)
- Canute: hashish or marijuana cigarette (drug lingo)
- Chibolero: person who shows a preference for being accompanied by someone much younger (Peruvian slang).
- Easy peasy: achieve something easily (popular Argentine slang)
- Guaso: village person, little used to the city (Chilean slang)
- Gross: very good (adolescent and juvenile Argentine slang)
- Choborra (for drunk, popular Argentine slang)
- Toned (for ‘tipsy’ from alcohol consumption, popular Argentine slang)
- Fifi: conceited, with tastes typical of the affluent social class (popular Argentine slang).
- Go through with: face a problem (Argentine popular slang)
- Snitch: who gives information about criminals, in exchange for something (police slang)
- Progress: young intellectual of middle or upper-middle class, with leftist ideas, but with little access to popular sectors (Argentine political jargon)
