Slang In America

For decades, slang has allowed young people around the world to share a common culture, but American slang has had a huge impact in how the world converses today. With the extent of communication devices now reaching many areas previously blocked from mainstream communication channels, along with the emergence of wireless networks, the power of dominant language has been tapped like never before. Vernacular English is powerfully expressive because it is, paradoxically, both exclusive and global. In any host society, American slang lives in a world of linguistic and cultural knowledge not available at school or in mainstream media at least not yet (Androutsopoulos). 

   

   As social media becomes an everyday task to the common person, third parties are increasingly looking towards these networks to learn about people. Ironically, slang can say as much about a person as their formal writing, if anything even more so than the latter. Since slang is so easily spread without physical borders, and as previously mentioned is highly expressive in its exclusivity, it’s not a far-fetched idea that others would look to how you personally use slang in your everyday social life to learn more about you. This is highly evident in local communities, but with the ease provided by technology, be it the internet or text messaging, these local ideas are spreading farther away across the world. Inevitably the very advent of American innovation and advances in communication has allowed its own vernacular to spread across the world as well.