2.5. English Borrowings in the Ukrainian Youth Slang

Despite the fact that slang is typical for many social groups, most people restrict its usage to the young people’s priorities. Slang is the most noticeable linguistic component of youth-based identities. Older generations are not likely to accept changes, including the linguistic ones. In terms of language usage, young people are keen on variations until they reach the adolescent peak, after which they have to deal with a wide range of responsibilities, but during the young years teenagers and young adults invest a lot of time in talking and experiments with social effects of the language. Today’s adult culture is more and more influenced by youth culture, taking for granted many words which originated in teen slang:

Adolescent slang is everywhere, alongside adolescent fashions and lifestyles. An entire culture takes many of its discourse cues from youth-generated slang. Young people come under social pressure and display a natural resistance to it [10; p. 37]. They test the boundaries of authority experimenting with fashion, tattoos, music, behavior and speech. Youngsters find out new ways of expressing themselves, declaring their own stand. At the same time it is important for them to feel that they comprise a part of a big group. For them slang is a mark of a social identity, the means for fitting in [10; p. 38].

For many years slang was not mentioned in any of the dictionaries and no research was conducted in this area. Consequentially, Ukrainian lexicography reveals great gaps in this area. The first signs of the interest in slang appeared in the 1990’-s, when newspapers and magazines started containing abundant examples of youth and criminal slang. The present day slang mostly consists of widely-used colloquialisms, criminal slang, army slang, as most people serving in the army are young people, who are really creative in producing new words and expressions, and youth slang, which has become a significant system, influencing the development of contemporary Ukrainian speech. The youth slang welcomes all processes which include the emergence of new words and expressions, many of which have come into general use. In the last ten years youth slang has borrowed many words from English, adjusting them to the rules of Ukrainian word formation. Some words have kept their initial meanings, such as фейс (face), дрінкати (to drink); others have shifted to different meanings: мейкатись (to make). More and more slang expressions penetrate into standard Ukrainian. One can observe such phenomenon as the influence of different groups of slang, which simultaneously increases the word stock of the Ukrainian language.

An increasing number of English words in modern Ukrainian youth slang can be explained by the popularity of this language among youngsters, as they see the many aspects of its application in their everyday life [Kochergan; с. 8]. The first English borrowings in Ukrainian youth slang appeared some twenty years ago together with the popularity of the hippie movement. Later being a hippie lost its prestige and the number of Anglicism’s in the speech of youngsters was considerably reduced. It is quite complicated to learn the precise time of the penetration of some lexemes into the youth slang, but they have been functioning successfully for a long period of time: ботл (bottle), піпл (people), флет (flat). The new borrowings comprise such words as байкар (biker), дрінк (drink), дестрой (destroy), сейшн (session) [4; p. 63].

The programmers’ slang deserves a special attention. This type of slang became highly topical in the middle of the 1990-s. It is constantly supplemented by English borrowings, created by means of derivation from the roots of English origin: сейвнути (to save a file), сетап (set up), сканити (to scan), прінтонути (to print), софта (software). The computer slang is changing at the same speed as the computer technologies themselves.

Slang is mostly used by the young people living in the urban areas, who are more exposed to the American culture and have a constant access to the Internet, music and new tendencies unlike their rural peers.