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A READER, Raul Galleros, has posed this very interesting question
about English slang:
“What is the best way to understand deep
English slang? I have difficulty understanding its pronunciation.
When I am watching a movie or a talk show on television, I find it
hard to understand the dialogue of people talking in very deep
English slang. I make an effort to watch a lot of English movies and
TV shows to develop my comprehension, but it seems I am not making
any progress. In contrast, when I hear Filipinos speaking in English
in a movie or on TV, I can easily understand and absorb their
language.”
Here’s my open reply to Raul:
Unless you are a serious student of English
linguistics, don’t worry too much about not understanding the deep
English slang you hear around you. It doesn’t mean that your
English or your listening comprehension is deficient. It simply
means that the English you are hearing is not meant to be understood
by you, and that you really don’t belong to the group or community
that uses it. Slang is a special-purpose coded language that’s
meant to exclude you and other people from the coterie of friends,
contacts, or initiates that uses it.
And there’s absolutely no need for you to
actively learn any form of deep English slang. You’ll acquire it
simply by the company you keep or by sustained exposure to it. The
more prevalent a particular slang—whether it’s gay-speak,
drug-speak, gangsta rap, Ebonics or Black English, Cockney, Singlish,
Chinglish, or our very own Taglish—the more it will insinuate
itself into the language through the movies and the mass media,
particularly TV and radio. But if you are befuddled by any of them,
don’t ever feel that your English is inferior or inadequate. The
problem is not with you; the problem is with the scriptwriters, the
talk-show hosts or guests, or the video or radio jockeys. They are
forgetting one cardinal rule of communication: to use language
understandable to the great majority of their mass audiences. By
using deep English slang, they are failing to get their ideas across
to you and to others like you.
It’s also possible, of course, that you are
watching movies and TV shows or listening to radio shows that are
not really meant for you. A good number of Hollywood movies that
reach us, for instance, are made for predominantly American Black
target audiences; this is why those movies often use rather heavy
Ebonics in their dialogue. And some TV and radio shows cater to
special audiences appreciative of heavy metal or gangsta rap
English. So what do you do? Avoid them and choose only those that
use the kind of English you are comfortable with.
Naturally, it will be much easier for you to
understand and absorb the English of Filipinos appearing in the
movies or speaking on TV or radio. This is because the best of them
use Standard American English, which is the kind of English that the
Philippine educational system is trying its best—but not entirely
succeeding—to teach Filipinos to write and speak from grade school
onwards. This English is easily understood because it deviates
little from the vocabulary, grammar, structure, and semantics of the
English that’s formally taught to us—and it’s spoken without
the infuriating twang or drawl of some native English speakers or
the jaw-dropping peculiarities or flourishes of some nonnative ones.
So, Raul, don’t worry too much about not
understanding deep English slang. And don’t even bother learning
it unless you are keen on joining an exclusive gang or fraternity
that requires members to speak its particular English slang. You can
find much better use of your time by continuously improving your
Standard American English instead of engaging in linguistic
jaywalking, which is what speaking in deep English slang actually
amounts to in the final analysis.
j8carillo@yahoo.com
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