TFW, DamnGina, Juvie, and Hotsie-Totsie: On the Linguistic and Social Aspects of Internet Slang

TL;DR

This study conducts a large-scale linguistic and social analysis of Internet slang using UrbanDictionary, revealing its unique grammatical patterns and its strong association with social biases related to sex and drugs.

Contribution

First large-scale linguistic and social analysis of Internet slang using UrbanDictionary, uncovering its unique grammatical features and social biases.

Findings

Slang exhibits distinct phonological and morphological rules.

Most slang relates to sex and drugs categories.

Slang reflects and amplifies social biases more than standard language.

Abstract

Slang is ubiquitous on the Internet. The emergence of new social contexts like micro-blogs, question-answering forums, and social networks has enabled slang and non-standard expressions to abound on the web. Despite this, slang has been traditionally viewed as a form of non-standard language -- a form of language that is not the focus of linguistic analysis and has largely been neglected. In this work, we use UrbanDictionary to conduct the first large-scale linguistic analysis of slang and its social aspects on the Internet to yield insights into this variety of language that is increasingly used all over the world online. We begin by computationally analyzing the phonological, morphological and syntactic properties of slang. We then study linguistic patterns in four specific categories of slang namely alphabetisms, blends, clippings, and reduplicatives. Our analysis reveals that slang demonstrates extra-grammatical rules of phonological and morphological formation that markedly distinguish it from the standard form shedding insight into its generative patterns. Next, we analyze the social aspects of slang by studying subject restriction and stereotyping in slang usage. Analyzing tens of thousands of such slang words reveals that the majority of slang on the Internet belongs to two major categories: sex and drugs. We also noted that not only is slang usage not immune to prevalent social biases and prejudices but also reflects such biases and stereotypes more intensely than the standard variety.