Variation, birth, and death of some slang expressions in the Onitsha environment

Abstract

The current research work hinges on the variation, birth, and death of some slang expressions in the Onitsha environment. Slang expression is a language style that has various definitions, but one common thing about these definitions is that slang is an informal expression used during an informal communication. Due to its informal nature, variation, birth, and death do occur and that is the crux of this study. Over the years, some researchers have carried out research on slang expressions and some of them rooted their research on the Igbo slang. This spurred the quest to look at the variation, birth, and death of some slang expressions in the Onitsha environment. Data for this work were sourced from the students and the residents of Onitsha. The research portrayed that there are variations in some slang expressions that express female body structure endowment, beauty/handsomeness, sex drive, short of words deeds, and smoking–the birth of new slang expressions, which is the cause of slang variation and the death of slang expressions. The research has it that some of these slang expressions originate from some of the Igbo contemporary songs. Finally, Holmes’ (1) idea that slang expressions are specifically for the young people is not applicable in the Onitsha environment because slang expressions are used by both young and old. In fact, it is gradually becoming a way of communication among people.