What is slang?

You are coming now to the end of the course "English for Law Enforcement Professionals" which supplied you with professional terminology amounting approximately to a thousand terms. Most of them represent standard (1) written and spoken English. The fact is that the present-day international communication basing mostly on the English language and the problems of fighting international crime make it necessary for future law enforcers to have an idea of non-standard (2) colloquial (3). English as well because it is widely used in English-speaking countries. The most important variant of non-standard colloquial English is slang together with dialects and other specialized variants - e.g. argot (4), cant (5), jargon (6), pidgins (7), creoles (8), so-called dirty English – taboo(9) words and expressions and the language of the underworld - "flash", "the lingo" (10). So slang is a particular kind of colloquial language. It refers to words and expressions which are extremely informal. Slang helps to make speech vivid, colourful and interesting but it can easily be used inappropriately. It can be risky for someone to use slang. Slang puzzles not only the foreign student but is often not understood by native English speakers either. That's why you might be well advised to avoid using slang yourself.

N.B.

1. standard – образцовый, литературный, нормативный. 2. non-standard – ненормативный. 3. colloquial – разговорный, нелитературный. 4. argot ['a:gou] – арго, жаргон. 5. cant [kænt] – жаргон. 6. jargon ['d3a:gən] – жаргон. 7. pidgin ['pid3in] – ломаный деловой язык. 8. creoles ['kri:əul] – креольские языки. 9. taboo – зд. табуизированный. 10. flash, the lingo – воровской жаргон.