Metaphor in Contemporary American Slang: Sociocultural Aspect

Abstract

Linguistics in recent years increasingly turns to the study of a living spoken language, officially standing outside the accepted, standard literary canons.  A special place in the formation of slang expressions is occupied by metaphors, which are often associated with the socio-cultural context. There are a number of slang metaphors that require cultural background information to interpret correctly; one can distinguish slangisms that have a general relevance to a given culture, as well as slangisms reflecting the cultural values of a certain subculture within the dominant culture; it is possible to classify groups of culturally connotated slangisms depending on the area to which they belong. Cultural allusions can be names of popular brands, advertising slogans, etc.