Slang Usage amongst Students in Urban Areas: An Insight of Warri Metropolis
This paper examines the use of slang expressions among students in urban areas in Nigeria in general and the city of Warri (a town in Delta State of Nigeria) in particular. Slang is an informal expression used by a particular group of people such as teenagers, young and adults. The paper sets out to identify slang expressions used amongst these students, the conversational patterns and the effects of slang on the students’ academic performance. This paper adopts communication accommodation theory as a theoretical framework in its analysis. This study reveals that people in Warri city use slang a lot to communicate with one another. The frequent use of slang has effects on the academic performance of the students and in their conversational pattern. It also reveals that students use slangy expressions for secrecy and easy form of communicating with one another. The use of slang affects the use of Standard English language for communication. Students encounter and retain slang in the same way as other languages mostly through repetitive and contextual learning. There should be a balance between slang usage and the use of standard language for communication.
Keywords: areas, insight, metropolis, slang, students, urban, usage, warri