Jane Austen: Victorian Feminist or W Rizzler?

What follows is part one of a multi-part series on teenage language use and slang.

“If you speak to a man in a language he understands, it goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, it goes to his heart.”

Nelson Mandela spoke these immortal words to a crowd of loyal followers, intending to spread an international message of peace, and they still ring true today. 

Students in Fleetwood and beyond have created their own sort of language. They speak to one another in the same place, in the same way, every day. Some might call this slang, lingo, vernacular, jargon–regardless, students have developed a system of communication that is understood by other members of the same community. 

Merriam-Webster calls this a “language.”

This language, while influential in teens’ daily lives, is still considered relatively inappropriate in an academic setting. Stanford linguists suggest that language can affect a person’s perception of the world, giving him or her a well-rounded and culturally significant understanding of what it means to be human. 

So, should Generation Z be permitted to use their “language” in an academic setting? Is Jane Austen a Victorian author who explores the female psyche, or is she the W Rizzler? What is the difference, and how is it significant? 

AP Language and Composition instructor Zachary Houp has totally embraced many aspects of this new form of language.  Houp will incorporate contemporary words like “lock in” and “crash out,” “cooking” and “cooked,” into his classes when it is suitable. Houp views slang as a bonding tool for him and his students. 

“If it will get my students laughing, what’s the harm?” Houp asks. 

The harm, as Accelerated English instructor Tara Carino says, is the integrity and respect of academic literature. 

“There is a new list of slang words every year,” Carino says. “I have no problem with slang words in the classroom, but under no circumstances do they belong in a research paper or formal presentation.” 

Carino and Houp can both agree that the manipulation of one’s dialect can greatly increase or decrease the respect he or she receives in an academic setting.

But the question remains, how do these guidelines affect students directly? 

Current Sophomore, Pamela Guzmán, describes how easy it is to switch back and forth between the way she talks amongst her friends and the way she talks to her teachers.

“If I was greeting my friend, I would say something like ‘what’s up,’ but if I was talking to my teacher, I would say ‘how’s it going?” Guzmán said.

She describes this distinction very easily, and yet could not distinguish any sort of rules that determined what she could or could not say in the classroom.

“It’s kind of an unspoken rule,” Guzmán said. “You just know.”

It is these unspoken rules that continue to be relevant, even through generations. 

“It seems like there’s a new set of slang every year,” Carino said.

“What stays consistent,” Houp added, “is my determination to understand it.”