ANGLOGERMANICA ONLINE 2010.

Hernando Carnicero, Carmen:

A Corpus of American and British English: A Case Study of Slang

A Corpus of American and British English: A Case Study of Slang

Carmen Hernando Carnicero, University of Extremadura (Spain)

1 Introduction
1.1 Context
1.2 Approach and Hypothesis
2 The Corpus of American and British Sitcoms
2.1 Topical Unity of Sitcoms
2.2 Characteristics of the Corpus
2.2.1 Keywords
2.2.1.1 Keywords in the Corpus of Sitcoms
2.2.1.2 Keywords in the Two Subcorpora of Sitcoms
3 The Survey on Slang
3.1 Population Sample
3.2 The Questionnaire
3.3 Overall Evaluation of Slang Expressions
3.3.1 Chiefly American Expressions
3.3.2 Expressions Esp. Frequent in Other World Englishes
3.3.3 Expressions Esp. Frequent in “BrE”
3.3.4 Main Trends Represented in the Survey
3.3.5 Most and Least Frequently Occurring Expressions
4 Conclusions
5 Bibliography

ABSTRACT

This article is set against the background of linguistic Globalisation and its diffusion
through the media. The mass media allow for linguistic shifts taking place in American
English to spread to other World Englishes, as a result of an increasing trend towards
colloquialisation, Americanisation and a more democratic model of (power)
relationships. The present paper focuses on a corpus-based study that analyses the
frequency of use of a series of American slang expressions. The study takes as a basis
chiefly audiovisual corpora in parallel to which real linguistic data (drawn from a survey
on slang) are examined. Results provide evidence of the so called Americanisation of
other World Englishes, among them, British English, and that this influence can be
observed in both written and audiovisual corpora.

KEYWORDS: Americanization, American and British English, audiovisual corpora,

Corpus Linguistics, language learning, Linguistic Globalisation, slang, World Englishes.

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A Corpus of American and British English: A Case Study of Slang

1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 CONTEXT

The latest decades have witnessed a shift in most areas of life, both nationally and
regionally/locally, and above all in the international panorama, towards globalisation.
The aftermath of the Second World War has been considered by some as a historical
period marking the beginning of a new era. It is during the aftermath of World War II,
then, that a series of profound changes have come to occur. These changes have
taken place on several planes, but they have chiefly affected culture -as well as society
and language. In a few words, the military, political, economic and technological power
of the United States has caused their culture to somehow impose internationally all
over the world. Technology has no doubt played a key role in the worldwide diffusion of
American culture. This is what we commonly refer to as Globalisation. Further, this
geographical and sociocultural phenomenon also materialises on the level of language.
The English language, and more specifically, the American variety of English, exerts a
great deal of influence on other languages all over the world, as well as on other
varieties of the same language. This linguistic globalisation has various sides to it. The
same phenomenon that, on the one hand, is helping the world to come together as a
tool for communication, has somehow contributed, on the other hand, to the extinction
of minor languages and their respective cultures. However, the same phenomenon has
had the opposite effect. Interest in minor languages and cultures has gathered
momentum, so that an increasing number of studies centre on minority or endangered
languages.
The standpoint that we will adhere to is David Crystal's general “Functionalist
Approach” (Crystal 2003). This approach basically regards English as the lingua franca
on the grounds that it fulfils a communicative function internationally. According to
Crystal, English is currently the language of communication worldwide because of the
political, economic and military power of the United States, arguing that any other
language in the same situation could have fulfilled the same role.
The linguistic influence of American English1 is increasingly noticeable in the mass
media. English has become the international vehicle for communication. It is the
language used in broadcasting, then, as well as the language mostly used in the
recording and cinematographic industries (Crystal 2003). Further, education and
knowledge rely, in no small measure, on English. The internet itself is a medium in
which a great deal of content is transmitted through English, and which allows access
to a great deal of information and resources. It is worth emphasising the role that
learning has come to play in current society. Since we live in a society where
widespread literacy is almost achieved in first-world countries, lifelong learning seems
to have acquired a higher status. As a matter of fact, in a rapidly changing society we
need to constantly update our knowledge and supplement our training (skills), which
we are expected to put into practice in the working environment.
As far as languages are concerned, the positive effects of (linguistic) globalisation
go to show in this respect. Firstly, globalisation has somewhat created, or at least
increased, the need to use (and ideally master) one or several foreign languages, due
to the ongoing exchanges and flow of information going on globally. Secondly, at the

1
Henceforth "AmE".

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A Corpus of American and British English: A Case Study of Slang

same time globalisation has made it easier to travel abroad in order to learn a language
or improve one's foreign language skills. In addition, technology puts a wide array of
tools at the learners' disposal, so all that is required in order to achieve (relatively)
successful learning is a computer and a connection to the internet.
There is an increasing number of language learners depending on audiovisual
material, which is a guaranteed source of speech input, even if the language that we
find in cinematographic and television productions is not authentic discourse. These
constitute, at the end of the day, very much as novels or drama, fictional linguistic
creations; in other words, representations of the way in which (writers or scriptwriters
think) speakers express themselves.
Television series are, in any case, a highly recommendable resource when learning
a language. They provide students or learners in general with a rich source of input.
This genre presents the advantage that there usually is plenty of material (one or
several seasons). In addition to that, a longer duration (if compared with films, for
instance) guarantees putting at the viewers' disposal enough material for them to forge
both a consistent accent and a consistent use of vocabulary and structures, the way
they are used -above all with regard to lexicon- in a specific geographical variety of
English (e.g. British and AmE). Audiovisual productions, and especially perhaps TV
productions, then, for some of the above-mentioned reasons, can be and actually are
used as a tool for Foreign Language or Second Language Learning.
It is worth bringing up the consideration that learners who opt for American series,
on the one hand, will learn this particular variety of English. It might be reasonable to
assume that there might be a majority of learners who are more familiar with shows
coming from the United States than with television productions from other countries
and therefore representing other varieties of English, such as British English2. This
assumption rests on the affluence of contemporary American TV productions,
encompassing a wide range of genres and subjects. It will be very likely, then, that
American TV shows play a significant role in language learning or the language
acquisition process of many a language learner.
It has been argued somewhere else (Battistella 2005) that the language used in
television productions might influence the way that native flesh-and-blood speakers use
the language. We will rely on this hypothesis and will just mention that we can perhaps
extrapolate this idea all the more to language learning in non-native speakers, of
English, in this case.

1.2 APPROACH AND HYPOTHESIS

The use of corpora as a tool to carry out significant analysis of stretches of

language, or alternatively (or simultaneously) of larger texts, can be both simple and
resourceful. There is no need to say that there is a huge body of research on this topic
in the literature. In this essay we will focus on a particular area of language, analysing a
specific lexicon domain by means of corpora. We will also analyse, in some measure,
the main characteristics of our corpora and will examine some of the potential
applications that Wordsmith Tools offers when working with corpora.

2
Henceforth "BrE".

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A Corpus of American and British English: A Case Study of Slang

We mentioned earlier the increasing and ubiquitous presence of AmE, which also
exerts and influence on other World Englishes, as is the case with BrE, especially in
younger speakers of English, who have been exposed to the former variety for some
time now, unlike older British speakers of English, as suggested by Trudgill and
Hannah (1993:45). We undertook research in the field of corpus linguistics, taking as a
basis for our analysis transcripts of situation comedies and focusing on British and
chiefly American slang, results being subsequently compared with data from a survey.
It is worth stressing, in this respect, that since AmE is very likely to be influential above
all on speakers of younger generations, our study focuses on the age range that these
younger generations encompass (i.e. speakers in their late teens, twenties and early
thirties). At the same time, the texts making up the corpus on which we depended
somewhat aim at mirroring the language usage of newer generations (the characters
featured in the ten sitcoms included in the corpus are pretty young, just as most of the
informants who took the survey).
We set out from the hypothesis that both AmE and BrE are represented in fictional
texts (sitcoms) and that the influence of AmE has also made some inroads (not only
into real speech but also) into language representation in such (British) fictional texts.
We intended to compile a general corpus of sitcoms divided into two smaller sub-
corpora, each consisting of five situation comedies: a corpus of British sitcoms, on the
one hand, and another one of American shows, on the other. The idea was to create
wordlists displaying the most commonly occurring slang terms, firstly in the corpus as a
whole, and secondly, in each of the two smaller sub-corpora. We aimed to try and
gauge the extent to which the use of slang terms in the corpus of sitcoms (that is, the
fictional representation) correlated to the real usage of the same terms by native
speakers. For that purpose, we conducted a survey on slang, completed by native
speakers of English from different nationalities. Furthermore, we also intended to
compare the frequency rates of slang terms in both the British and American survey
groups -there was an additional third group of other nationalities with which to compare
results from the other two groups- so as to somehow measure the extent of
Americanisation that the British survey population presented. The data drawn from the
corpus analysis were examined in parallel to data ensuing from the survey on slang.
The survey population totalled 140 speakers of English, coming from different linguistic,
sociocultural and geographical backgrounds, somewhat ensuring varied and unbiased
results -results would depend, ultimately on serendipity, rather than being caused by
the fact that respondents belonged to a particular social class or came from a specific
region or local area.

2 The Corpus of American and British Sitcoms

As suggested before, transcripts from ten TV series were compiled and made into
two separate sub-corpora: one consisting of five American TV series and another one
made up of the transcripts of five British sitcoms. At the same time, the two sub-
corpora were fused into a larger corpus, consisting of a total of ten sitcoms and
containing some 500,000 words. All three corpora were created by means of the
software Wordsmith Tools, through which wordlists were created (frequency,

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alphabetical and statistics lists). It was through these wordlists that the corpora were
accessed and on the basis of which queries were generated.

2.1 Topical Unity of Sitcoms

The situation comedies included in the home-made corpus are topic-related. They
deal with groups of young people and how they interact in different settings, covering
relationships among friends, co-workers, and family, as well as romance, couple
relationships and partying.
As a whole, most series feature characters in their late teens, twenties and thirties,
which might be considered as the age range where slang is probably used the most -as
an in-group identification3 device and as a means to differentiate from other social and
age groups (Dalzell and Victor 2008a: ix). Accordingly, this is approximately the age
range of most informants taking the survey.

2.2 Characteristics of the Corpus

As a whole, the general corpus of sitcoms consisted of two sets or sub-corpora

representing two different varieties of English. The two sub-corpora presented pretty
similar characteristics in terms of running time and (sample) size, on the one hand, and
density (number of tokens, types and STTR4), on the other hand.

2.2.1 Keywords
2.2.1.1 Keywords in the Corpus of Sitcoms

An aspect of the corpus that is worth pointing out is keywords. Wordsmith Tools
allows users to find out which words are most frequently used in a given text or set of
texts, by contrast to a reference corpus. Similarly, this set of tools can also be deployed
in order to find out the most frequently occurring words or elements belonging to a
particular category or word-class, e.g. most commonly occurring common nouns/
proper nouns / verbs / modals, etc.
Needless to say that keyness may throw some light on diverse matters. An obvious
but nonetheless interesting application is that it provides information on the “aboutness”
or subject-matter of a text. Another possible application is a comparison of how texts
devised by writers/scriptwriters speaking different varieties of the same language
diverge from each other in terms of linguistic usage.
As far as lexical keywords are concerned, these may prove revealing concerning
subject-matter considerations. Among content keywords, noun keywords clearly
referred to people and some of the “roles” they play, mostly indicating close
relationships and conveying a relaxed, colloquial tone (guys, mom, girlfriend, dude;
also in some contexts man). Some of these terms of address may actually be
considered as slang. The “aboutness” of the collection of transcripts in the corpus
seemed pretty obvious just by having a look at the first ten noun keywords: close

3
It has been argued that slang might be used to identify with a particular style or attitude rather
than with a (social or racial) group per se. Cf. Eble 1996: 119.
4
STTR stands for “Standardised Type/Token Ratio” Cf. Scott 2006.

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A Corpus of American and British English: A Case Study of Slang

relationships: family (e.g. mom and baby), friends and fun (e.g. guys, girlfriend, guys
and dude), couples and romance (love, sex, wedding, baby5). Cf. Table 1 below.

Table 1. Content words: nouns6*

NOUNS
DUDE BABY
GIRLFRIEND FUN
GUY/S LOVE*
MAN SEX
MOM WEDDING

2.2.1.2 Keywords in the Two Subcorpora of Sitcoms

The corpus of situation comedies obviously contains some internal variation at

different levels, but this difference can be observed especially well on the level of lexis
through the application “Keywords list”. Below there is a set of keywords ensuing from
a comparison of the wordlist of American situation comedies and that of the British
sitcoms. The focus has especially been placed on content words. Attention has only
been paid to nouns and adjectives, which were somewhat revealing of the way these
British and American sitcoms differ in terms of both content and language use.
Various implications might be derived from the keywords lists below. As regards the
sub-corpus of American sitcoms, the first nouns featured in the keywords list refer to
people, settings and events. The terms on the left-hand column apply to people, and
are very often used as address forms. Apartment, party and Thanksgiving provide
information on the setting, both spatial and temporal. Cultural implications might also
arise (e.g. traditional American festivity). Furthermore, apartments might be settings
more commonly alluded to in the US, versus flats in the UK.7

Table 2. Content keywords in the sub-corpora of American and British sitcoms

AMERICAN TRANSCRIPTS BRITISH TRANSCRIPTS

FIRST TEN CONTENT KEYWORDS
DUDE APARTMENT BLOKE BLOODY
GUY/S AWESOME MATE BRILLIANT
HONEY CRAZY MEN JESUS
KID PARTY MUM LOVELY
MOM THANKSGIVING PUB SHIT

5
In the initially slangy acceptation of the word: ‘a sweetheart, a girlfriend US, 1839’; also ‘used
as a friendly term of address US, 1921.’ Dalzell and Victor (2008b: 22).
6
* indicates that the lexical item in question might function as a different word-class other than
the group within which it is included, but the predominant word-class it realises (within the
corpus) seems to be the one to which it has been allotted. Nouns can also work as verbs (love
mostly works as a noun in the corpus of sitcoms).
7
Flat appears on the list of British keywords, even if it does not appear among the first ten
keywords.

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By studying the keywords in specific American TV series, part of the typically

American lexicon is bound to come up, which might be particularly interesting for
language teaching purposes. At the very least, keywords might prove to be indicators
of differing frequencies of use between the two main varieties of English, or rather of
how these differences apply in this particular genre and in this specific set of sitcoms.
With regard to adjectives, awesome and crazy appear to be much more frequently
used in the set of American series. The former is typically American, whereas the high
frequency of occurrence of the latter perhaps makes up for a commoner use of other
terms in BrE (e.g. mad).
Noun and adjective keywords in the British sitcoms also refer to people: BrE mum
vs. AmE mom above; mate and bloke, also typically British; and men, which is more
neutral but perhaps compensates for the use of other forms of addressing or referring
to males in AmE, namely guy and dude. There is but one noun alluding to setting: pub,
which might be regarded as a preferred choice in Britain over bar.
Bloody, brilliant and lovely are pejorative and positively evaluating adjectives,
especially used in BrE, whereas expletives Jesus and shit seem to wend their way into
the set of British sitcoms considerably more often than in the sub-corpus of AmE.
The use of linguistic items in AmE and BrE could further be examined by comparing
other lexical items appearing in the keywords list. These lists would also come in handy
in order to find out whether a particular word is noticeably more used in either of the
two corpora, or in either of these two varieties of English in a specific genre.
Ultimately, attention could be drawn to the whole bulk of keywords peculiar to one of
the two sub-corpora involved, with the result that many a characteristically American or
British word would wend its way into the variety it belongs to or with which it is most
often associated (e.g. some words that figure prominently in the keywords list of British
sitcoms and American sitcoms, respectively, are: BrE fucking, flat, bollocks; and AmE
totally, prom, cab). The opposite phenomenon might also appear, that is, that words
that are most often associated with a specific variety of English (AmE) find their way
into a different variety (BrE). That is the case of some of the expressions included in
the questionnaire on slang. If we contrast the wordlist of the corpus of British sitcoms
with that of the 1999 BNC Sampler, guy/s, dude, and guess are among the items on
the list of keywords. The three of them are originally American slang, somehow
revealing a certain degree of Americanisation in the set of British transcripts.

3 The Survey on Slang

To begin with, it might be worth emphasising the fact that, within the scope of the
present study, the term slang should be considered quite generally, as an umbrella
term. The expressions that were included under the category of slang (and put to the
test in a questionnaire) are not necessarily slang terms any more. Some of them have
already entered the stock of lexicon in general use. A number of them are currently
regarded as quite informal, colloquial, or, some items might even be thought of as
vulgar language. What they all have in common is that they first appeared in the
domain of slang, even if most of the terms have grown to be part of the stock of general
usage or of colloquial language in current standard English.

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A Corpus of American and British English: A Case Study of Slang

With respect to the survey on slang that we undertook, we will provide a short
depiction of what the survey consisted in, as well as a general characterisation of the
survey population.
A series of 27 slang expressions were extracted from the corpus of American and
British TV series, on the basis that they presented a relatively high frequency rate in
the corpus. As mentioned previously, we aimed to gauge the extent to which
Americanisation was reflected both in the corpus of sitcoms and in a sample of native
speakers of English. To that purpose, we selected expressions or terms mostly of
American origin. The opposite phenomenon was also represented, since a couple of
expressions of British origin were also included. The latter expressions were included,
likewise, on the basis that they appeared with a high frequency rate not only in BrE but
also in AmE.

3.1 Population Sample

A total number of 140 native speakers of English completed the survey. Several
variables were taken into account when analysing the results of the survey, namely
nationality, age and gender.
Overall, 8 different nationalities registered participation in the survey, namely,
American, Australian, British, Canadian, Indian, Irish, Mexican and New Zealander.
The inclusion of respondents from countries other than the US or the UK mainly rested
on the possibility of further exploring the influence of AmE on other World Englishes.
Respondents were roughly equally distributed across the two main nationality groups,
British and American (with 51 and 57 respondents, respectively), whereas the group
“Other” was a bit more reduced in number (32).
Concerning age, respondents were sorted into 5 groups, to wit, teens, 20's, 30's,
40's and 50 or over. The survey group displayed an average age of 26.7 years old.
Respondents were, for the most part, then, in their twenties and early thirties, since it
was intended to measure the extent to which especially young speakers make use of
American slang terms. It is only natural that young British speakers should use this
type of linguistic item more frequently than elderly speakers, given that the former have
been widely exposed to American linguistic input from a very early age—unlike senior
speakers.
As for the proportion of males and female respondents, it was, as a whole, fairly
equally distributed across the two categories, although it varied within each nationality
and age group.

3.2 The Questionnaire

The questionnaire aimed to gauge both input and output frequency rates of the 27
expressions proposed. The questionnaire consisted in a list of 27 expressions of slang,
selected on the basis that they displayed a relatively high frequency rate in the corpus
of sitcoms. Expressions were presented within context. An example for each of them
was provided and it was made clear that respondents were expected to give a rough
estimate of the frequency with which they both heard and used the enumerated
expressions in the sense conveyed in the examples provided. At the end of the
questionnaire, respondents were invited to provide additional comments.

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Three frequency rates were established when providing an estimate of the

frequency of use of expressions, to wit, (I hear/use expression X) (1) always/ a lot, (2)
sometimes, and (3) hardly ever / never. In our analysis, we contrasted individually the
frequency rates yielded by the survey with the data drawn from the corpus.

3.3 Overall Evaluation of Slang Expressions

In this section we will focus exclusively on data concerning output. We will therefore
pay attention mainly to frequency rates concerning the use of slang expressions by the
survey population. The reason for this mainly rests on the fact that frequency of input,
although displaying a much more noticeable degree of Americanisation (in the case of
both the British survey population and that of the group of other nationalities), was
often due to the influence of mass media. The former set of data (output), however,
reflects more realistically linguistic usage on the part of the native English speakers
taking the survey. Tables 3, 4 and 5 below display output data drawn from the survey.
This estimate was carried out by assigning a specific value to the percentages standing
for frequencies (1) “always/a lot” and (2) “sometimes”. With respect to frequency
“always/a lot”, the percentages resulting from an analysis of the data drawn from the
survey were multiplied by 3; percentages under the label “sometimes” were multiplied
by 2, while percentages in column (3) “hardly ever/never” were not considered for
evaluation, since they represented absence of use. Results were added up and divided
by 3, so as to function on a scale of 100%.
As a whole, most of the expressions featured in the survey are of American origin,
with the exception of three of them, which were first recorded in UK English. Such
exceptions are: play it cool, screw and chat up.
Where a given slang term conveyed several senses (polysemy or homonymy),
attention was drawn to one specific sense, arising in a specific variety of English, as
was the case with screw (which conveys several senses emerging in different
geographical locations, and can function as various word categories).
Concerning expression 15, play it cool, its frequency of use is very similarly
distributed across nationality groups, regardless of its geographical origin, ranging from
31.23% to 32.73%.
Regarding expression no. 17, screw, in spite of the fact that it first appeared as BrE
slang (meaning fuck off), it seems to be more frequently used in the group of AmE than
in the other two nationality groups, and especially by comparison with BrE (AmE: 69%
vs. BrE: 51.6%).
In the case of no. 27, chat up, as could be anticipated, this linguistic item is much
more frequent in BrE than in the other two nationality groups. It is the least frequently
used in AmE, whereas its frequency of use in the group “Other” almost doubles the
percentage found in AmE (30.2% vs. 15.8%).
The rest of the expressions extracted from the questionnaire arose in the American
variety of English. Some of these linguistic items remain typically American. Others, as
will be seen, have become more entrenched in other varieties of English than in AmE,
either in BrE or in other World Englishes.

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3.3.1 Chiefly American Expressions

As expected, there were a few expressions whose usage proved to be prominently

American. These expressions tended to be used with a very high frequency in the
group “Other”, as well, although significantly less used in BrE. Very occassionally, there
was a considerable difference between frequency rates in the American group and in
the nationality group “Other”. That is the case, for instance, of expressions 3 and 21,
totally and screw up (and of expression 17, screw, of British origin, already commented
on).
In the case of the former, totally, its usage is by far more common in AmE than in
the other two nationality groups. Its percentage doubles only too well the percentage
representing BrE, and it almost doubles the figure for the group of other nationalities,
which is only slightly higher than the frequency rate of BrE (AmE 53.8% vs. BrE
22.83% and Other 27.1%, respectively). The latter term, screw up, seems to be very
frequently used in the American survey group, while its frequency of use in the other
two nationality groups is lower, although the difference between percentages in the
American survey group and the other two is not a striking one, in this case.
Percentages representing BrE and other nationalities are still considerably high, with
BrE in third position (AmE: 78.3%; Other: 66.63%; and BrE: 63.43%).
Quite a few expressions of American origin seemed to be used so much in the
group of other World Englishes as they were in AmE. In such cases, the frequency of
use recorded for the group “Other” is akin to that of AmE. This phenomenon applies to
expressions: cool (no. 1), you guys (4), dude (5), bullshit (9), big deal (12) and hang out
(13). The difference separating frequency rates in the American survey group from the
group of other nationalities is more noticeable in the case of you guys and hang out,
where there is a difference of approximately 10%. In the case of the other linguistic
items, the frequency gap does not really seem to be a substantial one (ranging from
0.5% to 2%).
It is worth pointing out that there was a gap between the frequency of use of these
expressions in the American survey group and in the British population. Occasionally,
such a gap was not very significant, as happened to be the case with cool and bullshit.
These two linguistic items were used as frequently in AmE as in other World Englishes
as a whole, except in BrE, whose usage was 10% lower. Frequency gaps widen when
it comes to other expressions, such as you guys and dude, which roughly present a
20% gap (you guys: AmE at 84.76% vs. BrE at 64.06%; dude: AmE at 53.2% and BrE
at 34.63%); big deal, with a difference of about 15% (AmE at 89.46% and BrE at
75.83%); and hang out, which presents a difference of over 30% (AmE at 92.36% and
BrE at 59.5%).
Finally, the case of (no. 19) piss off might be an interesting one because it is
(together with play it cool, already commented on, since it is of UK origin) the only case
of a typically American expression (holding the highest frequency rate in AmE) closely
followed by the British survey group and only slightly less frequently used in other
varieties of World Englishes (AmE at 81.3%, BrE at 77.73% and “Other” at 72.83%). At
any rate, all three nationality groups displayed very similar frequency rates.
On the other hand, a considerable number of expressions were used more often by
respondents from varieties of English other than AmE. This trend might be subdivided
into two tendencies. There is, on one hand, a group of expressions respondents from

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the survey group of other nationalities seemed to be more familiar with than American
informants themselves. These expressions are used, all the same, with a very high
frequency rate by American respondents, and not so frequently by British respondents.
On the other hand, British informants affirmed that they used a series of expressions
significantly more often than respondents from either of the other two groups.

3.3.2 Expressions Esp. Frequent in Other World Englishes

With regard to expressions that were most frequently used by respondents

belonging to the group “Other”, a set of linguistic items ought to be enumerated:
expressions buddy (7), babe (8), check out (16), high five (20), hottie (23), and
awesome (24). The frequency gap separating the group “Other” from AmE might be a
petty one, as is the case with check out and awesome, where there is a difference of
approximately 1% and 2%, respectively. Percentages of frequency of use of these two
expressions in the British survey group are substantially lower, ranging from 20 to
almost 25%.
The existing gap is sometimes slightly wider, as in the case with high five and
buddy, where it is of approximately 4% and 6%, respectively. Ultimately, this frequency
gap is at most of over 10% in the case of babe and hottie. This might indicate a leaning
in other varieties of English towards adopting AmE expressions and implementing them
to their everyday usage stock. The fact that these expressions are taken from AmE and
have become established in other varieties of World English seems evident, according
to the survey data. What is arguable, but very likely, is that American linguistic trends
are sometimes carried even further in these other varieties of English. That is, even if
these expressions are not so much in vogue in AmE, they may still maintain such a
status in other varieties.
Frequency gaps between the percentages displayed in the British survey group and
the group of other nationalities are significantly higher in the case of these items,
ranging from almost 10% (in the case of high five, with BrE at 37.2% and “Other” at
46.83%) and about 17%-22% (babe, BrE 24.83% and “Other” 41.7%; and hottie, BrE
24.8% and “Other” 46.83%) to over 30% (buddy, BrE 14.36% and “Other” 45.86%).

3.3.3 Expressions Esp. Frequent in “BrE”

There are a series of expressions that happened to be most frequently used in the
British group, and more or less equally used by respondents of the other two survey
groups. At the same time, there is a specific case, that of wicked, which presents its
highest frequency rate in BrE (36.6%) but is closely followed by the group “Other”
(32.26%), AmE lagging behind at 21.06%8.
A clear case of linguistic item most commonly used in (and perhaps most typically
associated with) BrE is expression no. 6 fantastic. The frequency of use of this
particular adjective in BrE is 64.73%, whereas in AmE it is slightly lower: 53.2% and in
other World Englishes it is even lower: 46.86%. It presents, nonetheless, a relatively
high frequency of use in all three nationality groups. Something similar applies in the

8
The linguistic item chat up falls into the same category as wicked, commented on above,
according to frequency of use across nationality groups (albeit not according to variety of origin,
which is why they are mentioned in different sections).

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case of guts (BrE 61.46% vs. AmE 49.73% and “Other” 48.96%) and with phrasal verb
split up (with BrE frequency rate at 71.86%, vs. AmE at 57.3% and other varieties at
53.16%).
The remaining linguistic types occur only slightly more frequently in the British group
than in the other two nationality groups. AmE takes up position number 2 and “Other”
occupies position number 3. There is a frequency gap of about 7% when it comes to
expressions 2 and 18: fucking (BrE: 50.3% vs. AmE: 43.83%) and chill out (BrE:
74.53% vs. AmE: 67.86%); and even a smaller frequency gap with respect to
expressions 14, 22 and 26: pucker (which was actually only used by 1 British
respondent and by none at all in the other two survey groups: BrE: 1.3%), pain in the
arse/ass (BrE: 68.% vs. AmE: 65.46%) and oddball (BrE: 20.9% vs. AmE: 17.53%).

3.3.4 Main Trends Represented in The Survey

Generally speaking, then, three overall trends seemed to emerge in our analysis of
the expressions included in the survey. By no means do we suggest that these
tendencies necessarily apply in contexts outside the survey the present study relies on.
However, it might be possible that the data drawn from this study could be pointing in
the direction in which the English language is evolving in the international panorama.
Firstly, it comes as no surprise that certain linguistic items having US origin should
remain typically American, having, all the same, a substantial presence in the group of
other varieties of English.
Secondly, it is likely that, as suggested by the data drawn from the survey, some
American expressions have become as common in “Other” varieties of English as they
are in AmE, being slightly less used in the British group. Occasionally, some of these
have become even more entrenched in the group of other varieties of World Englishes
than among American respondents themselves.
Last but not least, some expressions first recorded in AmE having extended to BrE
have become more frequently used in the latter variety than in the former. There
usually exists a (more or less) significant frequency gap between BrE and the
equivalent figure in the survey group “Other.”
As far as expressions of British origin are concerned, we might regard their
presence in other varieties of English as a minor influence. The expressions of British
origin included in the questionnaire displayed low or low-medium frequency rates in
other varieties of English, with the exception of screw, which was considerably
frequently used, since it presented a frequency rate of over 50% in all three varieties.

3.3.5 Most and Least Frequently Occurring Expressions

It would be worth drawing attention to the fact that some expressions are widely
used, whereas others we have considered as not frequent enough, by comparison with
the data drawn from our corpus of sitcoms. It is also worth remembering that inclusion
of expressions in the survey was based on frequency of occurrence in the corpus.
We have considered as very frequently occurring expressions those that displayed
in all three nationality groups a frequency rate of 50% or over. Such is the case of the
following linguistic items: (1) cool, (4) you guys, (9) bullshit, (10) split up, (12) big deal,

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(13) hang out, (16) check out, (17) screw, (18) chill out, (19) piss off, (21) screw up,
(22) pain in the ass/arse and (24) awesome.

Table 3. Most frequently occurring expressions (50% or over in all groups)

EXPRESSION AMERICAN BRITISH OTHER

1. COOL 85.97% 76.43% 85.4%

4. YOU GUYS 84.76% 64.06% 74.96%

9. BULLSHIT 64.9% 54.9% 64.56%

10. SPLIT UP 57.3% 71.86% 53.16%

12. BIG DEAL 89.46% 75.83% 88.56%

13. HANG OUT 92.36% 59.5% 82.06%

16. CHECK OUT 81.26% 62.7% 82.26%

17. SCREW 69% 51.6% 57.3%

18. CHILL OUT 67.86% 74.53% 63.53%

19. PISS OFF 81.3% 77.73% 72.83%

21. SCREW UP 78.3% 63.43% 66.63%

22.PAIN IN THE ASS 65.46% 68% 60.43%

24. AWESOME 80.73% 56.2% 82.3%

We have considered as not sufficiently frequently occurring, as compared with the

data drawn from our corpus of sitcoms, all expressions that presented a percentage of
use of or below 50% in all three nationality groups. Some linguistic terms were
relatively frequently used, with a frequency rate below 50%. That was the case of
expressions (7) buddy, (8) babe, (20) high five and (23) hottie. Some other expressions
displayed a frequency rate below 40%, namely (11) wicked and (15) play it cool.
Finally, a set of expressions presented even lower frequency rates, to wit, (26) oddball:
-30%; and (14) pucker: -10%.

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Table 4. Least frequently occurring expressions

EXPRESSION AMERICAN BRITISH OTHER

-50% IN 3 GROUPS

7. BUDDY 39.16% 14.36% 45.86%

8. BABE 30.96% 24.83% 41.7%

20. HIGH FIVE 42.6% 37.2% 46.83%

23. HOTTIE 35.06% 24.8% 46.83%

-40% IN 3 GROUPS

11. WICKED 21.06% 36.6% 32.26%

15. PLAY IT COOL 32.73% 32.6% 31.23%

-30% IN 3 GROUPS

26. ODDBALL 17.53% 20.9% 10.4%

-10% IN 3 GROUPS

14. PUCKER 0% 1.3% 0%

We can draw the conclusion that the appearance of these linguistic items (with a low
frequency rate) in the set of transcripts making up the corpora did not match the results
obtained by means of the survey. This clash was most noticeable in the case of
expression (14) pucker, whose repeated occurrence in the corpus does not seem to
reflect a realistic usage of this expression. It otherwise seems to depend, in this case,
on serendipity, a.k.a. sheer coincidence9.

Table 5. Frequently occurring expressions

EXPRESSION AMERICAN BRITISH OTHER

2. FUCKING 43.83% 50.3% 42.7%
3. TOTALLY 53.8% 22.83% 27.1%
5. DUDE 53.2% 34.63% 51.03%
6. FANTASTIC 53.2% 64.73% 46.86%
25. GUTS 49.73% 61.46% 48.96%
27. CHAT UP 15.8% 66.63% 30.2%

9
Pucker appeared not in just one but in several sitcoms.

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A third group of expressions could be sorted under the category “frequently

occurring expressions”. Unlike “very frequently occurring” expressions, the former do
not display a percentage of 50 or over in all three nationality groups, but they do in at
least one of them. They are, therefore, not widely used among the survey population,
but only within one nationality group (or two at the most), as was the case with: (2)
fucking, (3) totally, (5) dude, (6) fantastic, (25) guts and (27) chat up.
It should also be pointed out that the diverse expressions with the highest frequency
rates of use in the three nationality groups are not necessarily the ones that emerged
the most recently. Language terms in vogue do not actually seem to depend on a
matter of time, but one possible explanation for this is that every now and then there is
an expression that either drops out of use or comes to be decreasingly used, and
because of fortuitous circumstances there is a revival that brings it back to life. This is
often one of the ways terms having appeared at earlier stages in the language come to
re-enter the living lexicon.
Some of the 13 most commonly used expressions enumerated above trace back to
the nineteenth century, namely you guys, and hang out. A couple of expressions date
back to the World War I period (bullshit), and to the 1930’s (pain in the ass/arse and
piss off). A considerable number of linguistic items trace back to the 1940’s, to wit,
screw up, split up, screw, big deal, and cool. Finally, some others were first recorded in
a more recent period: in the 1950’s (check out), in the 1970’s (awesome) and in the
1980’s (chill out).

4 Conclusions

In the first section we have established the context against which the present article
should be understood, mentioning the phenomenon of Globalisation as well as
emphasising the importance of the different tools used for lifelong learning. Among the
latter, we have pointed out the resourcefulness provided by both audiovisual
productions and corpora. It was further mentioned that audiovisual productions may
have an influence on both language learners and native speakers of a language. An
analysis of a specific corpus of American and British sitcoms was put forth so as to try
to evaluate the extent to which (a set of) television shows might reflect realistically the
way flesh-and-blood speakers make use of slang -which might have an influence on
language learner usage. Furthermore, there is also the hypothesis, put forth by
Battistella (2005), that television productions, whether realistic or unrealistic
representations of discourse, might exert an influence -whether stronger or weaker- on
native speakers' language use.
Section two consisted in a brief description of the corpus (and the two sub-corpora)
of sitcoms, together with an analysis of its main features by means of the software
Wordsmith Tools. It was observed how an analysis of the corpus reveals different data
about the kind of language used, touching on issues such as subject-matter and
keywords.
Regarding the former, we saw that most words appearing on the keywords list were
somewhat revealing of the topics dealt with in the corpus of situation comedies.
Content keywords were, in a way, representative of the kind of relationships displayed
in the situation comedies. In general terms, it was colloquial terms of address that

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appeared the most, all of which indicated close relationships. Some slang expressions
appeared among the first 10 noun and adjective keywords. As a matter of fact, a
number of the expressions featured in the survey appeared among the words on the
keywords list.
When comparing the two corpora of American and British sitcoms, differences were
observed in terms of purely linguistic matters. Both corpora featured as keywords a
number of informal terms of address, which were different in each case. Cultural
matters also cropped up (events, settings and other considerations such as expletives).
Finally, it was also pointed out that a corpus-based study could prove useful when
trying to identify the keywords of either variety in a particular domain, or simply upon
spotting differences of language usage (in terms of frequency) between the two
varieties (e.g. slang terms). Ultimately, it was the case that American expressions
happened to appear among the keywords of the set of British transcripts, when
compared to a reference corpus, providing just a small piece of evidence that
Americanisation is actually beginning to be noticeable in some contexts.
The third and final section focused on the survey on slang and the ensuing survey
data. We provided a short depiction of the survey population and of the questionnaire.
Attention was drawn to the different slang expressions included in the survey, focusing
on their respective data. We went on to mention the main trends drawn from the
survey. We concluded, on the one hand, that corpus data did not always match the
survey data. Therefore, data extracted from the corpus not always reflected realistically
the way slang expressions are used,or at least the way they were used by our survey
population. In the case of almost 50% of expressions (13 expressions), however, data
ensuing from the survey seemed to suggest a noticeable degree of Americanisation,
somehow backing up the data drawn from our corpus, since all of the expressions
included in the survey presented a relatively high frequency of occurrence. With regard
to results corresponding to the couple of slang expressions of British origin included in
the survey, in a way survey data confirmed the trend found in the corpus, namely, that
these expressions also made their way into the language used by the American survey
group. Occasionally (in the case of screw) frequency rates were higher in the group of
AmE than in the British survey population, thus somehow suggesting a two-way traffic
of linguistic influence between these two varieties of English, albeit there is no doubt as
to which of the two are the major and the minor influence. Further, among the
remaining expressions, some 20% (5 expressions) proved to be used, in no small
measure, by respondents from at least one (or even two) nationality groups. In other
words, most often than not (about 70%) corpus and survey data did match.
On the other hand, and very much in keeping with the issue discussed in the
previous paragraphs, there is evidence that some American linguistic trends are (and
have been now over a meaningful period of time) extending to other varieties of English
(Crystal 2003, Svartvik and Leech 2006, Swan 2002, Trudgill and Hannah 1993). Our
hypothesis, somewhat based on Trudgill and Hannah (1993: 45), was that American
linguistic drives are spreading to other varieties of English worldwide, especially among
new generations, due to their diffusion through the media. We focused on situation
comedies, whose broadcasting is liable to exert a considerable influence on the way
speakers use language (particularly slang) in real life. At the same time, TV shows aim
at mirroring, if just to some extent and in a conventionalised fashion, the way actual
speakers of English speak. As a matter of fact, as suggested above, linguistic

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representation of slang in situation comedies might not always constitute quite an

accurate rendering of actual language use. Tying in with the notion that AmE slang has
spread, and is spreading, to other varieties, three main general tendencies were cited
as accounting for the linguistic phenomena tested out in the questionnaire. It must be
pointed out, nonetheless, in contrast to the “cut-off” and exclusive character of the
categories or trends described above, that differences in terms of output frequency
rates across the three survey groups sometimes were not that clear-cut. In spite of that,
three patterns seem to appear throughout the set of linguistic expressions, all the
same. In general lines, either expressions appeared to be typically American, or they
seemed to have extended to and turned out to be more frequently used in either the
group of other varieties or in that of BrE. In these varieties, a given slang expression is
no longer perceived, we might venture to say, as typically American. In fact, several
respondents seemed to conceive of them (as they stated in the comment section)
either as their own (especially in the case of younger generations) or as more of a
World Standard English usage, but not marked out as American, in any case.
To wrap up, we can conclude that the corpus of sitcoms was taken as a more or
less realistic representation of AmE and BrE (slang) that we took as a basis in order to
carry out a survey on slang. On the one hand, the corpus proved useful upon trying to
identify differences between the two varieties of English, as well as in spotting signs of
Americanisation. On the other hand, the survey provided some evidence that the
Americanisation displayed in the corpus was a somewhat realistic representation of the
way flesh-and-blood speakers of English use their mother tongue. It is also worth
stressing that audiovisual productions might exert and influence on viewers, both on
native speakers of English (as a medium contributing to linguistic globalisation and the
Americanisation of World Englishes) and on non-native speakers who make use of this
type of material as part of their language learning resources.

5 Bibliography

Battistella, Edwin (2005): Bad Language. Are Some Words Better than Others? Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Crystal, David (2003): English as A Global Language. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Dalzell, Tom and Terry Victor (eds.) (2008a): Sex Slang. New York: Routledge.
Dalzell, Tom and Terry Victor (eds.) (2008b): The Concise New Partridge Dictionary of
Slang and Unconventional English. New York: Routlege.
Eble, Connie C. (1996): Slang and Sociability: In-Group Language among College
Students. N.p.:University of North Carolina Press.
Hernando Carnicero, Carmen (2009): A Comparative Corpus-Aided Analysis of
American and British English: A Case Study of Slang. MA Diss. Universidad de
Extremadura. Cáceres. Unpublished.
Scott, Mike (2006): “Type/Token Ratios and the Standardised Type/Token Ratio”.
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proc.htm>.

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A Corpus of American and British English: A Case Study of Slang

Scott, Mike (2009): Wordsmith Tools. Lexically.net. Web. 2 Aug. 2010.

<http://www.lexically.net/downloads/version5/HTML/index.html>.
Svartvik, Jan and Geoffrey Leech (2006): English: One Tongue, Many Voices.
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Swan, Michael (2002): Practical English Usage. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
The BNC Sampler (1999): Oxford: Oxford University Computing Services.
Trudgill, Peter and Jean Hannah (1993): International English: A Guide to Varieties of
Standard English. London: Edward Arnold.

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