A SOCIOLINGUISTIC STUDY ON AFRICAN AMERICAN SLANG WORDS FOUND IN 8 MILE MOVIE

Abstract

This thesis discusses African American slang words that are spoken by African American people. This thesis discusses how the slang words are formed and distinguished from the standardized language and how African American slang words can be understood by common people. In discussing the data, some theories are conducted. One, Mattiello‟s (2008) theory about slang from sociological and linguistic point of view is used to describe and explain slang words formed and distinguished from the standardized language. Two, Rickford and Rickford‟s (2000) theory about African American Language (AAL) grammar are used to explain how AAL can be understood by common people. This thesis is qualitative and quantitative research. Qualitative research is used in this research because the data are in the form of the words. Quantitative research is used to obtain information about the amount of African American slang words in the movie. In method of collecting data, the researcher applies documentary technique. The source of the data is the 8 Mile movie. The form of data is the 8 Mile movie‟s subtitles. The movie‟s subtitles are obtained from www.subscene.com. The result after research finding shows that African American slang words are different from the standard language in both its sociological point of view and linguistic point of view. From the sociological point of view, slang words are mostly spoken as informality and debasement. From the linguistic point of view, slang words are mostly formed as semantic words. Furthermore, the researcher finds grammatical characteristics which are spoken by African American people in the 8 Mile movie.The grammatical characteristics are the absence of third person –s marking, zero copula, the use of negative ain’t for negation, and negative concord. These grammatical characteristics of AAL can be used by common people to understand African American slang words.