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Academic Paper |
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| Title: | Covert Puns as a Source of Slang Words in English |
| Author: | Antonio Lillo |
| Email: | click here TO access email |
| Institution: | Universidad de Alicante |
| Linguistic Field: | Lexicography; Morphology |
| Subject Language: |
English
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| Abstract: | Sometimes the formation of puns based on homophony depends not on development from an iconic word which is removed, but on a whole network of linguistic (both phonological and semantic) and often also extralinguistic associations. A particularly striking example is the British slangism 'Bruce' for an ‘ounce of a drug’. No doubt an arcane coinage to the uninitiated, the pun hinges on the homophones Oz ‘Australia’ and oz ‘an ounce of a drug’, but also on the widely held belief that Bruce is the most popular male name down under. Granted, the convoluted interplay of form, meaning and shared cultural knowledge this pun displays makes it something of an oddity in the slang lexicon. Yet there are many others whose formation, though admittedly less involved, results from the clever combination of analogies at different levels of linguistic organization. In this article, the author outlines the workings of these ‘covert’ puns, their basic architecture and their most common patterns, and offers a glossary that illustrates their productivity in English slang. |
| Type: | Individual Paper |
| Status: | Completed |
| Publication Info: | English Studies. Vol. 89, No. 3, 2008: 319-338. |
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