FUNCTIONS OF DRUG ADDICTS’ JARGON AND WORD-BUILDING MEANS OF THEIR IMPLEMENTATION (A CASE STUDY OF SOCIOLINGUISTIC QUESTIONNAIRES AND JARGON DICTIONARIES)

Abstract

The article reveals the role of word-building in the performance of such drug addicts’ jargon functions as nominative, utilitarian, worldview, pseudo-aesthetic, playing, agitational, symbolic, identificatory, and conspiratorial. Based on the material of vocabulary gathered during the regional sociolinguistic studies, as well as in the analysis of dictionaries of drug addicts’ jargon, the word-building means of implementing the named functions are studied; the issue of natural causes of drug addicts’ jargon "conspiracy" is discussed. It is concluded that drug addicts' jargon is not a primitive subsystem of their language, and its negative assessment by scientists is often caused by the negative attitude to the phenomenon of drug addiction.

Keywords

• jargon of drug addicts
• slang
• word building
• jargons functions
• substandard
• sociolinguistics