Teen talk: The language of adolescents

Sali A. Tagliamonte , Teen talk: The language of adolescents . Cambridge : Cambridge University Press , 2016. Pp. 298. Pb. £18.99.

Book Reviews

If you believe what you read in the newspapers then you will be aware that the linguistic habits of teenagers are eroding language standards. Often labelled sloppy, lazy, or uneducated, as the following example illustrates, the language of adolescents is rarely celebrated in the general media.

My adult daughter is clever, pretty and confident. However, she cannot stop saying "like" about six times in every sentence... I know it is not the end of the world, but it makes her sound stupid and uneducated, which she most definitely is not, and when she wants to return to the real world I worry this will be held against her. (Reader's letter to The Guardian; see Frostrup 2014)

Teen talk convincingly demonstrates that, far from irritating, teenagers' linguistic innovations provide a fascinating insight into the future of our language as it situates 'the most frequent, funky, infamous words of teen language' (34) within their wider diachronic perspective. This long-term view enables the systematic tracking of the history and development of these forms and reveals how their growth impacts on the organisation of the wider linguistic system. Teen talk gives us a glimpse into what's coming next and underlines the reasons why the speech of young people has been a central focus of sociolinguistics since the field's earliest stages. Tagliamonte's enthusiasm for her data, combined with its careful analysis, means the book is engaging and accessible without scrimping on theoretical rigour. This book will appeal to newcomers to the study of language change as well as seasoned sociolinguists.

Teen talk offers a good balance between theory, method, and analysis. The book comprises thirteen chapters that can be viewed in terms of three main sections. Chapters 1-3 provide the theoretical and methodological background necessary to orient the reader for the analyses that follow. Chapters 4-11 present detailed descriptions and quantitative analyses of a number of teenage linguistic features. Chapters 12 and 13 discuss some broader issues. Chapter 12 describes the emergence of a new computer-mediated mode of communication and what affect...