question about slang

[John Dunn]

Thanks for the enlightenment and the references.  It would seem that even in the counter-cultural world you can't get away from orthography influencing pronunciation.   Even when it rather defeats the object of the exercise.  I hope, though, that somewhere out there someone is writing a thesis on all this.

John Dunn.


-----Original Message-----
From: Josh Wilson <jwilson at SRAS.ORG>
To: SEELANGS at bama.ua.edu
Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2008 17:51:13 +0300
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] question about slang

I'm afraid I'm not a linguist, so I can't explain much of the orthographic
contours and implications here - but I can affirm it is firmly a part of
modern Russian culture. 

[...]

As to the pronunciation - not sure I can explain that either. However, I can
hear the difference when it's used (the fact that it's usually followed by a
laugh similar to that of Butt-Head's from MTV fame is usually a give away,
though). 

I don't know if I could pull it off myself, but perhaps it's one of those
true tests of coolness. Like the ability to pronounce "all right" in the
true style of American black culture. (I'll leave the translit of that to
someone else...)

All this might make for an interesting graduate project for some
enterprising soul... 

Josh Wilson
Asst. Director
The School of Russian and Asian Studies
Editor-in-Chief
Vestnik, The Journal of Russian and Asian Studies
www.sras.org
jwilson at sras.org


John Dunn
Honorary Research Fellow, SMLC (Slavonic Studies)
University of Glasgow, Scotland

Address:
Via Carolina Coronedi Berti 6
40137 Bologna
Italy
Tel.: +39 051/1889 8661
e-mail: J.Dunn at slavonic.arts.gla.ac.uk
johnanthony.dunn at fastwebnet.it

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