Getting the Hang of American Slang: Studies On Understanding and Remembering Slang Metaphors

Abstract

Three experiments examined people's understanding and memory for slang metaphors. Experiment 1 showed that people processed slang metaphors, like He's on a trip (meaning "He's using drugs"), faster than they comprehended either literal uses of the same sentences, or non-slang equivalents, like He's using drugs. This suggests that slang metaphors can be understood without having to analyze the literal meanings of these expressions before determining their nonliteral interpretations. The results of Experiment 2 showed that slang metaphors are recalled better than literal uses of the same expressions or non-slang equivalent utterances. This finding is consistent with the notion that slang permits the speaker to convey both propositional information and his or her attitude toward that information which makes slang particularly distinctive and memorable. Experiment 3 indicated that slang prompts (e.g., "He's using drugs") facilitated recall of literal uses of expressions conventionally viewed as slang (e.g., He's on a trip, meaning "He's on vacation"), even though the slang prompt had nothing to do with the meaning of the literal utterance. Overall, the results of these studies support the idea that the special pragmatic properties of slang metaphors make these expressions easy to understand and remember.