Slang and Communication in Clueless One Way

Slang and Communication in CLUELESS One way that human culture tends to be defined is both the way we are able to manipulate the environment and communicate cognitively with an idea of past, present and future. Communication allows for group behavior to occur, cooperation, problem solving, and the ability to think beyond one's self as an individual and more as a community that can express itself in subtle and artistic ways.

Communication is thus the act of conveying information through thoughts and messages, but has a critical point -- to be effective it must be understood. This requires a sender, a message and a recipient in which information exists in the mind of the sender; is formulated in a way that has meaning, and then transmitted to the receiver in ways that they can understand (Chandler, 2010).

Slang, in communications is the use of more informal words and expressions that may or may not be part of the speaker's language, but are used as appropriate communication in certain social situations; in particular, by ethnic groups and youth to identify with their own peers. It may be regional, demographic, part of a clique, or as is relatively common now, part of a way to communicate through texting or email with shortened words or phrases (LOL=Laughing out loud; NP= no problem, etc.).

While it is difficult to quantitatively prove, it appears that adolescents over history tend to have a language of their own -- a way to separate themselves and find identity through the use of a common language. We know this occurred in the Ancient World through graffiti left in archaeological sites, but until recently it was likely spoken as opposed to formally written or saved (Patel, 2012). This trend was epitomized in the 1995 American movie that was loosely based on Jane Austen's novel Emma.

The film is set in Beverly Hills and follows the activities of Cher who is a nice person, but very superficial, very popular, and very wealthy. From a communications standpoint, the film portrays a separate language and use of that language that was gleaned from the producers actually researching California High Schools. Slang is rampant in Clueless, with much of it being understood through context. What this slang does, in fact, is separate an age group, and then further separate demographic and psychographic individuals.

If one is "in" the popular culture, for instance, one uses turns like jeepin' (having sex in a vehicle) or be toast (ruined or finished). The use and interplay of these terms allows the adolescents to feel that they are a special group; and using these terms means that often they are able to converse without their parents and teachers having any idea about the entire meaning of the conversation.

For example, the language is not always debased and sometimes even has roots in a classical education, yet it is shortened and has deeper meanings for the teens: Tai: Do you think she's pretty? Cher: No, she's a full-on Monet. Tai: What's a monet? Cher: It's like a painting, see? From far away, it's OK, but up close, it's a big old mess. Let's ask a guy. Christian, what do you think of Amber? Christian: Hagsville.

Cher: See? (Quotes from Clueless, 1995) This discussion essentially brings up the idea of the famous French Impressionist Monet, who worked in dabs of color that when viewed from a distance established a beautiful sense of imagery, but when viewed close up -- in other words when one gets to know the person, it is like a television screen -- pixilated and not understandable. The term hagsville refers to the crone or hag term of a very old, ugly woman, sometimes even in Shakespearean terms, a witch.

This small scene gives us a great deal of information about.