Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

• Masumeh Poloie ¹
• Mohamad Ahmadkhani ²
• Seyed Mehdi Samaei ³

¹ M.A in Linguistic, Payame Noor University

² Associate Professor of Linguistic, Payame Noor University

³ Associate Professor of Linguistics, Institute of Information Science and Technology of Iran

Abstract

The present study investigates the use of Argot language vocabulary in two gender groups. The Argot language is a collection of words and phrases that certain groups use to keep secrets inside their group against others. This sociolinguistics study describes the functional differences of the vocabulary of this language in two groups of males and females. Data were randomly collected through 60 face-to-face interviews. This research applied a descriptive and a case study method. The purpose of this research is to answer the question whether there is a significant difference between the lexical frequency and the expected occurence. To test the hypothesis, males respondents have used the most secret words in the interviewees, using Chi-square non-parametric tedst. The dependent variable in this study is the frequency of Argot vocabulary and independent gender variable is gender. It seems that gender plays an important role in the frequency of certain words; nevertheless, the results  showed that there is no significant difference between the two gender variables and the use of the Argot vocabulary; however, the tendency of females to use argot vocabulary is less than men.

Keywords

• sociolinguistics
• Gender
• Argot language
• Taboo
• Dark
• Social role

Main Subjects

• Social Interaction
• Urban Sociolinguistics
• Sociolinguistics
• Language and Culture
• The Social Embedding of Language Variation and Change
• Linguistic Anthropology