A Thorough Examination of Teens Drug Slang in Algeria

Abstract

Investigating the world of the drug through providing a linguistic scholarship on the coded forms employed by addicts is not an easy task because they tend to form the slang lexis that keeps them out of trouble with the law and their parents when it comes to teenagers. Several investigations showed that drugs become prevalent among schoolers in comparison to cigarettes; for this reason, teens tend to develop street drug expressions commonly known as slang names to ease their access into the very dark and secretive world of drugs and steroids. In this vein, the present research paper pursues to shed light on Algerian teens and their use of drug slang terms. It also provides a thorough overview of the slang created by Algerian youngsters to facilitate the exchange of drug products. In this tight, the researcher made a profound investigation by taking Tlemcen speech community as a case in point. The researcher collected data through a semi-structured questionnaire and an interview. To this end, the results provided an in-depth look at what is behind the backdrop of the drug world. The analysis revealed that there is increasing use of slang terms between teens at secondary schools, especially words for selling and buying drugs. The findings also demonstrated that teens have created slang terms for the most widely employed types of drugs like ecstasy, heroin, L.S.D, and barbiturates.