Labelling food-related slang terms for nationalities in learner’s dictionaries of English

Abstract

The present paper attempts to highlight the problems related to the usage label “slang” and to usage notes indicative of negative connotations (“offensive”; “disapproving”; “derogatory”) for certain words, taking into account monolingual dictionaries for learning English. The aim of the analysis is to investigate if there is any consistency in the labelling policy of these dictionaries, since some compilers emphasize that the definition of the slang term is sufficient to convey its negative connotations and does not require a label. In order to accomplish this goal, a corpus consisting of a series of twenty slang terms for nationalities will be taken into consideration. The paper will examine whether the label “slang” fluctuates in these dictionaries for learning English. It will also argue that the results of an analysis of labelling practices in dictionaries are essential because they provide an overview of perspectives towards slang and a possible response to the issue of whether the current lexicographic labelling system is appropriate