College Slang and Identity

Lupi, or wolves, was the pseudonym given to students who would inform teachers against their peers when they spoke in the vernacular instead of Latin. (Hummon 23) Now the label for an offender guilty of a similar crime may be nark or snitch, but there, in the beginnings of university life in medieval Europe, also lies the birth of slang, more specifically the slang of colleges.
From this early beginning, students at institutions of higher learning have had their own set of terms and phrases outside the reach of administrators and professors. College slang has been an integral part of university life for centuries of generations of students. It is a system of language that reflects the needs of the students and the shape of their campus social structure. By looking at the system of college slang, sociologists can gain insight into the interactions among students.
This first half of this paper will examine this phenomenon through the lens of “College Slang Revisited: Language, Culture, and Undergraduate Life”, an article in the January 1994 issue of The Journal of Higher Education written by David Hummon. The second half is dedicated to the construction of a potential study that could test the reverse crrelation, that is, the effect the set of slang terms used on college campuses has on campus social structures and identity.
Hummon’s article focuses on the role slang identities, the informal labels students used to describe one another, plays in shaping the college language landscape. These titles allow students to communicate more effectively information regarding a person’s personality, social status on activities on campus. This can be seen as particularly useful in the rather fluid world of campus society.
He opens with a statement of the state of the field. “Kansas University Slang: A New Generation” was thought to be the landmark work in college slang. As it turned out, the study by Dundes and Schonhorn, published in 1963, ended up in being the end of more than a century of college slang research dating back to 1815. For this reason, Hummon approached the issue again in 1994.
The biggest problem with the previous study was a lack of a solid definition of ‘college slang’. Is there a specific set of terms used by college students substantially different from slang in the rest of society, or is any slang used in a collegiate setting fit this description? For the sake of his paper, Hummon used the following working definition: “In this context, college slang can be defined as oral, informal, highly expressive language that is created and used primarily by students as part of undergraduate life.” (Hummon 76) Within this definition, the study focused on the slang terms students used to refer to one another, the frequency of use of such slang identities relative to each other, and the common terms on throughout the region, and other college campuses.
Hummon primarily used data taken from students at Holy Cross College, a private, Jesuit school in Massachusets with 2,500 students. In this study, sociology students between 1985 and 1988 were given interview forms to list and define labels used by students for different kinds of people at Holy Cross. Student observers also recorded slang usage among their fellow students.
A similar survey was also given to a social psychology class at University of California at Davis, a state school of 16,000 students in 1988. At the time, only one-third of UC Davis students lived on campus, as opposed to the overwhelming majority that lived on campus at Holy Cross. At UC Davis, 51 students mentioned 239 different pseudonyms, and at Holy Cross, 137 researchers collected 465 slang titles.
Slang identities arise as students spend much of their free time conversing with one another informally. Often titles appear for people being talked about to denote their academic concerns, social competence, unfrindliness, clothig styles, drug use, sexual prowess, ethnic and racial epithets, and gender objectification. It is important to recognize that slang identities are usually used refer to the other, not to the self. Of the terms gathered and mentioned by Hummon, a strong majority of them are negative, certainly when referring across social lines. This implies that part of self-identification in college is demonstration what a person is not. (This idea follows from an extreme of positive self-image: if a person considers themselves on the whole positive, then others wholly unlike him must be on the whole negative.)
Another explanation is offered by Connie Eble in her book "Slang and Sociability: In-Group Language Among College Students". She suggests that such derogatory terms function more as terms of endearment.

"In college student usage, potentially offensivenouns of address such as these [asshole, bitch, butthead.... e.g. from previous line] are much more likely to be endearing than hostile in intent and are used by people on friendly terms with one another. For the most part, they are used only among peers and directed only to a member of the same sex." (103)

Unfortunately, Hummon's study only reproduces the words without their original context, so whether the words were said with malicious intent or in the spirit of friendship is unknown.
In order to see how much of this can really be considered college slang, instead of just terms taken from the national slang lexicon, Hummon compared the terms recorded with the entries in The New Dictionary of American Slang. Finding roughly one third of the terms from either campuses belonged to the category of general slang. Of the terms that were found at both campuses, 66.1% percent belonged to general slang, leaving a solid third of terms volunteered on surveys to the category college slang identities common to both campuses. This suggests there is a national collection of college slang, (possibly built through media) since these two campuses with almost no like characteristics had shared language.
Also the exclusiveness of the terms on each campus varied greatly. At UC Davis almost half (45.2%) of the epithets turned in were general slang, as compared with only 27% at Holly Cross. Possible reasons for this include testing error in the difference of sample size, or a difference in the size of campus, or number of commuters/ interaction with the community. Hummon considers looking at the microcosm of campus as a subculture:

“Holy Cross is certainly consistent with a subcultural interpretation of college slang, if one assumes that the small, private, socially homogeneous residential college provides a more coherent and exclusive social context for the elaboration and transmission of student culture.”

Another possibility, raised by Hummon, is that each of these terms belong to distinct idiocultures within the subculture, that is to say most identities are not used campus wide, but rather within smaller subgroups and cliques. This would account for the large difference in number of terms. The smaller sample size would yield fewer distinct groups represented.
Since these slang identities appear so frequently in speech, they must have unique useful meanings for those who use them. These terms must more effectively express the social structure of campus than the conventional language provided to them from the perspective of the student.
It is therefore easy to understand why 33% of identities used in Holy Cross connect back to campus life, like pseudonyms relating to where people live, where as only 18% of terms at UC Davis, a commuter school, relate to life on campus. The day-to-day experiences of a Holy Cross student are much more campus centered than the daily activities of a UC Davis student. In terms of identities, if a student from HC meets someone new on campus, that person probably lives in another dorm. It becomes useful to have a ready system of descriptors to apply to different people you meet.
Of the other of Hummon’s categories of terms, the most notable is the difference in emphasis put on identities describing personal attributes (terms describing personality, values, and physical demeanor), at UC Davis (40% of terms) as compared to Holy Cross (28%). There are several possible for this difference. The most obvious would be the larger size of the student body. This would produce a need for a more exact set of terms to differentiate a single individual from the group. Also, the lack of communal dorm life could create situations in which students are less familiar with people outside their group. The biggest potential reason, underlying all these differences, is the different groups of people who attend colleges versus universities, more specifically the two schools studied, Holy Cross, and UC Davis. These schools are dramatically different in location and composition of student body, ad several other factors; it would then be assumed that the kinds of students attracted to each would discuss different things, and therefore would develop different slang. Due to the number of differences between the two colleges, it is very hard to draw any solid conclusions as to which exact factors would cause this difference.
In his discussion of the data, Hummon suggests that this intricate system of slang identities is a result of the complex social system of colleges. He also depicts how the physical location and buildings of a college shapes the nature of the slang used there. College students are likely to draw slang from the region where the college is located, and if the campus itself is central in college life, like at Holy Cross, there will be more terms centered on that part of life.
It is notable that in his theory, Hummon places the social order and situation as the source for the creation of slang identities, but he fails to consider the cyclical nature of the causal relationship between language and the society it comes from. He cites two studies that “indicate that knowledge of slang terms increases between the first and fourth years, providing further evidence that undergraduates are socialized to a distinct language of college life.”(79) to indicate that there is a dialect which can be called college slang, without discussing the effects of such socialization.
Any set of terms used to identify people has implications on identity, both as established by the individual. As Craig Calhoun states in “Social Theory and the Politics of Identity”:
We know of no people without names, no languages or cultures in which some manner of distinctions between self and other, we and they are not made. Though the concern may be universal, however, the identities are not.

The collection of statements “I am a…” or “He is a…” is essentially an embodiment of a person’s identity in language. College provides new terms that are added to the set of descriptors people can use to characterize themselves; slang identities offer a new set of words to fill in the blanks above. When this occurs, at the same time when people are establishing their identity outside of home, it would seem that the language used would have observable effects that can be recorded. The hypothetical study, presented below, could be constructed to record these possible effects. As Hummon presented, the societal constructs and situation of college effect the slang identities used by students on that campus. This study would pose the converse question: Do the college slang identities used by students to describe one another affect the social structure and self-conceptions of college students?
To test this theory, subjects on two campuses will be given an interview form survey, to see if college slang identities influence how they characterize themselves and to see if these identities affect how they would group unknown college students through common description. This survey will have to be given on at least two different campuses to determine if the language has affected the common grouping. The subjects will be students on the campuses being studies.
The prerequisite for such a study is to perform a new survey of college slang identities, specifically on the campuses where the study will take place. Hummon’s list is almost 20 years out of date. In this time, what was college slang will have moved into more mainstream society, as the students of two decades ago will have taken those words as part of their lexicon with them from college. This can be done in a similar manner to how the technique used at Holy Cross: using interview forms ask students to list and define labels used by students at their college to classify one another. Also it would produce better results use of student observers to record slang identities as mentioned above in addition to the written surveys. Much of slang terminology is more naturally spoken than written; some of the more informal pieces of jargon may not occur to students in a written format. This yielded much stronger results above. This could take place over the course of a scholastic year. These lists would then be compiled, as above, and compared with a recent slang dictionary to determine which of the terms can be classified as college slang. McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions, published in 2005, would serve well for this purpose.
It is possible, although unlikely based on the longstanding history of student subculture that the set of expressions termed college slang has blended into more mainstream society. In this case the study need not go further, as there is not a unique set of terms college students could use to classify one another. If, as is likely, there is indeed a list of college slang identities in use by students on the campuses selected, the study can proceed with the primary interview form.
The form will have two parts, one focusing on self-description, and the other on general characterization of other students. The first part will simply ask subjects to describe themselves. The wording of prompt should be such that students are more likely to respond informally. (e.g. “Please describe yourself in your own terms.”) If after some test surveys, the responses are lacking in ‘identities’, the question can be modified to put more emphasis on nouns in responses. (“Complete the statement, ‘I am…’ as many times as necessary to describe yourself.”)
The next section of the interview form will have the subjects describe ten sample pictures of college students presented to them. This prompt should be more strictly worded to generate identity based responses similar to those from the list of college slang identities. (e.g. “What words would other students at this college use to describe the people depicted in each of these pictures?” As above this could be switched to a more noun-based prompt if needed.) The pictures will be selected to visually represent a wide range of possible college identities. They should depict students in different styles of dress, with objects generally associated with different activities, in different locations. Without exact imitation or awkward juxtaposition, there should be some overlap between the characterizations, for example, if one picture depicts a student in a fraternity sweater with carrying a stack of books in the library, another could pick an athlete in the library studying with his gym bag next to him. Choosing pictures in this manner will allow the subject to describe the picture based on several different attributes, while encouraging them to use the same word to describe more than one of the pictures.
The answers from the self-description section will be tallied and compared against the list of college slang terms to see what percentage of subjects used college slang identities to describe themselves and how much of their response consisted of colleges slang identities. This will demonstrate how much of an effect college slang identities effect how students view themselves. To compile data from the second part, the terms used in the description of each picture will be counted for frequency of repetition. By looking at the overall trend in labeling and common uses of college slang identities among different pictures, it is possible to see the relationship between the characterization of people in different areas of the campus social structure and college slang identities.
To examine if college slang has affected the social order, rather than the other way around, these results should be compared with the results from a similar school. If the same pictures were grouped by common description differently at the two campuses using the same words, this would imply that the social order or local usage has shaped the identity. If two distinct sets of college identities, each unique to its campus, has resulted in a different classification of people, then the language has affected the perception on the two campuses of the types of people in the pictures. The language has shaped the social structure.
There are some obstacles inherent in trying to draw conclusions from this knid of study, the most prevalent being the cyclical relationship of language and society. How can the person evaluating the results be positive that the difference in grouping by slang identity isn’t the result of the social order? The pictures were selected for flexibility of classification; each student depicted can be classified into a number of different identities. By looking at the relative prevalence of slang terms between the two schools, it will be clear if the language through which the subjects think of these has affected which of these is considered the pictured student’s primary grouping.
Another difficulty, more environmental in nature, will be the differences between the colleges compared in the study. Different colleges attracted different students and put emphasis on different areas. For example, if a school stresses excellence in athletics and has an excellent sports program, the college slang may be more focused around areas of fan life and sporting events, for reasons completely outside the scope of this experiment. For this reason, the compared colleges should be as similar as possible, and their differences should be taken into account when making final conclusions.
The implications of such a study could be fairly dramatic depnding on the strength of the results. Seventy percent of American high school graduates attend college within two years of completing high school. (Education Trust) This could mean a strong majority of the country has at one point in their life identified with this sub-category of labels. This study could provide quantitative differences to examine between school social structures and how students self identify on different campuses. Since similarly unique systems of terminology exist at other stages of development, like middle school and high school, it would make sense to do follow up studies on middle school slang and high school slang. Another interesting follow up study would be to examine the origins of the slang identities at each of these stages; who is influencing the identities of American young adults?
It is quite possible college slang is beyond such influence, a truly unique system of terms created collectively by the student body for the student body for the student body. Hummon demonstrates in his article that indeed college slang, and especially college slang identities are shaped by the student's relationship to their environment. He further showed, college slang can be as a unique window through which to see the social structures and daily lives of students. Possibly with futre study, the depth of the interelationship between the words students use to describe themselves and their affect on the surrounding society can be better understood.

Calhoun, Craig J.
"Social Theory and the Politics of Identity."
Social Theory and the Politics of Identitiy. Ed. Calhoun, Craig J.
New York: Blackwell Publishing, 1994.
Found on Google Books:
http://books.google.com/books?id=zACdRwEJx8wC&printsec=frontcover&vq=Social+Theory+and+the+Politics+of+Identity

Eble, Connie
Slang and Sociability: In-Group Language Among College Students
Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 1996.
Found on Google Books:
http://books.google.com/books?id=UOwcJcX-qroC&printsec=frontcover&dq=slang+and+sociability&lr=&sig=CaZGNX9o0qjrCEV8lG8VjkfILiw

Hummon, David M.
"College Slang Revisited: Language, Culture, and Undergraduate Life"
The Journal of Higher Education, Vol. 65, No. 1. (Jan. - Feb., 1994), pp. 75-98.
Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-1546%28199401%2F02%2965%3A1%3C75%3ACSRLCA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-W

The Education Trust. Fall 1999. “Ticket to Nowhere. The Gap Between Leaving High School and Entering
College and High Performance Jobs,” in Thinking K-16, Vol. 3, Issue 2, Washington, DC: The Education Trust.