ENGLISH YOUTH SLANG AS A LINGUISTIC REPRESENTATION OF RELEVANT SOCIAL PROCESSES

There is no doubt that a lexicon is the most flexible and socially dependent component of any language. It means that everything that happens in terms of social changes is reflected in the vocabulary. A large part of the vocabulary consists of youth slang words, which is why modifications in youth slang are directly related to changes in society, which determine certain topics. Therefore, the objective of this research is to single out lexical units divided into particular topics, so-called semantic fields, which are considered to be relevant for modern society and reflected in the English slang. We singled out three semantic fields that are extremely topical nowadays from our point of view: the Ecology, the COVID-19 pandemic and the Alternative Dietary Lifestyles. Two structural methods are dominant in this study, namely, the methods of componential and distributional analysis. The first method helped establish the components in the content of meaning of a selected word. Also, we studied the morphology of selected slang units to clearly understand the meaning of each component. We used the second one to find out how these new lexical units, so-called slangisms, are used in the context. For this task an online dictionary named Urban Dictionary (Urban Dictionary, 1999-2021) was searched, where exemplifying sentences showed these slangisms in use. The results of this work can be applied in the translation of various popular texts, scripts of youth TV series and films, as well as song lyrics. At the same time, this study can help delve deeper into the youth culture of English-speaking countries in the whole.