Chapter 7 - Themes

Summary

Informal borrowings can be divided into three main thematic types: core, culture-specific, and miscellaneous. The core themes, shared with those in general informal language, make up the majority of borrowings and include such themes as evaluative categorization, the human body, sex, and intoxication. The culture-specific themes, inherent to immigrants and minorities, include borrowings connected with minority experiences but also racial discrimination and geography viewed from their perspective. The miscellaneous themes, constituting an all-inclusive collection, include as many as 150 themes grouped under several superordinate divisions. Their diversity and size illustrates the thematic scope of informal borrowings and demonstrates that they are not a marginal part of lexicon but can be used to refer to numerous aspects of human experience.