Construct · 1 fields · 1 citations

cant: a standalone construct

One name. One construct. A landmark on the map.

● anchor · a standalone construct Nearest construct by meaning·not indexed
cant1 CONSTRUCTCantHALLIDAY · ANTI-LANGUAGE

A single standalone construct; nearby constructs are located against it in the Collider. Tap a field for its definition, unit, and measures.

Sociolinguistics

The secret in-group jargon of a closed community

In sociolinguistics, cant is the private, often deliberately obscure vocabulary of a closed or marginal group, such as the historical thieves' cant, that marks membership and shields talk from outsiders. Halliday's 1976 Anti-languages analysed such varieties as anti-languages, generated by relexicalising ordinary language so that an alternative society maintains its own reality and keeps the uninitiated out. The referent is a socially bounded way of speaking, studied through its vocabulary and the group that uses it, and it shares only the word with the tilt engineers build into curved track.[1]

Unit
The in-group vocabulary and secrecy that mark membership
Recovery means
Not applicable
Measured by
Studied through its specialised lexicon, its relexicalisation of common terms, and its social function for the group

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Nearby constructs

acceleration4 fields · 4 citationsjingle · one word, four constructsclosed3 fields · 3 citationsjingle · one word, three constructs

References

  1. Halliday, M. A. K. (1976). Anti-languages. American Anthropologist, 78(3), 570–584. https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1976.78.3.02a00050

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