Prison lingo Glossary

I have taken some words from two different prison lingo glossaries that I think reflect the average language of prisoners.

Glossary of HMP Winchester Lingo
1. A Four = a four year sentence
2. Animal = a paedophile
3. Beast = a paedophile
4. Boob = a prison officer
5. Boss = a prison officer
6. Gov = a prison officer
7. Grass = an informer
8. Raze-up = to cut with a razor, "i'll raze you up"
9. Screw = a prison officer
10. Whack-up = to beat up

50 Prison Slang Words to Make You Sound Like a Tough Guy
1. All Day and a Night = life without parole
2. Brake Fluid = psychiatric meds
3. Bug Juice = intoxicants or depressent drugs
4. Chin Check = to punch another inmate in the jaw to see if he'll fight back
5. Ding Wing = a prison's psychiatric unit
6. Ghetto Penthouse = the top tier of a cell block
7. Kite = a contraband letter
8. Peels = the orange jumpsuits uniforms worn by prisoners in some facilities
9. Rabbit = an inmate who has a history of escape attempts or has plans to try and escape
10. Stainless Steel = death by lethal injection

Previous research

From June 1978 to December 1980, a field study was conducted at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla, USA. The study attempted to bring together some elements of language and selected aspects of the social structure of a maximum-security prison. One of the researchers was an inmate so could interview the prisoners freely, the hypothesis stated that as language shapes and is shaped by culture, prisoners reveal the world view through the language they use. The data presents the stories of the prisoners, as free as possible from theoretical opinion and bias to uncover a valid picture of prison life. Each man interviewed wanted to tell those unfamiliar with prison life what it was like. Each chapter of the book focuses on one particular part of the prison culture that the men found important. The material covers the majority of the experience and covered various theories regarding prison culture and the prisoners views. The overall results of the data show a lengthy glossary of slang and argot terms (colloquialism) suggesting that the prisoners had their own language features developed as a result of being with one another everyday for a long period of time.

How to Spot Psychopaths: Speech Patterns Give Them Away = 
Scientists looked for patterns in convicted murderers' speech in New York as they described their crimes. They interviewed 52 convicted murderers, 14 of which ranked as psychopaths according to the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised, and asked them to describe their crimes in detail. Researchers found that those with psychopathic scores showed a lack of emotion, spoke in terms of cause-and-effect when describing their crimes and focused their attention on basic needs. Analysis revealed that psychopaths used about twice as many words related to basic psychological needs and self-preservation, including eating, drinking and monetary resources, than non-psychopaths.
By comparison, non-psychopathic murderers talked more about spirituality and religion and family.

Oral Language Competence in Incarcerated Young Offenders: Links with Offending Severity = 
Research in Australia and overseas has shown that young offenders serving community-based orders (provides offenders with an opportunity to undergo treatment or take part in educational, vocational or personal development programs. In some cases, a community-based order may involve a requirement to perform a community service) are at high-risk for undetected but clinically significant oral language difficulties. Links with offending severity, mental health and other markers of early risk have not previously been systematically examined.
100 young offenders with a mean age of 19.03 years completing custodial sentences in Victoria, Australia were studied. A range of standardised oral language, IQ, mental health and offending severity measures was employed. 46% of participants were classified as language impaired (LI) and these were compared with the non-LI sub-group on background and offending variables. When the sub-group with high scores on a measure of offending severity was compared with relatively lower lower offending scores, significant differences on a range of language measures were identified. Emphasis is placed on the need to closely examine oral language skills of children who struggle with the transition to literacy and then display behavioural difficulties in the classroom.

Prison Language: A Psychoanalytic Approach to the Language of British Young Offenders in the Twenty-First Century = 
A specific language was spoken within the walls of a maximum security prison in the south-east of England between 2006 and 2007. Researchers looked at the adolescent who became an offender and how his language is thereby altered, exploring language in groups and drawing on various psychologists and theorists. The social structures and language enforced was examined as well as what the prisoners learned from the researchers' language, and vice versa. The researcher studied the nature of learning a language inside a prison.
"I tried to determine to what extent language comes from outside influences and to what extent it forms and permutates inside... I regard prison language as a psychic retreat,... and I ask questions not only about the prisoners, but also the function of learning inside a prison itself, while regarding the language used as a depressive defence."

You Talkin' to Me? Criminal Language =
For hundreds of years it's been necessary for criminals to communicate their business in a way that the police or other officials wouldn't necessarily understand. In Shakespeare's day, thieves used innocent language to disguise their true intentions. Originally called Thieves' Cant, the language is about as old as the modern English language. The flavour of language was so appealing that it made its way into plays and pamphlets. 
Since those times, various elements of cant have survived, even if the original language itself has not. So the language of criminals is in constant flux, taking on new words and meanings throughout the ages, specifically to confound people in authority while lending an air of mystique and romance to the criminal element. Cockney rhyming slang, in which particular words are replaced by words or phrases that rhyme with them in order to hide the intended meaning, is an example of coded language. Throughout history it has been used by locals to confuse out-of-towners, by traders to conspire to make even more bangers (bangers and mash = cash), and by more underhanded individuals so they didn't have to resort to telling porkies (pork pies = lies) in broad daylight to cover up their illicit dealings. Even today we can look at aspects of criminal life and come up with the specific terms that euphemize and obfuscate the meaning. A getaway driver is a 'wheelman', stolen goods are referred to as 'hot', jewellery (particularly diamonds) targeted for theft is 'ice, and so on. Even systems of measure such as an ounce or kilo, or even a keeg (a pronounced name of the abbreviation for kilogram: kg) becomes language referring to drugs. 

Prison Lingo: The language of the Prison Community = 
'Prison Lingo: The Language of the Prison Community' is the result of a collaboration between the English Project and HMP Winchester in October 2010. That year, the theme of the English Language Festival was the language of Place and Community, and prisoners were invited to listen to a talk about the origins and development of prison cant, slang and jargon and, at the same time, to contribute their own knowledge of prison language and to talk about their use of it. Six prisoners, two officers and a university professor engaged in a two-and-a-half-hour seminar tat mixed lecture, class work and chat. One prisoner was new to the system; another had spent ten years in various prisons. Two prisoners came from Europe, and one of them was more interested in learning Standard English that Prison English. The most voluble prisoner was an Afro-Caribbean; the most informative made the comment that the important thing about prison lingo is wit. An extract from the glossary below gives some of the words and terms that these men provided. 
Prison Lingo is primarily a spoken language; it can be written down, but it is not intended to be used for writing and so it has its own special features and its own problems for students. Prison Lingo overlaps with street talk, teen talk, rhyming slang, Cockney and the home dialects or prisoners so it is sometimes difficult to say whether a certain word or phrase should be included, but there is a host of words that are clearly part of prison lingo. 
Julie Coleman, a linguist at the University of Leicester, has provided some useful terms to help researchers discuss special forms of the English language like prison lingo. She talks about slang, jargon and cant (affected singsong or whining speech): 'slang is defined as the ephemeral terms used by an in-group in order to distinguish them from other groups; jargon is defined as a professional language allowing for precise discussion of topics related to the given vocation; an cant is defined as a language used to obfuscate meaning completely from those not accepted by the in-group, ordinarily for criminal intent.' Prison lingo has an element of all three. 

Collected Data

Method

I will identify and describe features of language in the texts using methods of language analysis. In order to study textual variations and representations, I will identify and describe important features of language in the texts. 

Some of the areas I will examine are:

• phonetics, phonology and prosodies - how speech sounds and effects are articulated and analysed
• lexis and semantics - the vocabulary of English, including social and historical variation
• grammar, including morphology - the structural patterns and shapes of English at sentence, clause, phrase and word level
• pragmatics - the contextual aspects of language use
• discourse - extended stretches of communication occurring in different genres, modes and contexts.

Introduction

How the research relates to some theoretical language, including references
Aims and objectives

A comparison of the speech of psychopathic killers with the speech of perpetrators of petty crime.

I chose to do this topic as crime is a topic that covers a wide variety of subjects. From psychology to language, it is researched heavily about its effect on us as individuals. Language and crime is a topic that is less researched yet still interesting and significant. As a psychology and English language student, the subject of criminals is a popular topic of conversation and so, for my English language coursework, I wanted to explore further into the topic of language change and criminals and include aspects of prison speech into the topic.

My topic relates to wider context because of the stereotypes and representations of certain criminals. For example, serial killers are portrayed as being intelligent and smart whereas petty thieves are considered to have a lower intelligence. Intelligence can be portrayed through our language and so I want to investigate whether these ranks and stereotypes are represented through the languages of criminals.

Ethical Issues

There are some issues with various data collection methods. Brief descriptions of each issue are:

Being ethical: any research will have an effect on the people involved with it. Research with participants needs to respect their rights and there are various ethical approaches that must be considered.

Potential harm: research should not be damaging to anyone, this is especially important when working with young children, people with learning difficulties and anyone who is vulnerable.

Informed consent: people who are the subject of research need to know what they are getting themselves into. Informed consent must be obtained by the participant, or their guardian if they are below the age of 18, in order to gain permission to use the data from other research.

Observer's paradox: the paradox that the only way to collect natural speech is to observe it - but the very act of observation is likely to destroy its naturalness. In other words, the presence of a researcher can affect the participant's behaviour or the results.

The right to withdraw: if people don't like the experience they having by participating in the investigation, they have the right to withdraw at any time with no consequences to themselves.

Confidentiality and privacy: no one in the investigation should be recognisable or traceable. To ensure this, their real name, address, access details or personal information should not be shared or made public. People may be happy to grant permission but the facts must be explained before doing so. It is difficult to remove personal information once it is made public.

Collecting Data

There are various ways to collect data for my investigation, some are below:

Random sampling: participants are chosen randomly for no particular reason.

Judgemental sampling: participants are chosen for a specific reason to meet the particular criteria.

Open questions: the respondent will give their view or opinion and will be required to think about their answer. Provides in-depth data but hard to analyse.

Closed questions: likely to give a short and factual response (e.g. yes or no). Easy to analyse but may not represent the respondents whole view.

Loaded or leading questions: a question that doesn't allow for an opinion, where an assumption is built.

Likert scale: a method of gathering information in a questionnaire. Often uses a 1-5 point scale.

Semantic differential scale: an alternative method of gathering information in a questionnaire which often uses 2 words at either end of a particular scale with participants indicating where on the scale they fell.

Data Collection

I will collect my data through a variety of ways to ensure that it is reliable and that there is plenty of diversity in my investigation and analysis. Some of the ways I will collect data are:

Interviews (from the past and present): using interviews from last criminals as well as recent inmates will give me an understanding of how times have changed or stayed the same and represent speech from years ago that may give me an insight into the effect the nature of a crime has on language.

Self-reported usage: self-reports are used by many linguists to gain a speaker's opinion of their own language. People describe their own language as opposed to it being recorded or written down. This method of data collection can reveal interesting insights and avoid interpretations.

Documentaries: I will watch documentaries regarding criminals and analyse the nature of the crime, other people's views on the subject and interviews used within the documentary. This will allow me to explore the language and views of criminals, such as murderers and serial killers, that I would not be able to obtain face-to-face.

Recorded interviews: I will interview criminals who may have recently been in prison and record our conversation. I will then transcribe the conversation and post it to my blog. This method will allow me to get a personal feel of the subject and give me a chance to analyse non-linguistic features.

Articles (online and written): I will do some independent research using textbooks, websites and online articles or information. This will provide evidence to support or disprove whatever points I make about my topic.

Theorists views: I will analyse and evaluate linguists' views and use them as baselines for my evidence and research. I will find these views online or in textbooks.

The Task

Topic choice: language and crime/occupational language
Approach: user-based, documentaries, self-report
Investigation: Does the nature of a crime affect or change our language? An investigation into the linguistic differences in the speech of ........... and perpetrators of petty crime. 

My English Language investigation is questioning whether there is a difference between the language of murderers and psychopaths and the language of perpetrators of petty crime. I will analyse people who committed different crimes, from serial killers to petty theft, and compare their language use. I will also question real-life, petty criminals about their language use and analyse transcripts from TV show interviews such as 'Piers Morgan: Killer Women' and documentaries on serial killers and psychopaths such as Fred West and Bert Spencer to compare if and how their language is different to small time criminals. This will give an insight of how language is or is not changed as a result of a crime.

My investigation is a user-based investigation because I am investigating who uses a particular form or style of language.

I chose to do this topic because I find the area of crime very interesting. As well as being intrigued by the psychology of criminals, how a crime or prison changes a person's language also interests me. I am currently studying media studies and psychology as well as English language. My topic relates to both of these areas of study as I discuss psychopaths and how criminals' language is represented. I also take into account how certain criminals are represented to the public, whether it be through the media or their individual language.

Aim:
1. To use the results of my analyses to compare the speech of criminals and conclude how their crime may affect their language.

References

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbS00O8O_ko 

http://www.livescience.com/16585-psychopaths-speech-language.html - full

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3109/17549507.2011.578661 - just abstract

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0803706X.2011.652166 - just abstract
http://www.englishproject.org/resources/prison-lingo-language-prison-community - all
http://mentalfloss.com/article/12794/50-prison-slang-words-make-you-sound-tough-guy - full list
http://www.criminalelement.com/blogs/2013/05/you-talkin-to-me-criminal-language-andy-adams - full
http://sas-space.sas.ac.uk/5241/1/1705-2277-1-PB.pdf - full
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2012/09/the-language-of-criminals/ - full
https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/publications/Abstract.aspx?id=92838 - just abstract, go through
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1068316042000209323?src=recsys - just abstract, go through
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13682820601053977?src=recsys - just abstract, go through