A Research on Adolescence Language Use

The purpose of this study is to investigate current status of Korean teenagers' language use regarding expletives, teenage slangs, and buzz-words, by employing a questionnaire survey. We have obtained a sample of 2418 teenage students from elementary, middle, and high schools in Seoul and Gyeonggi areas. For data analysis, we performed frequency, mean, chi-square test, and Spearman's correlation analysis. Our results indicate that expletives, teenage slangs, and buzz-words tend to be widely used in daily life with almost no sense of guilt or shame and that frequency of expletives highly increase from middle school age. Negative result of expletives is an increase in physical and verbal aggression as well as in passive aggression. Some of the questioned replied that they feel estrangement and inconvenience about teenage slangs and buzz-words. Additionally, we found that elements of family conversation, parental propensity to control, school education, leisure activity, self-control, and empathy ability correlate closely with frequency of expletives in teenage students