Abstract:

People's penetration into various linguistic spaces often causes the appearance of certain barriers in the perception and understanding of languages' features and cultural peculiarities. Such barriers, constantly being specific perceptual boundaries, impede the successful interaction and communication even between speakers of one language. Overcoming such linguistic obstacles as understanding slang and vulgarisms will undoubtedly contribute to the elimination of adaptive limits and the development of communication.

This article presents the analysis of slang and vulgarisms in Australian and New Zealand versions of English as barriers for the people's perception and realizing the linguistic specifics of these countries. It discusses the usage features of slang, rhymed slang and vulgarisms in both societies as well as introduces a comparative characteristic of two variants of the English language. Also the online sociological survey was conducted making the languages' comparison, showing public attitude to linguistic barriers.

At the present time there are several points of view on the problem of distinguishing slang both as a concept and as a term, many of them are considered to be quite contradictory. Some scientists identify the concepts of "slang" and "vernacular"” as unified and inseparable while others regard them clearly distinctive suggesting the term "slang" as a synonym of "jargon". In general, the concept of slang includes stylistically reduced, marked vocabulary and phraseology. Characteristic features of slang are its expressiveness, emotional colour and metaphor. Slang is a living, mobile language that reacts to any changes in the life of the country and society being mainly neutral. Slang, unlike argot and jargon, does not seek to "isolate", but rather tries to penetrate all social classes, thereby violating the generally accepted rules of speech behaviour.

Despite the fact that the article considers two different countries such as Australia and New Zealand, their neighbouring location and common historical milestones of development determine numerous linguistic similarities in the English language. It was marked in both the Australian and New Zealand national variants of English that many lexical units of slang were formed by shortening. Some lexical units, mostly those related to the animal and plant world, originated from the indigenous languages in Australia and the Maori tribe in New Zealand. Also on the territory of Australia and in some regions of New Zealand rhyming slang is widespread. It is regarded as a consequence of long-term influence of English settlers immigration.

As a result of the online sociological survey of 50 post-graduate students from the faculty of linguistics in RUDN University, the comparison of slang and vulgarisms of the Australian and New Zealand national variants of English has confirmed:
1. difficulties to prevail over these linguistic barriers for newcomers and learners;
2. extraordinary interest in the study of slang and vulgarisms, especially by young respondents;
3. quick immersion and person's acceptance in this community with knowledge of slang and vulgarisms specifics;
4. more successful career advancement.

Keywords:

Slang, vernacular, vulgarisms, indigenous languages, rhyming slang, linguistic barriers.