Getting Acclimated - Language in a Women's Prison

• NCJ Number: 84427
• Author(s): C J Pritchard
• Date Published: 1978
• Length: 13 pages
• Sale Source: Eric Document Reproduction Service; Not Available Through National Institute of Justice/NCJRS Document Loan Program
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: *This document is currently unavailable from NCJRS. Paper presented at the Annual Symposium on Language and Culture in South Carolina, 2nd, March 10, 1978.

Annotation

Prison language, primarily the lexicon, at the Women's Correctional Center (WCC) in Columbia, South Carolina is described.

Abstract

This center is considered here as a speech community and a subculture. Inmates have developed speech habits and vocabulary which indicate the social structure of the prison and inmate values. They coin or metaphorically extend words to describe life in their environment. Physical locations, guards, the inmates themselves, and their activities and behavior are categorized and named by the participants in this community. The argot of various subcultures, regional variants, and the language of the dominant culture are intermixed. Two main topics of discussion, sex and criminal offense, yield especially interesting argot. The language also reflects the inmates' social or occupational roles in the prison. (Resources in Education (ERIC) abstract)