Place of youth sleng in the structure of language options of the german language

Orekhova Oksana Evgenievna

No language system can be static, moreover, historical variability is almost the main property of any living language. Over time, linguistic categories and phenomena change, emphasizing the influence of the time factor on the nature of the language, the knowledge of which, in turn, is possible only if the causes and results of these changes are identified. The article analyzes the classification of German language variants. Various classifications of linguistic varieties are considered in order to find out the place among them of youth slang. Young slang is considered by the Germanists to be one of the “special languages”. Youth slang can be seen as a transient sociolect, it can not be considered the only means of communication of speakers, but only an additional means of communication. The peculiar specificity of this phenomenon manifests itself mainly in its lexical and phraseological subsystem, and a characteristic feature of slang is its heterogeneity.

Keywords:sociolect, youth slang, classification, language variant, criterion.