Abstract

Negative perception towards prostitutes globally disabling the study on prostitution goes nowhere further, for example when it comes to the usage of prostitutes’ slangs. This is because the nature of prostitution itself is a taboo and an immoral doing. Every single words uttered by prostitutes depict connotative meanings and thus need in depth understanding to reveal those hidden meanings. Thus this research is carried out mainly to analyse the meanings of these slangs. Analyses are focussed mainly on the denotative and connotative meanings in the field of semantics. These analyses are able to explain clearly the connotative meanings of the slangs. 16 data were obtained from two prostitutes via informal interviews. The prostitutes chose to remain anonymous to maintain their privacy. Findings showed that slangs are used to ease communication between the prostitutes and their clients. Findings also showed that implicit utterances in this domain are understood upon revealing the connotative meanings which are hidden alongside the denotative meanings. In addition, the implicit utterances in this domain are found to be hidden despite explicit meanings are known because slangs in the prostitution domain of language are believed to be obscene and vulgar and thus considered improper to be used in public places. In conclusion, this research is able to put forward a more focussed scientific analysis of prostitutes’ slangs then just merely making general assumptions only.

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