Youth’s Unique Language

Teenagers have their own way of communicating, which is characterized by the latest trends and the new technology in our digital age. Whether we like it or not, we, as parents, family members and teachers, must have an understanding of young people’s language in order to communicate in a positive way.

The Internet and social media can help us learn about young people’s vocabulary and thoughts. In this article, we cover some tips to help you understand young people’s unique language.

Context is king for young people’s language

We have probably all been amazed at how teenagers shorten phrases and expressions. When we hear them talk, their ability to connect several ideas into a few words is incredible. And what is even more impressive is that they manage to understand themselves and each other.

Young people do not seem to need to use a lot of adverbs and prepositions in their sentences. Their communication is simple, direct and objective. Their only goal in expressing themselves is for others to understand them.

At first glance, this new language for teens may seem a bit limited or poor. But we have to admit that they make themselves understood even with so few words, and that requires a lot of creativity and intelligence on their part.

By using such a compact vocabulary, where many words have several meanings, context gets a leading role in communication. Therefore, teens need to analyze what surrounds their words to create the message they want to convey.

Body language is more important for teenagers

Body language also gains a new relevance when words are scarce. When teenagers communicate eye to eye, they usually use greetings, gestures and facial expressions to make themselves understood. Therefore, they often ignore the need for verbal or written language.

We can also see that young people’s language places great value on images and expressions in the virtual world. This means that they can express their ideas on social media with the help of emojis, gifs (moving images) and other interactive elements that take place in front of written and verbal language.

The language does not reflect the complexity of the message

Another characteristic of young people’s language is their ability to distinguish the complexity of a message from the means used to express it. In other words, young people manage to express their best and worst thoughts in an incredibly simple way.

They can express their grief, for example through a simple emoji with tears in their eyes. In the same way, they can communicate their love to their partner with a picture of a cat with hearts instead of eyes. But that does not mean that their feelings are less intense – rather, teenagers can be very sensitive and insightful.

They simply do not have to work out the complexity of their feelings and thoughts in words to live them intensely.

The density and weight of the messages they communicate does not lie in the form or structure of their language. Rather, it’s more about context and who their audience is.

Written language regains its importance for communication

In the 90’s, one of the biggest trends among young people was talking on the phone with friends. But now, in the digital age, teens are barely using longer phone calls to communicate with each other. Written text messages are much more common today.

An interesting fact is that even with applications that enable voice recordings, it is adults who make the most use of such functions. In general, teenagers find it much more convenient and easy to write short messages.

The language of young people is constantly changing

In the digital age, everything is changing fast and constantly. Today’s generation of teenagers was born with the internet already in place. As a result, the internet is an integral part of their lives and they follow its frenetic rhythm quite naturally.

Adolescents’ communication and language are affected by viral internet trends. The “problem” with their jargon is that it goes out of fashion as quickly as it becomes popular. When a new trend emerges, the last one is practically forgotten quite quickly.

Therefore, the language of young people is in a state of constant transformation. Every day, new terms and simple abbreviations enter the young people’s vocabulary. At the same time, other terms and phrases disappear and lose their meaning.

This is probably the biggest challenge in interpreting the language teens use to express themselves. Our main advice is to keep an open mind when interacting with your teenagers.

Try to avoid criticism and prejudice in the conversation. Remember, who is better at teaching us how they see and experience the world than the teenagers themselves?