TEEN SLANG PHENOMENA ON SOCIAL MEDIA: AN ANALYSIS OF FORMS AND FUNCTIONS IN DIGITAL COMMUNICATION

Abstrak

Teen slang on social media demonstrates that digital communication is shaped by expressive needs, platform logics, participatory culture, and group identity. This article aims to describe the forms of slang commonly used by teenagers on social media and to explain their social-pragmatic functions in digital communication. The study applies a qualitative descriptive approach combining literature review and illustrative digital discourse analysis. The data consist of slang expressions commonly found in comments, captions, replies, and short exchanges on platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, and X. Data analysis was carried out through three stages: identifying slang forms, classifying their linguistic processes, and interpreting their social-pragmatic functions in youth digital communication. The findings show that teen slang appears in the form of abbreviations and acronyms, clipping, playful reversals, code-mixing, lexical borrowing, semantic shift, and graphic-phonological modification. Functionally, slang serves to mark group identity, build solidarity, increase communicative efficiency, express evaluative stance, create humor, and manage closeness and politeness in online interaction. These findings suggest that teen slang should be understood as a creative and contextual linguistic practice closely tied to youth digital culture.