• The pilot study is part of a larger investigation of teenage slang, which will be carried out in the Nordic countries.
• The questionnaire for the pilot study was made by professor Ulla-Britt Kotsinas.
• The results from the pilot study were used as a background for the development of the main slang study.
• The pilot study was carried out in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland during January-February 1997. The questionaires were handed out in several classes in their 9th and 11th school year (pupils aged 14-16 and 17-19).
• The pupils were asked to give synonyms for a number of words, such as "stupid", "girl", "boy", "drunk", "money". Furthermore, they were asked to provide some information about themselves, such as sex, age, place of residence, first language, etc.
• The study was carried out in a school lesson (45 min.).
• The material has been entered in a database and analyzed.

• The questionaire for the main slang study has been made by Ulla-Britt Kotsinas on the basis of the results from the pilot study.
• The questionaire contains 55 words, for which the pupils are asked to provide synonyms. The words have been selected using the following criteria:
• words that provided a large number of answers in the pilot study
• words that provided English synonyms in the pilot study
• "dirty" words, because these are generally known to provide a number of synonyms
• The slang study was carried out during spring and fall 1997.

SwedenDenmarkNorwayFinland

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Last updated: 18 May 1999 by Britt Høyland.