Bakalinsky M. The US organized crime groups lexicon: development and functioning

This research paper focuses on linguistic, sociolinguistic, and sociocultural analyses of US organized crime lexicon in order to determine its development trends and functioning particularities in American English, with Italo-American Mafia social dialect being the case point. It is claimed that the US underworld social dialect as the American English social variety is used by all the underworld groups. It is argued that Mafia social dialect has certain autonomy features within the US underworld social dialect. The author develops the Mafia social dialect analysis technique taking into consideration its dualistic nature. The semantic and semiotic classification of the Mafia social dialect words and idioms is developed. It is claimed that the Mafia dialect lexicon has subject groups. The author establishes synonymic pairs and rows and analyses inter-social-dialect homonyms. The functioning of words and idioms is studied both within the Mafia social dialect itself and in American English in general. Key words: US organized crime lexicon, Italo-American Mafia social dialect, key language units, symbol, development, functioning.