Word Creation Processes in Prison Language and its Relation to Gender Variable

Studying prison language and its common words and expressions is of significance from sociological, psychological, linguistic and criminological points of view. In the present research, we aim to investigate the morphological aspect of language of prison and analyze the most important word-creation processes in this language based on Booij’s (2007) differentiation between word-formation and word-creation processes. The data collection methods were objective observation and interviews with the prisoners. The data consisted of 615 terms common in male prisoners’ language and 496 terms common in female prisoners’ language (1111 in total), a total of 167 of which are results of word creation processes. The total number of interviewed prisoners was 70, 20 of whom were female from a prison in Rey, Iran, and 50 male prisoners from the Rajaei Shahr, Ghezel Hesar, Fashafuyeh, and Great Tehran prisons. The research findings suggested eight word creation processes in prison language: (1) metaphorical extension, (2) coinage, (3) reduplication, (4) shortening, (5) lexical borrowing, (6) clipping, (7) blending, and (8) abbreviation. After assessing the relationship between the application of these processes and the gender variable, it was found that there was a significant relationship between the two, and the gender factor affects the use of these processes among male and female prisoners.