Indekslangan

Indekslangan is a concept in sociolinguistics and digital humanities that refers to the systematic indexing of slang terms and expressions within a digital corpus or lexicon to track form, meaning, usage, and social variation across communities and platforms.

The term blends indeks (index) with slang, signaling a methodological focus on creating stable identifiers for variable and evolving expressions. Indekslangan encompasses not only single words but verbal phrases, memes, and coded forms that circulate in online speech.

Researchers compile slang items from social media, forums, and messaging apps, annotate with metadata such as register, region, age group, platform, and timestamp, and assign standardized identifiers. They may use lemmatization and variant mapping to account for phonetic spellings and morphophonemic changes.

Applications of indekslangan include tracking linguistic change, building multilingual slang dictionaries, aiding content moderation, and enabling cross-cultural studies of youth speech and internet cultures. By organizing slang data around consistent indices, researchers can compare usage patterns over time and across communities.

Challenges associated with indekslangan include the rapidly changing vocabulary and nonstandard orthography, code-switching, biases in data sources, and privacy and consent concerns. There is also a risk that indexing may stabilize or misrepresent fluid slang forms, underscoring the need for ongoing revision, transparency, and reflexive methodology in its use. See also: slang lexicon, sociolinguistics, language change, digital corpora.