Youngspeak: Spanish vale and English okay 135
4.3 Summing up
It is obviously impossible to draw other than very tentative conclusions as regards
frequencies, since too much information is lacking. Yet, what the tables suggest is
that, while the girls were the most frequent users of vale, the boys were the most
frequent users of okay. As regards vale, a calculation per thousand words shows
that the girls dominate with 3.0 compared to the boys’ 1.7, and that, for okay, the
boys’ dominance amounts to 1.0 compared to the girls’ 0.6. The tables also suggest
that, while the middle-class boys and the upper-class girls were the most frequent
users of vale, the most frequent users of okay were found among the boys and girls
with an upper-class background.
4.4 Teenagers and adults compared
4.4.1 Vale
Without providing exact figures, Cestero Mancera & Moreno Fernández (2008)
report that vale was not very common among the adults in their Madrid study.
Speakers aged from 35 to 50 with a middle class background and a primary school
education dominated. Women were the most frequent users. More specifically, the
younger women with a lower education dominated, while the opposite tendency
was observed among the men, where older men with a university education were
the most frequent users.
A comparison with Table 2 shows, for instance, that, like the women in
Cestero Mancera & Moreno Fernández’ study, the girls dominated in COLAm,
but that, unlike the women, it was the upper class girls who dominated. Whether
the middle class boys, who were the most frequent users of vale (Table 2), can be
compared to the male academics, who were the most frequent users among the
men in the adult material, is a question that could not be verified in COLAm.
4.4.2 Okay
The total frequency of okay in BNC/South is 0.6 per thousand words, while the
total frequency of okay in COLT is 1.0. Among the 35 to 60-plus speakers, the
male speakers were the more frequent users of okay overall. Middle-class males
within the age range 35 to 44 were the dominant users. As regards social class,
both men and women with a middle-class background dominated. A compari-
son of the BNC results with those in Table 3 shows that it is the male speakers
that dominate in both corpora. When it comes to social class, there is a dif-
ference in that the most frequent users among the boys have an upper-class
background, while the most frequent users among the girls have a lower-class
background.