The article examines the thematic structure of English slang through two independent but interrelated dimensions: the communicative domains in which slang units are used and the semantic fields that supply sources for new slang nominations. The material combines historical records from the author’s working files with 86 units drawn from household vocabulary, anthroponyms, toponyms, zoonyms, phytonyms, somatisms, professional terms, brand names, colour terms and numerals. Descriptive, componential, semantic-field, comparative and quantitative methods distinguish highly, moderately and weakly productive sources. The highly active layer accounts for 54.7 percent of the sample, the moderately active layer for 32.6 percent, and the weakly active layer for 12.8 percent. The findings show that thematic activity depends on community needs, historical period, communicative setting and evaluative strategies. Separating a domain of use from a source of nomination is proposed as a methodological principle for semantic classification and slang lexicography. The model also supports double thematic tagging in electronic dictionaries, translation and corpus research.

English slang; thematic structure; nomination; semantic field; sociolect; metaphor; slang lexicography.

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