Adaptation Strategies: Aesthetics of the Linguistic Codes Used by Drug Addicts in Portugal

Abstract

Daily continuous drug use becomes a chronic disease, and this causes the person to lose control over his actions and over his own life. The most used nomenclatures/terminologies when referring to drug users is “addict”. The desire to use drugs overrides all the activities and responsibilities that the drug addict must carry out in his daily life. The physical and psychosocial destruction of the drug user is quick and visible to all those around him and who lives with him daily. In Portugal, drug addicts, despite knowing that they are not criminalized for drug use, know and feel that this is not a socially accepted practice. In this sense, one of the ways that these people defend themselves from social criticism or judgment is through the elaboration of the perceptible linguistic signs and codes, which is understandable only by the drug addicts. In this research, the analysis dimension consisted of understanding and decoding these linguistic codes and to perceive the main reasons that are inherent to their use by drug addicts. According to the reports of drug addicts, it was possible to decode these linguistic codes of drug addicts and translate them into a language that can be accessible to the Portuguese society in general, and for all those who develop their professional practices with drug addicts. To carry out this research, the qualitative methodology was used, which is centered on a case study. Semi-structured interviews were used as a data collection technique. For data analysis, the content analysis was utilized.