OE


patois, jargon This sentence is describing rebellion as the effect of a communication gap, which you will need to make concrete with the blank. Something “protean” (meaning “tending to change frequently or easily”) is being compared to the “older generation’s calcified language.” Actually, the best fill-in for your blank is simply language. Defiance and insubordination are an incorrect pair, both meaning something like “disobedience.” Prolixity and verbosity are another incorrect pair, which introduces a theme trap, as both words mean “wordiness.”