Swearing as a form of social identity: a corpus-based analysis of the American crime/gangster filmic genre

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The act of swearing is a very complex socio-linguistic phenomenon which characterises everyday speech, both oral and written, and we are exposed to it to such an extent that it has begun to be considered completely natural in certain interactional context. Expletives, taboo words, swear words, curse words and profanities can be considered synonyms, as they all refer to the great category of bad language. Even though swear words have a generally negative connotation, they can be employed to express something extremely positive or negative, depending on the context, for example, they are often used to convey surprise (e.g. “it’s f**king awesome!). Generally, though, the main purpose of swearing is offending, insulting and verbally aggressing one’s target, causing psychological harm.

Such utterances are considered some of the most powerful words in every language. They may be widely used by people of different backgrounds, education, gender and social status, even though very often wrongly associated with ignorant working class folks. As children we are taught not to utter those kind of words, but it is really their “tabooness” that makes them so fascinating. From a sociological prospective, the presence or absence of an expletive in a person’s utterance gives the interlocutor much information about the speaker, such as his/her personality and state of mind. In this sense, those words define relationship between people and may also help them to bond socially. Swearing is also influenced by many contextual factors like the relationships between the speaker and the listener, which may lead interlocutors to censor themselves and avoid bad language. Moreover, people are more likely to swear in relaxed environments than in formal ones where there is the risk of being heard by somebody else and consequently sounding rude or inappropriate.

The analysis of swearwords has been considered taboo in itself in the past. As a specific field of study it has originated parallel to the analysis of corpora, in particular the British BNC and the American COCA in recent years. Scholars

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like Montagu (1967) believe that the origin of swearing is coeval to that of speech itself. More specifically the first utterances of humans had the same function as swear words, for example in the response to pain. Studies carried out on this topic have confirmed that taboo words have the cathartic function of providing an immediate relief to pain, together with many other psychological benefits.

This thesis will focus on swearing in film and TV series. Although these audio-visual forms of communication do not always show reality as it is, when it comes down to language they do struggle to represent a language that is the closest to reality as possible, in such a way as to sound spontaneous and natural. Therefore, they cannot omit or eliminate expletives, but rather choose to use them wisely, exploiting all the shades of meaning that these words can have. Of course, depending on the particular genre of the film or TV series, there might be a difference in the quality and quantity of the occurrence of swearwords. Censorship plays a very delicate role according to the guidelines that every broadcasting company provides.

Yet, it is not possible to compile a list of swear words and other words which are considered offensive by the audience. This is because language is fluid and in constant expansion and new terms are invented every day, entering the standard vocabulary on a daily basis. Conversely, the strength of a swear word changes overtime and is subject to inflation; in other words, its overuse tends to diminish the original effect. Through the years though, several words have gone from strong to mild; people have become slightly more tolerant to them, even when they were uttered on television, and this is caused by the overexposure to them in real life. Religion-related and sex-related taboo words were once

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In this thesis I will analyse swear words in a particular genre: the crime/gangster genre. I have always been fascinated by this kind of movies and TV series about criminals in general. In particular, I find the way these characters speak to be highly captivating and I believe the success of those film resides largely in the powerful language they employ. The wide use of swearwords is indeed one of the most prominent characteristics of this genre. They are very often used to establish crime hierarchies, as well as manifesting someone’s authority, prestige and dominance over another person. Their abusive employment aims at triggering a reaction both on the fictional listener, or the person to whom that very word is addressed, and the real listener, or the audience who actually watches the film or TV series. In this last case, the reaction is often that of astonishment and bewilderment.

The crime/gangster filmic genre focuses on crime and criminals of all kinds, exploring the motives and consequences of their actions. It is an umbrella term which encompasses many subgenres with very distinctive and peculiar features. The movies and TV series belonging to this genre focus on criminal, gangs and organised crime engaged in illegal activities like racketeering and gun and drug trade. In their most traditional scheme, they portray the rise and fall of the boss of a gang and some of its most dangerous members. The gangster has a double status of both hero and anti-hero and emerges as a perversely heroic character who triumphs over the society he opposes himself to (Leitch, 2002) One of the reasons why this genre has become so widespread and constantly attracts more audiences is that it reflects our ideas about social and political issues (Mason, 2002). However, as gangs express the purpose of creating a lawless alternative to the law-abiding social order, they invariably end up being an imitation of the largest society and all its weaknesses. Movies which concentrate on a singular criminal tend to investigate more the psychological background of the protagonist. This tendency can also be found in TV series of this genre because the time available is consistently more and allows a more accurate analysis from several points of view.

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Prison movies and TV series represent a subcategory of the crime genre. The set is that of a prison and if there are scenes taking place in the outer world, it is probably because we are shown flashbacks of how the life of the characters was before their sentencing. Yet, criminals are not the only people we get to know: there are also prison guards who may enter the dynamics of the inmates. Prison movies might constitute the sequel of gangster movies in which the protagonist is arrested at the end.

I believe it is worth studying swearwords also in a fictional context of the kind described above, which is why I decided to analyse the power dynamics among criminals of all types, paying particular attention to their way of speaking and the choice of words employed. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to investigate the bad language of criminals of the underworld in some of the most iconic cinematographic and television works of all time, showing how peculiar and distinctive the language of this genre is from any other type of film or TV series. In addition, it is important to underline the fact that language here plays a key role, often more crucial and significant than actions themselves. In order to do that, I have analysed the expletives in the American Crime/Gangster Filmic Corpus, which is composed of eight crime/gangster movies and ten TV series, all belonging to the crime/gangster genre. The swearwords in the movie section of my corpus were then compared to portions of the COCA sampler as a benchmark corpus of American English. Furthermore, the TV series component was juxtaposed to an ad hoc comparative corpus compiled for this study, namely, the Multigenre Corpus, composed of the scripts of ten TV series representing a variety of genres other than the crime/gangster genre.

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such words, more specifically on the purposes and causes of the act of swearing, but also on social and identity aspects such as gender-related issues.

The second chapter presents a classification of the main types of swearwords, which I then used to categorize all the elements dealt with in the analysis section. The categories I have pointed out are: sex-related expletives, body-related expletives, bodily fluid and excretion-related expletives, religion-related expletives and euphemisms, and ethnic slurs. Each of these groups is followed by an accurate analysis of its most representative example word, chosen on the basis of the degree of its offensiveness or its extensive frequency in everyday speech, according to several studies mentioned in this work.

Chapter 3 provides some theoretical background on the crime/gangster genre, tracing its fundamental features and peculiarities. One subsection of this chapter is dedicated to media censorship, which is quite a delicate question and in some cases may influence an analysis of swearwords.

Chapter 4 presents the methodology adopted to develop this study as well as the content of the American Crime/Gangster Filmic Corpus that I have assembled. The selected movies and TV series are briefly presented in this chapter, providing brief information on their plots and the themes exploited. The final section of this chapter is dedicated to the description of the tools of

AntConc, the software employed for the analysis.

Chapter 5 shows the results of my analysis of taboo and semi-taboo expletives in crime/gangster movies and TV series. The first part consists of a purely quantitative analysis, while the second also includes a more in-depth qualitative analysis of some swearwords which assume relevant lexico-grammatical patterns. In addition, a subsection of this chapter is dedicated to the results of a case study on gendered usage which compares the expletives used by women in

Orange Is The New Black, whose cast is almost completely female, and those

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Finally, in the conclusions, I summarize all the considerations deriving from the empirical study of the previous chapter and I offer some reflections on possible future research.

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1. THE ACT OF SWEARING AND EXPLETIVES

1.1. An introduction to swearing

Swearing is a very complex socio-linguistic phenomenon which takes place in almost every language of the world, such as to be considered by many a natural feature of language. Swearwords are widely used by native speakers of different background, education, social status, gender, although very often wrongly associated with ignorant working class folks. The expressions used in swearing are considered taboo or stigmatized, and analysing them can let us have a glimpse into the dynamics of different cultures and individuals: the presence or absence in a person’s utterance gives us information about his personality, feelings and state of mind (Jay & Janschewitz, 2008).

Even if it has a very negative connotation, every swearword has its own purpose and is strictly connected to the context, written or oral, where it occurs. This category of words has been far and wide object of study by an extensive number of disciplines such as linguistics, psychology, sexuality, history, sociology, women’s studies and many others, but since it is a phenomenon which is mostly circumscribed to oral performance, its study has been encountered several obstacles through the ages. It is only thanks to corpora like the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) that its analysis has drastically improved. Even more recent are the studies on the gendered type of swearing, like the one conducted by McEnery (2006), which started from the premise that men tend to use stronger swearwords and more frequently, compared to women’s.

Swearing has changed and evolved through history, from blasphemy, which was punished with death in the past, to words that mainly refer to bodily functions and secretions, as well as sex-related terms, which are stated to be the most used in nowadays in foul language according to several studies (Mohr, 2013; Jay, 2008). The perceived strength of a swearword has changed over time,

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too, since all words are subject to inflation, meaning that their overuse tends to diminish their effect. During the ages, several words have gone from strong to mild because words are always changing and subject to meaning shifts, and also because new lexis comes into the vocabulary. Religion-related and sex-related taboo words were once considered unmentionable, but now their strength has been remarkably reduced due to their abuse in everyday language.

A research conducted by Čechova (2006) has shown that there is a significant difference in our rate of tolerance towards swear words in different social contexts: interviewees unanimously asserted that using expletives to release tension, express anger and personal annoyance is tolerable, although using them to mock, to insult, to humiliate, to dismay, or to demonstrate scorn or disrespect towards others is socially and morally unacceptable. Generally speaking, people of different social status and education use swearwords in various positive or negative emotional states, and this natural behaviour is more or less accepted whether that expression is uttered or not to a specific person with the purpose to harm him or her.

As previously mentioned, in past times, swearing was ascribed to uneducated people and was believed to be suited only to mendicants, lower classes and people of humble origins in general. As children, we are taught that swearing is inappropriate, but really it is its inappropriateness that makes it that effective. This is what Bergen (2016), professor of cognitive science at the University of San Diego, defines as “profanity paradox” in his book What the F: What

Swearing Reveals About Our Language, Our Brains and Ourselves:

The paradox is that it’s that very act of suppression of the language that creates those same taboos for the next generation. […] The reason that a child

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In the beginning of her book, Mohr (2013) gives a very thorough explanation of the power and effect of these strong words. She affirms that, despite being so offensive and vulgar, swearwords can do what no other words can in addiction. She addresses them as the most powerful words in language, as they enable people to express extreme emotions, both negative or positive:

They insult and offend others, which, like it or not, it's a function of the language; they offer catharsis as a response to pain or to powerful feelings; They cement ties among members of groups in ways that other words cannot. As we choose our words when speaking or writing, we consciously consider many factors. We think about the meaning of what we want to say. We consider the motional attitude we'd like to convey. We assess who we are talking to and where we are. Sometimes, taking all these factors into account, we need to employ formal diction and a measured tone. Other times, though, only a swear word or two can accomplish what we need. To put in another way, language is a toebox and swearing is the hammer. You can try to pound a nail into a piece of wood with the handle of your screwdriver, with your wrench, or with your pliers, but it's only your hammer that's perfectly designed for the job. (p. 13)

1.1.1. Some definitions

Andersson and Trudgill (1992) define swearing as “a type of language use in which the expression (a) refers to something that is taboo and/or stigmatized in the culture; (b) should not be interpreted literally; (c) can be used to express strong emotions and attitudes” (p. 53). The word shit can be taken as an example: the literal meaning of the word shit is the excrement but when it has the function of an expletive, “Instead it is used in an emotive sense, to express feeling and attitudes” (Andersson and Trudgill, 1992, p. 53). Therefore, to be classified as taboo words, words have to be considered in their emotive meaning. Ljung (1984) calls swearwords “emotive formulas which get their meaning from their generally accepted status as, precisely, formulas and not normal language”

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(p.23) and adds that they generally convey an emotive code, used to reflect speakers’ feelings and attitude.

Crystal (2003) points out three categories of bad language: the language of taboo, the language of abuse and the language of swearing. He also gives the definitions of:

Obscenity, which involves the expression of indecent sexuality – ‘dirty’ or ‘rude’ words; blasphemy, which shows contempt or lack of reverence specifically towards God or gods; and profanity, which has a wider range, including irrelevant reference to holy things or people (p.173).

Concerning the terminology, in this work I will use a set of words which I will deal with as synonyms even if they have slight differences in meaning and connotation. The terms I am referring to are: swearwords, taboo words, profanities, curse words and expletives, all belonging to the vast area of so-called bad language (McEnery, 2005).

When we use the term expletive, though, we must keep in mind that there are two linguistic phenomena in English language that are referred to as such. The first phenomena is strictly grammatical and is the case where expletives have the basic function of syntactic fillers, from the Latin word explētīvus1, which means to fill out. In the example sentence it was clear to everyone that he wouldn’t have passed the exam, the expletive it was clear is introduced by the preparatory it

which constitutes the subject of the clause but does not change the meaning of the whole utterance.

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swear word can be used in a cheerful and pleasing context or in an unpleasant one (e.g., the adjective bloody in that was a bloody good movie and in that movie

was bloody terrifying).

Montague (1967) defines swearing as “the act of verbally expressing the feeling of aggressiveness that follows upon frustration in words possessing strong emotional associations” (p.104) and provides a definition also for its subcategories:

 Cursing: a form of swearing distinguished by the fact that it invokes or calls down some evil upon its object.

 Profanity: form of swearing in which the names or attributes of the figure of religious veneration are uttered.

 Blasphemy: the act of vilifying or ridiculing the figures or objects of religious veneration.

1.1.2. Difference between swearing and cursing

Although nowadays they are used interchangeably, the words “swear” and “curse” are slightly different and they all originate in religious concepts. In general, a curse expresses the desire to hurt someone through some kind of supernatural creature, which can be identified with a god or any other phenomenon. For example, in past days, witches were thought to be able to curse people by summoning the devil or other devilish spirits to harm people (Mohr, 2013). The word curse expanded to foul language in the thirteenth century, with the meaning of pronouncing evil on others. An American version of the word

curse is cuss, which has basically the same meaning and was firstly recorded in

1815. On the other hand, swearing involves invoking the name of God for some other reason and its original meaning was “to take an oath”. Thus, “By God, if that’s the truth, I’ll…” really means, “I call upon God to hear me: if that is the truth, I promise (to God) to…”

In the third chapter of his book, The Anatomy of Swearing, published in 1967, the British-American anthropologist Montagu attempts to explain the thin

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difference between swearing and cursing. Having established that giving an exact definition of both is difficult, he states that swearing is a general, wider term which can contain cursing, therefore cursing is a species of it:

And so one’s imprecations and expletives are generally couched in language suitable to the requirements of the present moment, whereas cursing is essentially couched in language that refers to the future. One swears at an enemy when he is within reach, one curses him when he may not be within immediate reach. (p. 36)

He makes the example of two exclamations “Blast your eyes” and “May your eyes be blasted” (p. 52) and classifies the first as type of swearing and the second as a type of cursing. The utterances are slightly different, especially in what Montagu calls “the amount of bile”. The first one is more explosive but the other is “more malevolently intended since it stems from conditions and a mood that have generally been of greater duration or intensity that those that give rise to swearing” (Montagu, 1967, p. 52). The aim is different too: “while the swearers swears for an immediate relief, not caring a snap about anything else, the curser curses with the deliberate object of offending and discomfiting an enemy” (Montagu, 1967, p. 53). In addition, cursing is believed to be a more archaic and biblical form and is more easily found in written text, while swearing is most commonly used orally because of its explosive nature.

1.2. Origins of swearing

In the first chapter of his book, Montagu (1967) talks about the origin of swearing and the different form of such types of utterances in different cultures, parts of the world and ages. He believes that it is impossible to establish an exact

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philologists have held that ‘speech originated in utterances closely akin to swearing. (p. 5)

According to Montague (1967), some emotionally charged expletive-like sounds existed even before human started to use real language and talk to each other. Such sounds she believes “had raised in response to the need of relieving angry feelings or giving expression to one’s feeling upon a sudden shock or surprise” (p. 6). This need was mainly physiological and secondly psychological: the sounds emitted were not arbitrarily chosen or invented by men, nor inherited or acquired but rather they are innate, naturally uttered in response to a strong emotion. Consequently, these sounds are universally the same among men of all times, involuntarily produced by the volume of air expelled through the throat, which has the same conformation in all human beings. In other words, Montague (1967) identifies in the vowel sounds such as “ah”, found among all the people in the world, and its variations “oh” “eh” etc. the basis of swear words and language in general.

The theories about the origin of speech are plenty, but they all have in common the fact that the first elements of language were initiated by the desire to express something forcefully. That is why those theories agree on considering swearing coeval with the birth of speech. Montagu (1967) asks himself if swearing is something innate in human beings or if it is something people learn from the environment. He believes the second to be the most trustworthy option, stating that swearing is something we learn through the years, namely “a culturally conditioned response to the experience of certain conditions” (p. 56). In The Pragmatics of Swearing, Jay (2008) agrees with Montagu (1967) on the fact that no one is born knowing how to swear, but this is rather something we learn from peers and parents; very little is known about how the process of swearing starts at a young age: “We have proposed that one’s personal experience of being punished for swearing, for example, having soap put in one’s mouth, classically conditions the emotional reaction to swear words” (Jay, 2008, p. 269). In addition, how one is reprimanded for swearing affects the frequency

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and modality he/she does so and in which context. After being scolded by parents at home or by the teacher in the classroom, children will learn that they can swear more freely when they are in the company of their friends with no supervision from authorities. In general, we learn to inhibit swearing in situations where there is a personal cost, such as being punished or losing face.

1.3. Grammatical analysis of swearwords

1.3.1. Word formation and grammatical functions

Within a sentence, swearwords can have basically the following grammatical function:

1. Name: you bastard!

2. Adjective: don’t give me that damn look! 3. Verb: stop f**king2 around like that! 4. Adverb: that was f**king amazing! 5. Interjection: oh God! Not you, again!

Andersson and Hirsch (1985) distinguished the morphological and syntactic patterns of swearing, pointing out five grammatical categories of swearwords, which are:

- Swearwords as separate utterances: this is probably the most common usage of expletives: “f**k!”, “hell!” “damn!”, but also “you bastard!” “you asshole”.

- Swearwords as “adsentences”: these kind of words are strictly tied to a full sentence and generally occur at the beginning of a sentence (“shit! I left my

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- Swearwords as major constituents of a sentence: in this case the swearword has the grammatical function of one of the main elements of a sentence:

 subject: “that bastard just stole my car!”

 object: “leave that dickhead alone!”

 predicate: “he f**ked up everything with that mistake”

- Swearwords as part of a constituent of a sentence: contrary to the previous category, here expletives have the functions of secondary elements, such as adjectives, adverbs or question words’ modifier, all with the purpose of adding extra emphasis:

 adjective: “my f**king phone isn’t working again”

 adverb: “this train is f**king late once again”

 question word modifier: “what the hell is going on here?”

- Swearwords as part of a word: in this category swearwords are combined with another word occurring before a word as its prefix (f**kboy), at the end of a word as a suffix (badshit), or in the middle as an infix (abso-f**king-lutely). Thus, in this last group, expletives are combined with neutral words generating compound swear words, where the different morphemes can be simply juxtaposed or separated by a hyphen.

1.3.2. Syntactic functions

Expletives can express both irritation or surprise and are not necessarily directed at someone in particular. In this case, their function is that of a commentary to a specific situation and they very often occur in the form of an exclamation, separate from the rest of the utterance. When swearwords are directed at someone, they can be called invectives or abuse; such words are usually strong imperatives used as insults to address our interlocutor or another third person in a very derogatory way (Lindhe, 1994).

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Swearwords can be used also with the sole purpose of achieving a stylistic effect; in this case they function as emphasis markers. However, as Hughes (1992) points out, what we label as swearwords can have a positive meaning; the very same word can be used to express one’s disdain and contempt or as a term of endearment. In her own words: “swearwords only become powerful when used as swearwords. In general, they are used as adjectives or for emphasis, in which case they lack power for the user” (p. 298).

McEnery (2006) has provided another classification of the most common syntactic functions of expletives.

 Predicative negative adjective: ‘the film is shit’

 Adverbial booster: ‘F**king marvellous’ ‘F**king awful’

 Cursing expletive: ‘F**k You! /Me! /Him! /it!’

 Destinational usage: ‘F**k off!’ ‘He f**ked off’

 Emphatic adverb/adjective: ‘He f**king did it’ ‘In the f**king car’

 Figurative extension of literal meaning: ‘to f**k about’

 General expletive: ‘(Oh) F**k!’

 Idiomatic ‘set phrase’: ‘f**k all’ ‘give a f**k’

 Literal usage denoting taboo referent: ‘We f**ked’

 Imagery based on literal meaning: ‘kick shit out of’

 Premodifying intensifying negative adjective: ‘the f**king idiot’

 ‘Pronominal’ form with undefined referent: ‘got shit to do’

 ‘Reclaimed’ usage – no negative intent, e.g. N-word as used by African American rappers

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attribute to them give us information about beliefs and values of the speakers. Through the different choices of speech acts, which are partly subconscious and partly conscious, people show what groups in society they identify themselves with. The study of working class vernacular by Hughes (1992) showed that low prestige groups see their way of expressing themselves as a powerful symbol of group identity and make it a matter of prestige in general.

Swearwords are useful words that give important information about ourselves to our interlocutor since we use them to better express our feelings in a specific situation. This is in contradiction to the common belief that people use this kind of lexicon when they lack in communication skills. In a very recent study published in the journal Language Science, Jay (2015) calls this phenomenon “the poverty of vocabulary myth” and manages to dispel it. In this experiment, he tested the ability of people to list words beginning with a given letter. He found was that people who could generate a larger number of words were the same who generate the most swearwords, “So as fluency goes up, so does the ability to say swear words, not the other way around. Fluency is fluency” (p. 252).

The status of the speaker and the listener and the relationship between them is another determinant of the likelihood and appropriateness of swearing. One simple way of determining someone’s status is through their job title. For example, a factory worker has a lower status than the company CEO and a head physician has higher status than a nurse. To measure students’ perceptions of the importance of job status on swearing, Jay (2008) carried out an experiment in which he asked college students to judge how likely each man or woman in a specific occupation was to swear and how appropriate it would be if they did. What was clear from their answers was that men were generally expected to swear more than women in the very same job position and higher status people (e. g., the dean of an academic department) were expected to swear less than those with a lower status. In the end, as Jay (2008) states, our employment and

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reaction to swear words tells us who we are and where we fit in a culture; Therefore, our identities are marked by our use of swear words.

1.5. Gendered language and gendered swearing

Without a doubt, there are several differences in the way women and men speak and several branches of sociolinguistics have attempted to define these characteristics. Generally speaking, women’s language is more formal and polite than that of the opposite sex’ and this has been attributed by several linguists like Trudgill and Lakoff (1985) to the fact that women seem to be more aware of the impact language has on people and relationships. Male and female ways of speaking differ in topic, content, form and use and these parameters have been defined as sex-associated. Concerning topic and content, for example, men tend to talk more about sports, money and business, and frequently refer to time, space, quantity, destructive actions, physical movements and tangible things.

Women may talk more about their personal lives, homes and families and use more words describing feelings and psychological state (Haas, 1979). According to many scholars (Reik, 1954; Kramer, 1974; Lakoff, 1975),3 women’s language is more emotional and evaluative than men’s. They are more inclined to use hyperboles, adjectives and adverbs of intensity, such as pretty, terrible, nice,

divine, sweet, adorable, which suggest value judgement and dilute the message.

Generally speaking, women use significantly more words implying emotions and interpretation. They also use more self-references and more auxiliary words and negations. In other words, “the stereotype of the content of the spoken language points to positive value judgements as female marked and negative judgements as male marked” (Haas, p. 622).

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be somehow hopeless at fact-anchored talk, “they are less likely to have a factual background, less in contact with the world of knowledge” (p. 56). Moreover, men’s style is more prone to lecturing, argument and debate. Conversely, Lakoff (1975) defines women’s speech non-assertive and suggests that they make extensive use of question tags, which men tend to avoid. This form of question prevents assertion and gives the interlocutor the choice of disagreeing. They show the will to include and collaborate with the listener but may also jeopardize the authoritative perception of the speaker (Haas, 1979). Both genders make requests in different ways: women state requests while men issue commands.

Wolman and Frenk (1975) observed that in a professional peer group of women, those who have an aggressive and directive behaviour are labelled as bossy and manipulative. Tentativeness is also stereotyped as female, as a result of women’s production of expressions like I suppose, I think, perhaps, maybe,

probably, together with the already mentioned question tag. (Hartman, 1976).

Hirshman (2007) discovered that men use the qualifier I think twice as much as the opposite sex but he justified the result suggesting that it serves primarily as a way for more assertive speakers to present their opinions. This can be interpreted in light of Aijmer’s (1997) study, who attributes to I think a deliberative meaning instead of a tentative one, especially in the case in which its position is at the beginning of a sentence. In short, early researches on gendered language suggested that men’s language use is employed to lecture, argue, assert and command, while women’s is indeed more tentative and supportive.

From the point of view style, the most widespread belief is that men’s is coarser and more direct than womens’ (Haas, 1979). Jesperson (1922) affirmed that women are more conservative while men are more likely to coin new words and puns. He also believed that men use more slang expressions and tend to not restrain themselves from using taboo words and expletives. Women, on the other hand become:

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[…] Shy mentioning certain parts of the body and some natural bodily functions by the direct and often rude denomination which men, and especially young men, prefer when among themselves. Women will therefore invent innocent and euphemistic words and phrases which sometimes may in the long run come to be looked upon as the plain as blunt names and in their turn might have to be avoided and replaced by more recent words. (Haas, p. 245)

Reik (1974) stated that we all know that there is “men talk” and a “women talk” and addes that men would not hesitate to say hell and damn, while women would be very unlikely to say that something stinks, while they would rather say that it has a bad smell. Euphemisms, though, are never associated with men (Reik, 1974).

Farb (1974) suggests that women, use words that were formerly taboo for them with as much as freedom as young men use them. Another study carried out by Kramer (1974) explored the reason that triggers men and women to curse. What emerged was that men use expletives when they are angry or frustrated, while women’s expletives are more likely to convey enthusiasm.

What has emerged from Jay and Janschewitz’s studies (2008) is that there is a difference both in quality and quantity: men tend to use stronger, more offensive expletives, while women favour milder ones, but their expletive frequency is higher than their male counterparts. What is more, both genders have stated and shown that they are more comfortable with using expletives when they are in company of people of the same sex (Jay and Janschewitz, 2008). Moreover, men have shown to be more likely to swear in public than women. Feminist criticism has not gone easy on the assertion that sees women’s

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What is more, according to Stapleton (2003), the analysis of women’s way of speaking has been criticized for being prescriptive rather than descriptive, aiming to describe how women ought to talk, rather than focusing on the natural traits of their speech. An important study carried out by de Klerk (1991) aimed at analysing the relationship between power and use of swearwords. Interviewing a sample of 160 adolescent girls, she concluded that while expletives are excused for men, they are condemned for women and their less verbally aggressive language is considered a sign of weakness. Another important study conducted by Hughes (1992) on working-class women who were very used to swearing, showed that it is not only a matter of sex but mainly of social class and employment which together determine their strong language. He noted “These women are proud of their swearing, but show a strong sense of morality in where and when it is appropriate to do this” (p. 295).

Stapleton (2003) stated that women’s usage of expletives can be seen as a transgression of the stereotype of femininity and the common belief that they always ought to be polite and well-spoken, as a strong language would create a contrast with their image. He also affirmed that this language rich in swear words has in some cases the means of constructing a masculine identity. However, one of the studies which has made a major contribution to this field of study was the one entitled Male-Female Use of Expletives: A Heck of a Difference in

Expectations by Constance Stanley (1978). The aim of the research was to

investigate the differences between swearing in both genders and to compare the results with the expected usage of both genders would have previously predicted for the opposite sex. Expletives were evaluated and compared in terms of both quality, scoring their offensiveness, and quantity, scoring their frequency.

The participants, 30 male and 25 female students of Communication and Linguistics at the University of Colorado, were asked to fill in twenty sentences with the cloze procedure by writing the words they would have uttered in a particularly stressful, painful or exasperating situation. This is one of the scenarios from the input given to the students: “you are riding in an elevator with

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a member of the opposite sex whom you don’t know. Suddenly the elevator begins to rumble and shake and finally comes to a stop between floors. You say _________” (p. 378).

Together with inserting their answer, they were asked to hypothesize the answers of the opposite sex. What was clear from the beginning was that according to women, men would have used stronger taboo words and more in quantity, while men predicted weaker responses in general for women. The total amount of swear words for women was 141 compared to the men predictions for them which was 92, while the men uttered 171 expletives compared to the 219 that woman had foreseen. Judging the strength of the responses, they were asked to give a score from 1 to 5 to the opposite sex’s choice of taboo words. From their predictions, it emerged that both men and women estimated women’s responses as weaker overall. Concluding, men and women were approximatively equal in the number of strong expletives used in the questionnaire. However, men predicted that women would use fewer strong expletives than they actually did and women predicted that men would use more strong expletives than they actually did.

According to Lakoff (1975), in general women’s language is politer since they are more liable to say “please” and “thank you”. In addition, he noticed women’s tendency of using longer sentences and compounds as well as longer requests. While a man would simply utter “help me”, a woman would say” would you please help me with this?”. In the end, though, we cannot identify a feature of English used exclusively by one sex or the other: sex differences should be called “sex preferences” rather than “sex exclusive” (Bodine, 1975).

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but it plays a fundamental role indeed, and which must be taken into consideration.

1.6. Psychological analysis of swearing process

1.6.1. Purpose

Pinker (2011) lists what the functions of swearing are according to him:

 Abusive swearing: has the purpose of offending, insulting and verbally attacking one’s target, causing psychological harm.

 Cathartic swearing: provides the person who talks with an immediate psychological relief and is uttered in response to an acute pain or sudden accident (for example, after stubbing your toe).

 Dysphemistic swearing: since a dysphemism is the opposite of euphemism, this type of swearing is used to offensively connote our interlocutor or another object. Animal names are commonly used as dysphemistic epithets (rat, pig, cow).

 Emphatic swearing: used to draw attention and emphasise something we think is worth highlighting.

 Idiomatic swearing: has no particular aim but is used to establish a bond with our interlocutor in an informal conversation.

1.6.2. Causes of swearing

Andersson and Hirsch (1985) have pointed out two main reasons which according to them could cause a swearing response in an individual. The first is the “because of” motive, which basically consists of a reaction after some kind of behaviour or utterance, and is generally defined as “expressive language”. The second is the “in order to” motive which, on the contrary, works as an elicitation and is classified as “evocative language”. The first motive works as a consequence of the violation of expectations or norms and the connected emotional and psychological states:

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 Physical pain: “my back is hurting me so f**king bad”

 Anger: “what the f**k did you just say?”

 Fear/negative surprise: “this is literally kicking the shit out if me”

 Joy/positive surprise: “that is f**king awesome!”

 Disgust: “you’re f**king disgusting, men”

The second one comes with two kind of goals: social goals like contact, group identity, intimacy, dominance and psychological goals, for example, arousal, interpersonal attitudes and memory.

1.6.3. Benefits of swearing

Stephens and Umland (2011) are important contributors to the psychology of swearing. In their article “Swearing as a response to pain: effect of daily

swearing frequency”, they explain the benefits of cursing:

 Pain relief: swearing has an analgesic effect thanks to a release of adrenaline which helps us cope with the pain. In an experiment at Keele University conducted by Stephens himself, participants were asked to list two groups of words: one of swear words that they would utter if they hit their thumb with a hammer and one of neutral words they would use to describe a chair. Then they were told to soak one hand in a bowl of ice and water for as long as they could, while repeating one word from either one of the lists. Those who uttered the swear words were able to resist for almost 50% percent more time compared to those who chose to use a neutral word. Researchers concluded that swear words help people tolerate the pain and reduce sensitivity to it. This anaesthetic effect triggered by swearing has been called “fight or flight stress response”. Another recent study was carried out by professor Stephens on professional cyclists

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pain. Of course, these words do not have a mystic intrinsic power which conveys extreme strength to those who utter them; they rather cause them to gain vigour because they are taboo.

 Power: Swearing makes us feel that we are more powerful and in control of what is happening to us. It works as a boost to our confidence and self-esteem.

 Non-violent solution: Swearing is often used a valid alternative to a physical offence and offers us the possibility to retaliate at people or react to situations that would very probably lead to the use of violence.

 Humour: Sometimes swearing adds hilarity to a conversation and can be humorous itself when uttered involuntarily in particular circumstances.

 Social bonding: Swearing helps create and reinforce bonds among people. If we feel at ease with a certain group of people, we will likely be swearing more often than if we are not acquainted with them.

 Self-expression: Cursing can be a way in which we show our interest in something and that a particular subject or matter is really important to us. In other words, it is one of the ways we use to speak about ourselves to the outer world.

 Physical and psychological health: Several studies through the years have shown that when swearing, circulation increases and so do the endorphines and an overall sense of calm is immediate.

1.7. Timothy Jay’s approach on the analysis of swearwords

In his article “The Utility and Ubiquity of Taboo Words”, Jay (2009) tries to answer eight fundamental question about such words, the first of which is what taboo words are and why they exist. As children, we internalize swear words at

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a personal level, but it is only after the reprimand of an authority that we learn how to use them, or better, not to use them. Of course, no one is born with the knowledge of such words, but it is a process that happens together with that of socialization and interaction with peers in particular. As Kasper (1990) stated, children “and non-native speakers require time and experience to attain an adult native speaker’s knowledge of what is offensive or rude” (p. 193). We need to create an “oral or folk knowledge of swearing etiquette” (Jay, p. 153) or, in other words a knowledge of appropriateness and tabooness, which is something fluent language users attain. It is only with maturity that speakers understand that politeness is not always necessary, but that there are situations in which is possible to use swear words and where impoliteness and rudeness are admitted. Speakers learn that what is polite depends on the relationship between participants and the speech practices they negotiate (Locher & Watts, 2005).

There are thousands of swearwords and phrases and sometimes the line between taboo and non-taboo is quite blurred. Jay (2009) suggests examining coprolalia, one of the main symptoms of Tourette’s syndrome, which consists of uncontrollable compulsive swearing but can also be found in patients with Alzheimer’s disease. In another article written by Jay & Janschewitz (2008) entitled “The Pragmatics of Swearing”, they explain how the act of swearing changes as a function of the communication process, using a cognitive psychological framework. They classify instances of swearing in two major categories: propositional or non-propositional. Propositional swearing is consciously planned and fully intentional, and the speaker controls the content of the utterance. This kind of swearing can be polite or impolite: polite when “it promotes social harmony as in face building” (p. 269), (e.g., this ice cream is f**king delicious). On the other hand, it is impolite when it is used intentionally

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“unintentional, unplanned and uncontrollable. It involves automatic emotional responses, occurring most frequently in response to sudden bursts of emotion (e. g., surprise) or as a result of brain damage. We do not consider nonpropositional swearing polite or impolite, except to an uninformed listener who may be offended at the content of the utterance”. (Jay & Janschewitz, 2008, p. 270)

The act of swearing can be seen as the result of three different processes which interact and overlap, among which we can distinguish neurological, psychological and sociocultural processes:

Neurological process: Language in general and swear words in particular are

closely connected to the expression of emotions. From a strictly anatomical point of view Jay and Janschewitz (2008), stated that “Swearing is a product of language processing areas in the left frontal and temporal lobes as well as emotional processing areas in the right cerebral hemisphere and subcortical structures, most notably the amygdala” (p. 271). The frequency of swearing depends on the integrity of brain areas implicated in cognitive control processes, damage to which is associated with an increase in socially inappropriate behaviours and speech, including swearing. Damage to primary language areas, for example Broca’s area, usually results in aphasia and consequently leads to increased swearing and excessive emotional response.

Psychological process: According to Jay and Janschewitz (2008)

“Psychological factors most directly associated with swearing are trait anger, religiosity, sexual anxiety, verbal aggressiveness” (p. 271). Gender plays a main role in swearing, since males and females tend to have different ways of socialising and of showing their emotions. Consequently, the frequency of their swearing also depends on gender. Several studies have been carried on by scholars like Bird and Harris (1990) who have found out that “men are more

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likely than women to swear when frustrated or angry, while women are more likely than men to view swearing in anger as loss of control and realize that swearing might jeopardize their relationships with others” (p. 143). In his book called Swearing: a social history of foul language, oaths and profanity in

English, Hughes (1998) stated that language is generated in “patriarchal or

phallocratic dispensation” (p. 215). He further affirmed that he had come across a prevalence of feminine anatomical terms especially in male swearing and this lexicon is much more common than the male terms, which sometimes lack equivalents. To give evidence of this, Hughes provides a list of names used exclusively by men to directly or indirectly address women. Some of the words in this list cannot be technically considered swearwords but the majority of them is considered offensive by women. Such words can be divided into four categories:

- Terms which compare women to witches: witch, hag, shrew, battleaxe; - Terms which compare women to animals: bird, chick, chicken, crow, duck,

goose, hen, cow, bitch, mutton, cat, tabby, kitten, puss, coney, bat;

- Terms which compare women to prostitutes: whore, slut, strumpet,

concubine, bawd, drab;

- Terms which compare women to food and sweets in particular: dish, tart,

cookie, crumpet, pancake, sweetmeat, peach, cherry.

Other researchers conducted by Jay and Janschewitz (2008) have shown that swearing not only depends on the gender of the speaker, but also on that of the listener; in particular, men tend to utter a very high percentage of swearwords when they have a same-sex audience. They rather restrain themselves when they are in company of women of all ages. Swearing can be analysed also from the

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sensitive to mild taboo words (e. g., fart, dork, wimp) than adults, who find such words odd and harmless. Adolescents are more receptive than young children to sex-related taboo words, for this field arouses curiosity among them and using such words make them feel more adult and attractive in the eyes of their peers. Adults instead use religion-related taboo words and sex-related ones for the most.

Sociocultural and pragmatics processes: Swearing varies from culture to

culture and is influenced by contextual variables such as the conversational topic, the speaker-listener relationship, including gender, occupation, and status, as well as the social-physical setting of the communication with respect to whether the swearing takes place in a public or private location, one’s jurisdiction over the location, and the level of formality of the occasion. All of these variables, according to Jay and Janschewitz (2008), allow us to determine when swearing is likely or unlikely, when it is an affront to appropriateness. Knowing when swearing is allowed and when it is not appropriate can be challenging, especially when the topic itself is delicate. Talking about sex, for example, can be embarrassing and some people find it difficult to confront such matters. On the one hand, sexual slang is too strong and direct, but on the other, too technical and clinical terms are too unfamiliar and the meaning can be unknown to some of our interlocutors. Allan and Burridge (2006) believe that “A good means of locating taboo conversational topics is to listen for the presence of euphemisms in conversations, which are by definition terms that are used to avoid more offensive counterparts. We say that we make love in mixed company but not that we f**k”. (p. 217)

The environmental and social context in which a conversation takes place are also important factors which must be taken into account. People are more likely to swear in relaxed environments than in formal ones, where they have the fear of being heard by strangers and sound inappropriate or rude. Reprimands and any kind of social sanction limit and affect our use of taboo words, and very often receiving a glare from someone is enough to make us feel uncomfortable

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and embarrassed. Locher and Watts (2005) added that “through cultural experiences we learn what words are deemed polite or impolite in particular situations, as is espoused in relational theory” (Locher  Watts, 2005, p. 15).

Some researchers have also found a connection between swearing and honesty. In particular, they proved that “profanity was associated with less lying and deception at the individual level” ( Lian, 2017, p. 818). Jay (2009) added that other studies have shown that people who use more swearwords are generally more honest than those who do not. The idea behind this belief is that liars need more thinking time to process the lie and not contradict themselves, while true tellers speak impulsively without filter, therefore they require less time. On this matter, Bergen (2016) stated:

When people use profanity they are indicating their emotional state to us, and it’s not something that people always do. Lots of people hide their emotions for lots of reasons, and I think that we infer from someone swearing that they must not be doing that. They must be truthfully conveying their emotional stance. If you want people to think that you’re telling the truth, then swearing might help with that. (p. 46)

In this first chapter, I have provided the terminology which I have employed throughout this study and presented some definitions given by many scholars and researchers who have extensively covered this topic in their works. Then, I discussed the psychology which lies beneath the use of swearwords, as well as on the purposes and causes of the act of swearing. The following chapter presents a classification on swearwords based on their semantic area, together with an accurate analysis of the most offensive words in the English language.

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2. CLASSIFICATION OF SWEARWORDS

2.1. Introduction

Compiling a list of all the swearwords present in one language and even organizing it according to their offensiveness is virtually an impossible thing to do. This is mainly because language is fluid and in constant expansion: as we speak, new words are coined and at the same time we unconsciously give already existing words new meanings. More specifically, when talking about taboo words, it is important to bear in mind that the strength of a such words changes overtime and is subject to inflation; in other words, its overuse tends to diminish the original effect. Through the years though, several words have gone from strong to mild, while the opposite phenomenon is rather limited; people have become slightly more tolerant to them, even when they were uttered on television, and this is due to the overexposure to them in real life.

For the purpose of this study, after a preliminary analysis of the corpora analysed and drawing from previous studies (Mohr, 2013; McEnery, 2006), I have decided to classify expletives in five main categories which are:

1. Sex-related taboo expletives 2. Body-related taboo expletives

3. Bodily fluid and excretion-related expletives 4. Religion-related expletives and euphemisms 5. Ethnic slurs

I dedicate this chapter to the discussion of each of these categories, dwelling upon those that are considered by many as the most offensive words in the English language. Moreover, I will focus on most of these words in both the quantitative and qualitative analysis in Chapter 5, in order to highlight their frequency, grammatical form, collocations, and functions.

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2.2. Sex-related expletives

This category includes all the different ways through which the sexual act is vulgarly referred to, words like screw, shag, hump, bang and so on. It also comprehends terms which are used to define someone’s sexual orientation, mostly homosexuality, for there are many words that have become extremely offensive, especially fag, faggot and bugger for gay men and dyke (spelled also

dike) and butch for lesbians.

In his book “The Stuff of Thoughts”, cognitive psychologist and Harvard professor Steven Pinker (2007) writes:

Each one of the categories from which we draw our taboo words involves negative emotion. In the case of sexual swearing, it’s the revulsion at sexual depravity, and just in general the high emotion that surrounds sexuality, even in the most liberated cultures. In the case of disfavoured groups, say taboo terms for ethnic and racial minorities, it’s hatred and contempt for other people.(p 156).

Table 1 illustrates the category of the sex/body semantic field according to Hughes (1998, p. 208).

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Male Female Indeterminate

Genital Prick

Pillock

Cunt, Twat

Anatomical Tit Arsehole

Escretory Shit Turd Fart Imbecilic Idiot Imbecile Moron Cretin Prat

Animal Pig Cow

Bitch Sow Swine General Bugger Sod Bastard F**ker Table 1. Classification of sex/body expletives (Hughes, 1998)

Hughes (1998) also provides a list of euphemisms to be used instead of the strong swear words with a date attesting its first documented usage (p. 14-15):

 SHIT: shucks (1874), shoot, shute (1934), sherbet

 F-WORD:

- foutre/foutra (from Fr. foutre) (1592) - foot/sfoot (1600s) - footy (1785) - frig/frigging (1785) - eff/effing (1925) - fiddlesticks (1600) - fiddlededee (1784) - botheration (1801) - thunderation (1820s) - perdition (1890s)  DAMNED: - Darned (1837)

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- Durned (1876)

In a study conducted by Wells (1989), he asked college student to classify taboo words related to sex and explain in which context they used them. What he found was that technical terms were preferably used in formal situations and with parents, while sexual obscenities were preferred for same sex crowd or sexual partners. There is also evidence that parents are very uncomfortable with using sexual terms with their sons and daughters, both when they are children and adults.

Another study conducted by Mabry (1974) focused on the modalities of the use of sex-related words, identifying five categories. Two of them included very strong taboo words (one was sexual obscenities and the other personal defaming), while the other three factors could be used in polite company or mass media: technical expressions, latent sexual terms and euphemistic sexual expressions. What emerged from this study was that people tend to use slang, even if it is considered too offensive for formal contexts, because using clinical terms, gives the impression of sounding awkward and too polite.

2.2.1. The F-word

The word f**k, with its many variations, derivates and collocations, is probably the most used expletive in English. Hargrave (2000), in his study of the usage of swearwords in media communication and acceptancy by the general public, places f**k in the third position in the chart of the most severe profanity words. In one of his works, Jay (1992) focuses on the distinction between the connotative and denotative sense of the F-word by analysing an exchange of

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connotative and are very often employed in their non-literal sense. She explains the difference between the literal and non-literal sense of a swear word:

He f**ked her” is a literal or denotative sense, they had sex. “the f**k you are!” is a non-literal use. Nobody is having any kind of sex here, or referring to it. It is simply a vigorous denial. The f-word serves as intensifier, important for the connotation it carries and not for its literal meaning. Our strongest offensive words can almost always be used non-literally. (p. 11)

2.2.2. Etymology of the F-word

The etymology of f**k is uncertain, but the Oxford English dictionary states it is related to other German words such as the word ficken (to f**k) in German,

fokken (to breed, to beget) in Dutch, fukka (to copulate) in dialectal Norwegian,

and also the dialectal Swedish words focka (to strike, to copulate) and fock (penis). These words all possibly come from the Indo-European root fuk which means “to strike”. It could be related to other non-Germanic words such as the Latin pugno (I fight) or pugnus (fist) or fūtuere, another latin verb with the same meaning as f**k. From this last latin word comes French foutre and Italian fottere.

One of the reasons why the word f**k is so difficult to trace etymologically is because there are several urban legends which revolve around this term, and almost all of them reveal a false etymology starting from the acronym of the word. The most famous of these stories traces its origin to Middle Ages, where municipalities tried to control the number of population which was increasing exponentially. Fulfilling the basic needs of the citizens was becoming impossible and resources were insufficient. Therefore, many towns prohibited families to have children without a previous royal consent. Couples then had to obtain this permission from the local magistrate, or whomever instead of the king, and then place a writing on their door which reported “Fornicating Under Consent of King”, later abbreviated with the acronym F.U.C.K.

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Another interesting story, which has later been demonstrated to be an urban legend as the previous one, is the the one that links f**k to the Irish Law. This legislation established that if a couple was caught on act while committing adultery, the would have been publicly humiliated at the stocks with the writing F.U.C.K.I.N. above their heads, acronym of “For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge In the Nude”.

2.2.3. First uses of the F-word

Another motive why it is so difficult to pinpoint the origin of f**k is that it was used far more in speech than in written forms; the first record of the word is the one in the surname of John le Fucker, dated 1028. However, this has been a matter of controversy for many philologists. Recently, researcher and doctor Paul Booth claimed to have found the earliest known use of the word f**k with a sexual connotation in an English court dated back to 1310–11, where a man occurred under the nickname of Roger Fuckebythenavale, name which possibly alluded to his inexperience in the field of sex. The first accepted usage of the term is instead its occurrence in a poem from the 15th century, written in a mixture of English and Latin and satirizes the Carmelite friars of Cambrige. The line which contains the term in question is half coded and reports Non sunt in

coeli, quia gxddbov xxkxzt pg ifmk, but once deciphered it was quia fuccant vvivys of heli, which means “They are not in heaven, because they fuck the

women of Ely” and this is very likely to be a very strong accusation of the monks who often broke their vows of celibacy, and that is also the reason why it is was encoded. The oldest occurrence of the F-word as an adjective was found in a manuscript of 1528 which was a copy of Cicero’s De Officiis, where a margin

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the collocation “don’t give a f**k” appeared a poem written in 1790 by George Tucker who wrote “I'd not give [a fuck] for all you've read”, in which a rude father addresses his intellectual son (Mohr, 2013). Besides the variation feck, which appeared in the English dialect dictionary by Wright (1900) at the beginning of the 20th century, we must wait until 1972 to find the official entry of f**k in a vocabulary, in this case the Oxford English Dictionary.

2.2.4. Modern uses of the F-word and its expletive function

The modern usage of f**k was established in the second half of the 19th century, with the literal meaning “to copulate” and it is still in this period that begins to be used as an expletive. F**k can be used:

 by itself: In this case the exclamation f**k expresses surprise, pain, fear, disgust, disappointment, or anger. It is important to underline that when used in this case, there is no sexual allusion at all to the act of fornication, but it is a rather strong utterance whose nuances vary depending on the context. The sexual connotation is retained especially in exclamations such as “go f**k yourself”, which connect this to the act of masturbation to increase the disgust.

 followed by:

- a demonstrative pronoun (f**k this), - a preposition (f**k off),

- a personal object pronoun (f**k you, f**k me, f**k her) - an object (f**k this book, f**k John)

- other monosyllabic words (f**k no, f**k yes)

2.2.5. Varieties of the F-word

Swearing as a form of social identity: a corpus-based analysis of the American crime/gangster filmic genre

Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION

1. THE ACT OF SWEARING AND EXPLETIVES

2. CLASSIFICATION OF SWEARWORDS