Alle Publikationen
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2017
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(2017): The Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television. Increases in the Use of Swear Words in American Books, 1950-2008. In: SAGE Open 7 (3). DOI: 10.1177/2158244017723689
Abstract: Evidence is accumulating that American culture has become more individualistic since the 1950s. In the present research, we focused on one plausible manifestation of individualism, the use of swear words in cultural products. We examined trends in the use of the seven words identified by George Carlin in 1972 as the seven words you can never say on television in the Google Books corpus of American English books from 1950 to 2008. We find a steady linear increase in the use of swear words, with books published in 2005-2008 twenty-eight times more likely to include swear words than books published in the early 1950s. Increases for individual swear words ranged from 4 to 678 times (ds = 6.58-45.42). These results suggest that American culture has become increasingly accepting of the expression of taboo words, consistent with higher cultural individualism.
2015
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(2015): “Swear words” and “curse words” in Australian (and American) English. At the crossroads of pragmatics, semantics and sociolinguistics. In: Intercultural Pragmatics 12 (2). DOI: 10.1515/ip-2015-0010
Abstract: This study seeks to show that Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) analytical techniques allow an integrated semantic-pragmatic approach to the use of "swear words" and "curse (cuss) words". The paper begins with a semantic exegesis of the lexical items swear word and curse word. This is helpful to delimit and conceptualize the phenomena being studied, and it also hints at some interesting differences between the speech cultures of Australian English and American English. Subsequent sections propose semantic explications for a string of swear/curse words and expressions as used in Australian English, including: exclamations (Shit! Fuck! Damn! Christ! Jesus!), abuse formulas (Fuck you!, Damn you!), interrogative and imperative formulas (e.g. Who the fuck do you think you are?; Get the hell out of here!), and the free use of expressive adjectives, such as fucking and goddamn, in angry swearing. A novel aspect, with interesting implications for the relationship between semantics and pragmatics, is that the explications incorporate a metalexical awareness section, modelling speaker awareness of the ethnometapragmatic status of the word in the community of discourse. The study goes on to address so-called "social/conversational" swearing. I propose cultural scripts to capture some Anglo ethnopragmatic assumptions about how the use of swear/curse words can be affected by perceptions of familiarity, solidarity, and mutuality. Differences between Australian English and American English are discussed at various points.
Keywords: Art der Beziehung zum Interaktionspartner, Bekanntheitsgrad, Beleidigungen/swearwords etc., Kultur, mutuality, Relevenz von persönlichem Bekanntheitsgrad beim Benutzen von Schimpfwörtern, social/conversational swearing, Solidarität, Soziale Distanz, Sprachgebrauch, time, Verwendung von grober Sprache/incivility 2013
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(2013): Does It Matter Where You Read the News Story?. Interaction of Incivility and News Frames in the Political Blogosphere. In: Communication Research 41 (6), S. 809-827. DOI: 10.1177/0093650212449353
Abstract: The political blogosphere is replete with uncivil discussions and is apt to examine the influence of incivility on news frames. The present study brings in literature from incivility and framing effects and uses two experiments to examine the influence of incivility on news frames for democratic outcomes such as willingness to participate, online participation, openmindedness, and attitude certainty. Primary findings indicate the detrimental effects of incivility causing less openmindedness and more attitude certainty. At the same time, incivility causes more willingness to participate and online participation. More importantly, the findings demonstrate how incivility interacts with news frames. Implications for news framing effects in the social media landscape are discussed.
Keywords: doppelter Treffer, Good manners, Höflichkeit, Impoliteness, Informations- & Kommunikationstechnik, Intellektualtechnik, Kogn. Architektur, Literatur/Zeitschriften/Medien, Mensch-Technik-Relationen (MTR), news, News framing, news-frame, Realtechnik, Situationsbedingter Kontext, social media, Soziale Angemessenheit, soziale Medien, Sprachgebrauch, Technik, Verwendung von grober Sprache/incivility -
(2013): Foreign-language users confronting anti-normative politeness in a Mexican university. In: Intercultural Pragmatics 10 (1), S. 101-130. DOI: 10.1515/ip-2013-0004
Abstract: When foreign-language learners abandon the relative safety of the classroom and confront actual language use, they face decisions regarding how they wish to participate in a given target-language group. They may find that different interactional patterns and practices reflect a community's norms and how its members come across: Interactants may employ, for instance, seemingly impolite words and expressions in inoffensive ways. Although this phenomenon has been categorized as mock impoliteness, I will adopt the term anti-normative politeness (adapted from Zimmerman 2003) since interactants are ultimately engaging in polite rather than impolite practices. The foreign-language user's decision as to whether to engage in such practices will depend to a large extent on pragmalinguistic and sociopragmatic understandings and how she wants to come across - and is allowed to come across in the target language. In this paper, I examine how French and German exchange students at a Mexican university approached and confronted the use of the normally insulting word guey, which seems to have become more and more prevalent in Mexican society. Findings indicate that foreign-language learners of Spanish understand the friendly intention underscoring the use of anti-normative politeness but fail to fully appreciate "positive politeness" (Brown and Levinson 1987) such a key feature of Mexican interpersonal language use.
2008
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(2008): The pragmatics of swearing. In: Journal of Politeness Research. Language, Behaviour, Culture 4 (2). DOI: 10.1515/JPLR.2008.013
Abstract: The main purpose of swearing is to express emotions, especially anger and frustration. Swear words are well suited to express emotion as their primary meanings are connotative. The emotional impact of swearing depends on ones experience with a culture and its language conventions. A cognitive psychological framework is used to account for swearing in a variety of contexts and provide a link to impoliteness research. In support of this framework, native and non-native English-speaking college students rated the offensiveness and likelihood of hypothetical scenarios involving taboo words. The ratings demonstrated that appropriateness of swearing is highly contextually variable, dependent on speaker-listener relationship, social-physical context, and particular word used. Additionally, offensiveness ratings were shown to depend on gender (for native speakers) and English experience (for non-native speakers). Collectively these data support the idea that it takes time for speakers to learn where, when, and with whom swearing is appropriate.
Keywords: Bekanntheitsgrad, Beleidigungen/swearwords etc., Contextual variability of swearing appropriateness, Favoriten, Genderabhängigkeit, (Individueller) Sprachstil, Konventionen, Kultur, Muttersprachler vs. Zweitsprachler, Relevenz von persönlichem Bekanntheitsgrad beim Benutzen von Schimpfwörtern, Situationsbedingter Kontext, Sprachgebrauch, time, Verwendung von grober Sprache/incivility
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