Why We Curse

A neuro-psycho-social theory of speech

Author

Timothy Jay | Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, North Adams, Massachusetts

Hardbound – Available

ISBN 9789027221865 (Eur) | EUR 39.00

ISBN 9781556197581 (USA) | USD 35.00

e-Book –

ISBN 9789027298485 | EUR 39.00 | USD 35.00

Psychiatrists, psychologists, neurologists, linguists and speech pathologists currently have no coherent theory to explain why we curse and why we choose the words we do when we curse. The Neuro-Psycho-Social Theory of Speech draws together information about cursing from different disciplines and unites them to explain and describe the psychological, neurological, cultural and linguistic factors that underlie this startling phenomenon.
Why We Curse is divided into five parts. Part 1 introduces the dimensions and scope of cursing and outlines the NPS Theory, while Part 2 covers neurological variables and offers evidence for right brain dominance during emotional speech events. Part 3 then focuses on psychological development including language acquisition, personality development, cognition and so forth, while Part 4 covers the wide variety of social and cultural forces that define curse words and restrict their usage. Finally, Part 5 concludes by examining the social and legal implications of cursing, treating misconceptions about cursing, and setting the agenda for future research.
The work draws on new research by Dr. Jay and others and continues the research reported in his groundbreaking 1992 volume Cursing in America. A psycholinguistic study of dirty language in the courts, in the movies, in the schoolyards and on the streets.

[Not in series, 91] 2000. xv, 328 pp.

Publishing status: Available

https://doi.org/10.1075/z.91

Table of Contents

I. Introduction to the Study of Cursing

1. Tourette Syndrome and Coprolalia: The Need for a Theory | p. 3

2. Psycholinguistics and Cursing | p. 9

3. The Neuro-Psycho-Social (NPS) Theory of Cursing | p. 19

4. Postulates of the NPS Theory | p. 25

II. Neurological Factors Underlying Cursing

5. Propositional Speech, Nonpropositional Speech, and the Right Cerebral Hemisphere | p. 33

6. Emotional Speech and the Emotional Brain | p. 45

7. Anger and Verbal Aggression | p. 55

8. Coprolalia and Mental Disorders | p. 63

9. Neurological Control of Cursing | p. 73

III. Psychological Factors Underlying Cursing

10. Psychological Aspects of Cursing | p. 81

11. Language, Acquisition and Cognitive Growth | p. 91

12. Memory and Awareness of Cursing | p. 99

13. Personality, Religiosity, and Sexual Anxiety | p. 107

14. Speech Habits and Social Learning | p. 115

15. The Sexual Lexicon | p. 123

16. Syntax and Sematics | p. 135

IV. Social and Cultural Factors Underlying Cursing

17. Pragmatics and Cultural Contexts | p. 147

18. Speaker Power | p. 157

19. Gender Identity | p. 165

20. Slang | p. 173

21. Humor Elicitation | p. 181

22. Religion, Taboo Speech, and Word Magic | p. 189

23. Scatology and the Language of Disgust | p. 199

24. Customary Restrictions: From Etiquette to Law | p. 205

25. Evolving Language Standards | p. 215

26. Tourette Syndrome: Cross-Cultural Comparisons | p. 235

V. Why Do We Swear? Why Do We Choose the Words We Do?

27. Social and Legal Issues Involving Cursing | p. 247

28. Ignorance, Misinformation, and Fallacies about Cursing | p. 254

29. Future of Cursing Research | p. 269

Index | p. 319

“[...] a book which will do much to inspire further investigations into emotional uses and effects of language [...]”

Dr. Francisco Gomes de Matos, Federal University of Pernambuco, Brazil

“[...] this is an excellent contribution to the study of offensive language, bringing together a variety of perspectives and a vast amount of research.”

Edwin Battistella, Southern Oregon University

Cited by

Cited by 59 other publications

Order by:

Alanazi, Saad Awadh

2019. Toward Identifying Features for Automatic Gender Detection: A Corpus Creation and Analysis. IEEE Access 7 ► pp. 111931 ff.

Allan, Keith

2023. The Pleasure and Pain in Taboo Exploitation. Languages 8:3 ► pp. 208 ff.

Amaral, Patrícia

2018. Expressive meaning. In Handbuch Pragmatik, ► pp. 325 ff.

Ashenafi, Tesfaye

2023. Cursing expressions in Rayya Tigrinya: Semantic and pragmatic aspects. Cogent Arts & Humanities 10:1

Aziz, Zulfadli Abdul, Yunisrina Qismullah Yusuf, Burhansyah Burhansyah & Meutia Muzammil

2020. To Say or not to Say? Construing Contextual Taboo Words Used by Acehnese Speakers in Indonesia. Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics 14:2 ► pp. 83 ff.

Baines, Roger

2016. Subtitling Taboo Language: Using the Cues of Register and Genre to Affect Audience Experience?. Meta 60:3 ► pp. 431 ff.

Bakhtiar, Mohsen

2016. “Pour water where it burns”. Metaphor and the Social World 6:1 ► pp. 103 ff.

Baruch, Yehuda & Stuart Jenkins

2007. Swearing at work and permissive leadership culture. Leadership & Organization Development Journal 28:6 ► pp. 492 ff.

Batchelder-Schwab, Andre

2023. Truncation, affection, and pain in Southern Bantu. Linguistique et langues africaines :9(1)

Beers Fägersten, Kristy & Gerardine M. Pereira

2021. Swear words for sale. Pragmatics and Society 12:1 ► pp. 79 ff.

Beers Fägersten, Kristy & Karyn Stapleton

2017. Introduction. In Advances in Swearing Research [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 282], ► pp. 1 ff.

Beers Fägersten, Kristy & Karyn Stapleton

2022. Swearing. In Handbook of Pragmatics [Handbook of Pragmatics, ], ► pp. 129 ff.

Bozsik, Tamara

2023. A verbális agresszió megnyilvánulási formái politikai tartalmú Facebook-kommentekben. Jelentés és Nyelvhasználat 10:1 ► pp. 57 ff.

Briechle, Lucia & Eva Duran Eppler

2019. Swearword strength in subtitled and dubbed films: A reception study . Intercultural Pragmatics 16:4 ► pp. 389 ff.

Broderick, Tyler, Maura Pilotti & Anastacia Sena-Jaramillo

2014. Is the Emotional Memory Effect Sensitive to Encoding Instructions and the Passage of Time?. The American Journal of Psychology 127:1 ► pp. 63 ff.

Bączkowska, Anna

2021. “You’re too thick to change the station” – Impoliteness, insults and responses to insults on Twitter. Topics in Linguistics 22:2 ► pp. 62 ff.

Cambridge, Jan, Swaran Singh & Mark R. D. Johnson

2020. The Challenges of Interpreting in Psychotherapy. In Intercultural Psychotherapy, ► pp. 317 ff.

Cipolotti, Lisa, Tianbo Xu, Bronson Harry, Joe Mole, Grace Lakey, Tim Shallice, Edgar Chan & Parashkev Nachev

2021. Multi-model mapping of phonemic fluency. Brain Communications 3:4

Crespo-Fernández, Eliecer

2022. Euphemism in laxative TV commercials: at the crossroads between politeness and persuasion. Journal of Politeness Research 18:1 ► pp. 11 ff.

Culpeper, Jonathan

2013. Impoliteness. In Handbook of Pragmatics, ► pp. 1 ff.

de Vries, Bouke

2023. Is swearing morally innocent?. Ratio 36:2 ► pp. 159 ff.

Dewaele, Jean-Marc

2015. British ‘Bollocks’ versus American ‘Jerk’: Do native British English speakers swear more – or differently – compared to American English speakers?. Applied Linguistics Review 6:3 ► pp. 309 ff.

Fägersten, Kristy Beers & Monika Bednarek

2022. The evolution of swearing in television catchphrases. Language and Literature: International Journal of Stylistics 31:2 ► pp. 196 ff.

Gorro, Kim D., Mary Jane G. Sabellano, Ken Gorro, Christian Maderazo & Kris Capao

2018. 2018 3rd International Conference on Computer and Communication Systems (ICCCS), ► pp. 183 ff.

Hansen, Samuel J, Katie L McMahon & Greig I de Zubicaray

2019. The neurobiology of taboo language processing: fMRI evidence during spoken word production. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience 14:3 ► pp. 271 ff.

Husain, Waqar, Samia Wasif, Insha Fatima & Janusz K. Rybakowski

2023. Profanity as a Self-Defense Mechanism and an Outlet for Emotional Catharsis in Stress, Anxiety, and Depression. Depression Research and Treatment 2023 ► pp. 1 ff.

Jacobs, Maarten, Ilja van Beest & Richard Stephens

2019. Taboo gesticulations as a response to pain. Scandinavian Journal of Pain 19:2 ► pp. 397 ff.

Jay, Kristin L. & Timothy B. Jay

2013. A Child’s Garden of Curses: A Gender, Historical, and Age-Related Evaluation of the Taboo Lexicon. The American Journal of Psychology 126:4 ► pp. 459 ff.

Johnson, Danette Ifert

2012. Swearing by Peers in the Work Setting: Expectancy Violation Valence, Perceptions of Message, and Perceptions of Speaker. Communication Studies 63:2 ► pp. 136 ff.

Jonason, Peter K., Gabrielle L. Betteridge & Ian I. Kneebone

2016. An Examination of the Nature of Erotic Talk. Archives of Sexual Behavior 45:1 ► pp. 21 ff.

Kennison, Shelia M. & Maria Andrea Hurtado Morales

2024. The relationships among sleep quality, humor styles, and use of curse words. Current Psychology

Ko, Lu-Yen

2023. The usage of Sinographs in relational communication about ethnic Chinese identities on YouTube. International Review of Pragmatics 15:2 ► pp. 309 ff.

Krysanova, Tetiana & Oleksandra Herezhun

2023. Multimodal meaning-making of aggression in English song narrative: A cognitive-pragmatic perspective. Cognition, Communication, Discourse :26 ► pp. 83 ff.

Lagorgette, Dominique & Pierre Larrivée

2004. Introduction. Langue française n° 144:4 ► pp. 3 ff.

Leończyk, Aleksandra

2016. The role of language proficiency in the perception of L2 taboo words by late bilingual speakers. EUROSLA Yearbook 16 ► pp. 25 ff.

Lu, Siwen

2024. More than words: a multimodal analytical framework for studying the subtitling of swearwords. Perspectives 32:1 ► pp. 14 ff.

Lyons, Mireya, Zack Carter, Hayden McCaw, Constance Jones, Michael Botwin, Jana L. Price-Sharps & Matthew J. Sharps

2023. The Context of Officer-Involved Shootings: Suspect Weapon Factors in Public Judgment of an OIS. Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology

Manfredi, Marina & Chiara Bartolini

2023. Multilingual and Multi-Generational Italian Identity in a Netflix Series: Subtitling Generazione 56k (2021) into English. Íkala, Revista de Lenguaje y Cultura 28:2 ► pp. 1 ff.

Martaindale, M. Hunter, William L. Sandel, Aaron Duron & J. Pete Blair

2023.

#%$!: The Impact of Officer Profanity on Civilians’ Perception of What Constitutes Reasonable Use of Force. Police Quarterly 26:2 ► pp. 194 ff.

Murphy, Bróna

2009. ‘She's afuckingticket’: the pragmatics offuckin Irish English – an age and gender perspective. Corpora 4:1 ► pp. 85 ff.

Nganga, Simon Wanjala

2023. Creative uses of language to invoke sex-related taboos in Churchill Raw comedy shows. The European Journal of Humour Research 11:2 ► pp. 88 ff.

Nodoushan, Mohammad Ali Salmani

2016. On the functions of swearing in Persian. Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict 4:2 ► pp. 234 ff.

Ochieng Orwenjo, Daniel & Cellyne A. Anudo

2016. A cognitive linguistic approach to Dholuo sexual euphemisms and dysphemisms. Cognitive Linguistic Studies 3:2 ► pp. 316 ff.

Pamungkas, Endang Wahyu, Valerio Basile & Viviana Patti

2023. Investigating the role of swear words in abusive language detection tasks. Language Resources and Evaluation 57:1 ► pp. 155 ff.

Pluszczyk, Adam & Artur Świątek

2023. Linguistic mechanisms as a source of humour in selected verbal jokes: . Językoznawstwo :2/19 ► pp. 235 ff.

Sharps, Matthew J., Hayden McCaw, Crystal Hill & Jana Price-Sharps

2023. The Context of Officer-Involved Shootings: Violent History and Language Use in Public Judgments of an OIS. Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology 38:3 ► pp. 639 ff.

Sharps, Matthew J., Jaime F. Torkelson, David L. Hulett, Megan L. Kuhn & Clarissa N. Sevillano

2019. Police Profanity and Public Judgments of Guilt and Effectiveness in Officer-Involved Shootings. Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology 34:1 ► pp. 87 ff.

Stone, Teresa & Lyn Francis

2010. What’s the bloody law on this? Nurses, swearing, and the law in New South Wales, Australia. Contemporary Nurse 34:2 ► pp. 248 ff.

Stone, Teresa, Margaret McMillan, Michael Hazelton & Edward H. Clayton

2011. Wounding Words: Swearing and Verbal Aggression in an Inpatient Setting. Perspectives in Psychiatric Care 47:4 ► pp. 194 ff.

Stone, Teresa E. & Mike Hazelton

2008. An overview of swearing and its impact on mental health nursing practice. International Journal of Mental Health Nursing 17:3 ► pp. 208 ff.

Thelwall, Mike

2008. Fk yea I swear: cursing and gender in MySpace. Corpora 3:1 ► pp. 83 ff.

Thelwall, Mike

2009. MySpace comments. Online Information Review 33:1 ► pp. 58 ff.

Thieffry, Lola, Giulia Olyff, Lea Pioda, Sandrine Detandt & Ariane Bazan

2023. Running away from phonological ambiguity, we stumble upon our words: Laboratory induced slips show differences between highly and lowly defensive people. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 17

Vyshedskiy, Andrey

2022. Language evolution is not limited to speech acquisition: a large study of language development in children with language deficits highlights the importance of the voluntary imagination component of language. Research Ideas and Outcomes 8

Wagner-Altendorf, Tobias A., Veit Roessner & Thomas F. Münte

2019. Swearing, Cursing, Coprophenomena. Zeitschrift für Neuropsychologie 30:4 ► pp. 250 ff.

Wene, Imelda Woa & Ouda Teda Ena

2020. CURSING, SEXUAL HARASSMENT, PROFANITY, OBSCENITY AND EPITHET IN DALLAS BUYERS CLUB MOVIE. JOALL (Journal of Applied Linguistics & Literature) 5:1 ► pp. 71 ff.

Wilson, Nick & Joshua Wedlock

2023. Swearing as a Leadership Tool. English World-Wide. A Journal of Varieties of English 44:3 ► pp. 323 ff.

ÇİÇEK, Ahmet & Mustafa YAĞBASAN

2019. Küfür ve Argonun Gündelik İletişimdeki Yeri (Üniversite Öğrencileri Özelinde Bir Alan Araştırması). Akdeniz Üniversitesi İletişim Fakültesi Dergisi :32 ► pp. 13 ff.

[no author supplied]

2024. The Anatomy of Polish Offensive Words [IMPACT: Studies in Language, Culture and Society, 53],

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 18 march 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Subjects