Cover not available
Part of
Emotion in Discourse
Edited by J. Lachlan Mackenzie and Laura Alba-Juez
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 302] 2019
► pp. 29–54

Chapter 2
The multifunctionality of swear/taboo words in television series

| The University of Sydney (Australia) | Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (Germany)
This chapter focuses on swear/taboo words, which can be used for the expression of emotion. It combines a theoretical with an applied lens, in first discussing their place in Systemic Functional Linguistics, before examining their use in contemporary US television series. To do so, the chapter makes use of a new corpus of dialogue transcribed from 66 contemporary TV series: the Sydney Corpus of Television Dialogue (SydTV). SydTV is a small, specialized corpus which has been designed to be representative of the language variety of fictional US American TV dialogue. The analysis of SydTV focuses on the frequency, distribution and functions of swear/taboo words, showing that they are a prime example of the multifunctionality of much television dialogue. As I will illustrate with examples, they can be used for characterization, for humor, as a plot device, as a catch-phrase, to create realism, or to control viewer evaluation/emotion.
Keywords: swear words, taboo words, expletives, appraisal, emotion, affect, TV series, media linguistics
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Swear/taboo words
    • 2.1Terminology and conceptualization
    • 2.2Functions
  • 3.Analyzing swear/taboo words in US TV series
    • 3.1Introducing the Sydney Corpus of Television Dialogue
    • 3.2US rules, regulations, attitudes
  • 4.Analysis
    • 4.1Key swear/taboo words
    • 4.2The multifunctionality of swear/taboo words
      • 4.2.1Creating realism
      • 4.2.2Constructing setting and happenings
      • 4.2.3Characterization
      • 4.2.4Exploitation of the resources of language: humor
  • 5.Concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 27 March 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.302.02bed
References (74)
References
Alba-Juez, Laura & J. Lachlan Mackenzie. This volume. “Emotion Processes in Discourse.”
Allan, Keith & Kate Burridge. 2006. Forbidden Words: Taboo and the Censoring of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2009. “Swearing.” In Comparative Studies in Australian and New Zealand English, ed. by Pam Peters, Peter Collins & Adam Smith, 361‒386. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Alonso, Belmonte Isabel. This volume. “Victims, Heroes and Villains in Newsbites: A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Spanish Eviction Crisis in El País.”
Al-Surmi, Mansoor. 2012. “Authenticity and TV Shows: A Multidimensional Analysis Perspective.” TESOL Quarterly 46 (4): 671‒694. DOI logo.Google Scholar
Anderson, Luvell & Ernie Lepore. 2013. “Slurring Words.” Noûs 47 (1): 25‒48. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Andersson, Lars-Gunnar & Peter Trudgill. 1990. Bad Language. London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Azzaro, Gabriele. 2005. Four-Letter Films: Taboo Language in Movies. Rome: Aracne.Google Scholar
Bednarek, Monika. 2006. Evaluation in Media Discourse: Analysis of a Newspaper Corpus. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
. 2008. Emotion Talk across Corpora. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2009a. “Language Patterns and Attitude.” Functions of Language 16 (2): 165–192. DOI logo.Google Scholar
. 2009b. “Polyphony in Appraisal: Typological and Topological Perspectives.” Linguistics and the Human Sciences 3 (2): 107‒136. DOI logo.Google Scholar
. 2010. The Language of Fictional Television: Drama and Identity. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
. 2011. “Expressivity and Televisual Characterisation.” Language and Literature 20 (1): 3‒21. DOI logo.Google Scholar
. 2012. “‘Get Us the Hell Out of Here’: Key Words and Trigrams in Fictional Television Series.” International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 17 (1): 35‒63. DOI logo.Google Scholar
. 2015a. “Corpus-Assisted Multimodal Discourse Analysis of Television and Film Narratives.” In Corpora and Discourse Studies, ed. by Paul Baker & Tony McEnery, 63–87. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2015b. “‘Wicked’ Women in Contemporary Pop Culture: ‘Bad’ Language and Gender in Weeds, Nurse Jackie and Saving Grace.” Text & Talk 35 (4): 431‒451. DOI logo.Google Scholar
. 2017. “The Role of Dialogue in Fiction.” In Pragmatics of Fiction, ed. by Miriam Locher & Andreas H. Jucker, 129‒158. Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2018. Language and Television Series. A Linguistic Approach to TV Dialogue. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
. Under review. “‘Don’t Say Crap. Don’t Use Swear Words.’ – Negotiating the Use of Swear/Taboo Words in the Narrative Mass Media.”
Beers Fägersten, Kristy. 2012. Who’s Swearing Now? The Social Aspects of Conversational Swearing. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Google Scholar
Benítez-Castro, Miguel Ángel & Encarnación Hidalgo-Tenorio. This volume. “Rethinking Martin & White’s affect Taxonomy: A Psychologically-Inspired Approach to the Linguistic Expression of Emotion.”
Bennett, Tara. 2014. Showrunners: The Art of Running a TV Show. London: Titan Books. Kindle Edition.Google Scholar
Biber, Douglas, Stig Johansson, Geoffrey Leech, Susan Conrad & Edward Finegan. 1999. Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Blakemore, Diane. 2015. “Slurs and Expletives: A Case against a General Account of Expressive Meaning.” Language Sciences 52: 22–35. DOI logo.Google Scholar
Bleichenbacher, Lukas. 2008. Multilingualism in the Movies. Hollywood Characters and Their Language Choices. Tübingen: Francke.Google Scholar
Brock, Alexander. 2011. “Bumcivilian: Systemic Aspects of Humorous Communication in Comedies.” In Telecinematic Discourse: Approaches to the Language of Films and Television Series, ed. by Roberta Piazza, Monika Bednarek & Fabio Rossi, 263–280. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Culpeper, Jonathan. 2001. Language and Characterisation: People in Plays and Other Texts. Harlow: Longman.Google Scholar
Dewaele, Jean-Marc. 2004. “The Emotional Force of Swearwords and Taboo Words in the Speech of Multilinguals.” Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 25 (2–3): 204‒222. DOI logo.Google Scholar
. 2015. “British ‘Bollocks’ versus American ‘Jerk’: Do Native British English Speakers Swear More ‒ or Differently ‒ Compared to American English Speakers?” Applied Linguistic Review 6 (3): 309–339. DOI logo.Google Scholar
. 2016. “Thirty Shades of Offensiveness: L1 and LX English Users’ Understanding, Perception and Self-Reported Use of Negative Emotion-Laden Words.” Journal of Pragmatics 94: 112‒127. DOI logo.Google Scholar
. 2017. “Glimpses of Semantic Restructuring of English Emotion-Laden Words of American English L1 Users Residing Outside the USA.” Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism (online first). DOI logo.Google Scholar
Douglas, Pamela. 2011. Writing the TV Drama Series: How to Succeed as a Professional Writer in TV. 3rd Ed. Studio City, CA: Michael Wiese Productions.Google Scholar
Downing, Angela & Elena Martínez Caro. This volume. “Interjections and Emotions: The Case of gosh.”
Eggins, Suzanne & Diana Slade. 1997. Analysing Casual Conversation. London: Cassell.Google Scholar
Goddard, Cliff. 2015. “‘Swear Words’ and ‘Curse Words’ in Australian (and American) English: At the Crossroads of Pragmatics, Semantics and Sociolinguistics.” Intercultural Pragmatics 12 (2): 189‒218. DOI logo.Google Scholar
Halliday, M. A. K. & Christian M. I. M. Matthiessen. 2004. An Introduction to Functional Grammar. 3rd ed. London: Arnold.Google Scholar
. 2014. Halliday’s Introduction to Functional Grammar. 4th ed. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hoeksema, Jack & Donna Jo Napoli. 2008. “Just for the Hell of It: A Comparison of Two Taboo-Term Constructions.” Journal of Linguistics 44 (2): 347–378. DOI logo.Google Scholar
Hood, Susan & James R. Martin. 2007. “Invoking Attitude: The Play of Graduation in Appraising Discourse.” In Continuing Discourse on Language: A Functional Perspective, ed. by Ruqaiya Hasan, Christian M. I. M. Matthiessen & Jonathan Webster, 739‒764. London: Equinox.Google Scholar
Jay, Timothy. 2000. Why We Curse: A Neuro-Psycho-Social Theory of Speech. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Jay, Timothy & Kristen Janschewitz. 2008. “The Pragmatics of Swearing.” Journal of Politeness Research 4 (2): 267‒288. DOI logo.Google Scholar
Jay, Kristen & Timothy 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): 459‒475. DOI logo.Google Scholar
Kozloff, Sarah. 2000. Overhearing Film Dialogue. Ewing, NJ: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Lawson, Mark. 2007. “Mark Lawson Talks to David Chase.” In Quality TV: Contemporary American Television and Beyond, ed. by Janet McCabe & Kim Akass, 185–221. London: I.B. Tauris.Google Scholar
Lutzky, Ursula & Andrew Kehoe. 2016. “Your Blog is (the) Shit: A Corpus Linguistic Approach to the Identification of Swearing in Computer Mediated Communication.” International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 21 (2): 165–191. DOI logo.Google Scholar
Mackenzie, J. Lachlan. This volume. “The Syntax of an Emotional Expletive in English.”
Mandala, Susan. 2010. The Question of Style: Language in Science Fiction and Fantasy. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Martin, James R. 2000. “Beyond Exchange: Appraisal Systems in English.” In Evaluation in Text. Authorial Stance and the Construction of Discourse, ed. by Susan Hunston & Geoff Thompson, 142‒175. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
2010. “Semantic Variation ‒ Modelling Realization, Instantiation and Individuation in Social Semiosis.” In New Discourse on Language: Functional Perspectives on Multimodality, Identity, and Affiliation, ed. by Monika Bednarek & James R. Martin, 1‒34. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Martin, James R. & Peter R. R. White. 2005. The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McCabe, Janet & Kim Akass (eds.). 2007. Quality TV: Contemporary American Television and Beyond. London: I.B. Tauris.Google Scholar
McEnery, Anthony. 2006. Swearing in English: Bad Language, Purity and Power from 1586 to the Present. Abingdon: Routledge.Google Scholar
McEnery, Anthony, John Paul Baker & Andrew Hardie. 2000. “Assessing Claims about Language Use with Corpus Data – Swearing and Abuse.” In Corpora Galore: Analyses and Techniques in Describing English, ed. by John M. Kirk, 44‒55. Amsterdam/Atlanta: Rodopi.Google Scholar
McMillan, James B. 1980. “Infixing and Interposing in English.” American Speech 55 (3): 163‒183. DOI logo.Google Scholar
Mittmann, Brigitta. 2006. “With a Little Help from Friends (and Others): Lexico-Pragmatic Characteristics of Original and Dubbed Film Dialogue.” In: Anglistentag 2005, Bamberg – Proceedings, ed. by Christoph Houswitschka, Gabriele Knappe & Anja Müller, 573–585. Trier: WVT.Google Scholar
Oatley, Keith. 2002. “Emotions and the Story Worlds of Fiction.” In Narrative Impact: Social and Cognitive Foundations, ed. by Melanie C. Green, Jeffrey J. Strange & Timothy C. Brook, 39‒69. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Ofcom (Office of Communications). 2005. “Language and Sexual Imagery in Broadcasting: A Contextual Investigation.” Research study by the Fuse Group for Ofcom. Accessed August 29th, 2017. [URL]
. 2010. “Audience Attitudes towards Offensive Language on Television and Radio.” Research study by Synovate UK for Ofcom. Accessed August 29th, 2017. [URL]
Perek, Florent. 2016. “Using Distributional Semantics to Study Syntactic Productivity in Diachrony: A Case Study.” Linguistics 54 (1): 149–188. DOI logo.Google Scholar
Potts, Christopher. 2007. “The Expressive Dimension.” Theoretical Linguistics 33 (2): 165‒198. DOI logo.Google Scholar
Price, Jack. 2015. ‘Oh Jesus Christ!’ The Use of Bad Language in Contemporary American Television Series. Honours thesis, Department of Linguistics, University of Sydney.Google Scholar
Priggé, Steven. 2005. Created by … Inside the Minds of TV’s Top Show Creators. Los Angeles: Silman-James Press.Google Scholar
Quaglio, Paulo. 2008. “Television Dialogue and Natural Conversation: Linguistic Similarities and Functional Differences.” In Corpora and Discourse: The Challenges of Different Settings, ed. by Annelie Ädel & Randi Reppen, 189–210. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2009. Television Dialogue: The Sitcom Friends vs. Natural Conversation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Queen, Robin. 2015. Vox Popular: The Surprising Life of Language in the Media. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Richardson, Kay. 2010. Television Dramatic Dialogue. A Sociolinguistic Study. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Scott, Mike. 2017. WordSmith Tools Version 7. Stroud: Lexical Analysis Software.Google Scholar
Scott, Mike & Christopher Tribble. 2006. Textual Patterns: Key Words and Corpus Analysis in Language Education. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stapleton, Karyn. 2003. “Gender and Swearing: A Community Practice.” Women and Language 26 (2): 22‒33.Google Scholar
. 2010. “Swearing.” In Interpersonal Pragmatics, ed. by Miriam A. Locher & Sage L. Graham, 289‒306. Vol. 6 of Handbooks of Pragmatics, ed. by Wolfram Bublitz, Andreas H. Jucker & Klaus P. Schneider. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Thelwall, Mike. 2008. “Fk Yea I Swear: Cursing and Gender in MySpace.” Corpora 3 (1): 83–107. DOI logo.Google Scholar
Walshe, Shane. 2011. “‘Normal People Like Us Don’t Use That Type of Language. Remember This is the Real World’. The Language of Father Ted: Representations of Irish English in a Fictional World.” Sociolinguistic Studies 5 (1): 127–148. DOI logo.Google Scholar
Wharton, Tim. 2016. “That Bloody So-and-So Has Retired: Expressives Revisited.” Lingua 175–176: 20‒35. DOI logo.Google Scholar
Cited by (19)

Cited by 19 other publications

Abdel-Raheem, Ahmed
2024. The “menstruating” Muslim Brotherhood: taboo metaphor, face attack, and gender in Egyptian culture. Social Semiotics 34:2 ► pp. 151 ff. DOI logo
Abdel-Raheem, Ahmed
2024. Taboo metaphtonymy, gender, and impoliteness: how male and female Arab cartoonists think and draw. Social Semiotics 34:3 ► pp. 331 ff. DOI logo
Enghels, Renata & Linde Roels
2024. Chapter 2. The apparent-time construct as a proxy to spoken conversational data in the 20th century. In Language Change in the 20th Century [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 340], ► pp. 63 ff. DOI logo
Sahari, Yousef
2024. Subtitling the f-word into Arabic in Hollywood films: a corpus-based study. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 11:1 DOI logo
Sahari, Yousef, Mutahar Qassem, Eisa Ahmad S. Asiri, Ibrahim Alasmri & Ahmad Assiri
2024. A corpus-based study of subtitling religious swear words from English into Arabic. FORUM. Revue internationale d’interprétation et de traduction / International Journal of Interpretation and Translation 22:2 ► pp. 251 ff. DOI logo
Lazzeretti, Cecilia & Maria Cristina Gatti
2023. Dialogic interaction between player and non-player characters in animal crossing. Language and Dialogue 13:1 ► pp. 81 ff. DOI logo
Neveux, Julie
2023.  I fucking love you! Emotional address in Fleabag, or how viewers’ empathy becomes voyeurism. Journal of Literary Semantics 52:2 ► pp. 213 ff. DOI logo
Vergis, Nikos
2023. How affect modulates conversational meanings: a review of experimental research: invited review. Cognition and Emotion ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
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. DOI logo
Mohammadi, Ariana N.
2022. Swearing in a second language: the role of emotions and perceptions. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 43:7 ► pp. 629 ff. DOI logo
Pavesi, Maria & Pablo Zamora
2022. The reception of swearing in film dubbing: a cross-cultural case study. Perspectives 30:3 ► pp. 382 ff. DOI logo
Xavier, Catarina
2022. On norms and taboo. Target. International Journal of Translation Studies 34:1 ► pp. 67 ff. DOI logo
Xavier, Catarina
2022. A three-layered typology for the subtitling of taboo. Babel. Revue internationale de la traduction / International Journal of Translation 68:4 ► pp. 586 ff. DOI logo
Xavier, Catarina
2024. A corpus and questionnaire-based study of textual variables in the subtitling of taboo. Perspectives ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Alba-Juez, Laura
2021. Affect and Emotion. In The Cambridge Handbook of Sociopragmatics, ► pp. 340 ff. DOI logo
Werner, Valentin
2021. A diachronic perspective on telecinematic language. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 26:1 ► pp. 38 ff. DOI logo
Bednarek, Monika
2019. On swearing. In Creating Dialogue for TV, ► pp. 44 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2021. Topics and Settings in Sociopragmatics. In The Cambridge Handbook of Sociopragmatics, ► pp. 247 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2023. Language and Characterisation in Television Series [Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 106], DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 27 october 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.