Article published In:
Language Variation and Change: Historical and contemporary perspectivesEdited by Clare Mar-Molinero and Miranda Stewart
[Spanish in Context 3:1] 2006
► pp. 115–138
Edited by Clare Mar-Molinero and Miranda Stewart
[Spanish in Context 3:1] 2006
► pp. 115–138
Taboo words in teenage talk
London and Madrid girls’ conversations compared
This paper reports on a corpus-based comparison of the use of taboo words amongst middle/upper class teenage girls in London and Madrid. Two corpora of spontaneous conversation were used for the comparison; these showed that the most frequent words used by both groups had sexual reference, followed by words to do with bodily functions. It also pointed to a higher frequency of taboo words in the London girls’ conversations, while the Madrid girls had a slightly higher preference for sexual words.
The qualitative part of the study, which deals with the reasons for teenagers’ use of taboo words and with their various functions in the discourse, reveals that special emphasis is put on phatic use.
Keywords: functions, phatic use, acceptability, taboo, teenagers, corpora, frequency, domains
Cited by (29)
Cited by 29 other publications
Koreinik, Kadri, Aive Mandel, Maarja-Liisa Pilvik, Kristiina Praakli & Virve-Anneli Vihman
2024. Outsourcing teenage language: a participatory approach for exploring speech and text messaging. Linguistics Vanguard 9:s4 ► pp. 389 ff. 
Valdeón, Roberto A.
2024. The vulgarization hypothesis and the translation of swearwords by male and female translators in AVT in Spain. Journal of Pragmatics 219 ► pp. 1 ff.
Love, Robbie & Anna-Brita Stenstrom
2023. Corpus-pragmatic perspectives on the contemporary weakening of fuck: The case of teenage British English conversation. Journal of Pragmatics 216 ► pp. 167 ff.
McEnery, Tony, Gavin Brookes, Elizabeth Hanks, Kevin Gerigk & Jesse Egbert
2023. Swearing, discourse and function in conversational British English. Journal of Pragmatics 213 ► pp. 36 ff.
Peace, Meghann M.
2023. “A mí no me gusta España mucho” vs.“Yo quiero ir a toda España, me encanta
España”. Study Abroad Research in Second Language Acquisition and International Education 8:2 ► pp. 197 ff.
Stapleton, Karyn & Kristy Beers Fägersten
2023. Editorial: Swearing and interpersonal pragmatics. Journal of Pragmatics 218 ► pp. 147 ff.
Maíz-Arévalo, Carmen
2022. Book review. Journal of Pragmatics 200 ► pp. 184 ff.
Stapleton, Karyn., Kristy. Beers Fägersten, Richard. Stephens & Catherine. Loveday
2022. The power of swearing: What we know and what we don’t. Lingua 277 ► pp. 103406 ff.
Stenström, Anna-Brita & Annette Myre Jørgensen
2022. A matter of politeness? A contrastive study of phatic talk in teenage conversation. Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA) ► pp. 635 ff.
Beers Fägersten, Kristy & Gerardine M. Pereira
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.
Love, Robbie
2021. Swearing in informal spoken English: 1990s–2010s. Text & Talk 41:5-6 ► pp. 739 ff.
Pérez-Arredondo, Carolina & Eduardo Graells-Garrido
Jørgensen, Annette Myre & Inés Olza
2020. Phraseology in teenage language in Spanish, English and Norwegian. Languages in Contrast 20:1 ► pp. 58 ff.
Fernández, Julieta
2018. “I think I sound stupid if I try to use those words”: The role of metapragmatic awareness in the study abroad language classroom. Foreign Language Annals 51:2 ► pp. 430 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
Beers Fägersten, Kristy & Karyn Stapleton
2023. Everybody swears on Only Murders in the Building: The interpersonal functions of scripted television swearing. Journal of Pragmatics 216 ► pp. 93 ff.
Drange, Eli-Marie Danbolt, Ingrid Kristine Hasund & Anna-Brita Stenström
2014. "Your mum!
"Teenagers’ swearing by mother in English, Spanish and Norwegian. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 19:1 ► pp. 29 ff.
Palacios Martínez, Ignacio M. & Paloma Núñez Pertejo
2014. Strategies used by English and Spanish teenagers to intensify language. Spanish in Context 11:2 ► pp. 175 ff.
Stenström, Anna-Brita
Stenström, Anna-Brita
2017. Chapter 7. Swearing in English and Spanish teenage talk. In Advances in Swearing Research [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 282], ► pp. 158 ff.
Christie, Christine
2013. The relevance of taboo language: An analysis of the indexical values of swearwords. Journal of Pragmatics 58 ► pp. 152 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.
Palacios Martínez, Ignacio M
2013. Zero quoting in the speech of British and Spanish teenagers: A contrastive corpus-based study. Discourse Studies 15:4 ► pp. 439 ff.
Palacios Martínez, Ignacio M.
2021. Taboo vocatives in the language of London teenagers. Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA) 31:2 ► pp. 250 ff.
Greenall, Annjo Klungervik
2012. Translating Breaches of Intersubjective Constraints on Interaction: the Case of Swearing in Roddy Doyle’s Novel The Commitments. Meta 56:3 ► pp. 538 ff.
Farr, Fiona & Bróna Murphy
2009. Religious references in contemporary Irish English: ‘for the love of God almighty. . . . I'm a holy terror for turf’. Intercultural Pragmatics 6:4
Murphy, Bróna
2009. ‘She's afuckingticket’: the pragmatics offuckin Irish English – an age and gender perspective. Corpora 4:1 ► pp. 85 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 16 july 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.