Blistering barnacles! What language do multilinguals Swear in?!
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/sols.v5i1.83Keywords:
sociopragmatics, multilingualism, swearing, emotional forceAbstract
The present contribution focuses on the effects of language dominance / attrition, context of acquisition, age of onset of learning, frequency of general use of a language and sociodemographic variables on self-reported language choice for swearing. The analysis is
based on a database to which 1039 multilinguals contributed through a web based questionnaire. Results suggest that, according to the self-reports, swearing happens most frequently in the multilinguals’ dominant language. Mixed instruction, an early start in the
learning process, and frequent use of a language all contribute to the choice of that language for swearing. Sociodemographic variables were not found to have any effect. Frequency of language choice for swearing was found to be positively correlated with perceived emotional force of swearwords in that language. Quantitative results based on answers to close-ended questions corresponded to participants’ responses to open-ended questions.
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Dewaele, J.-M. & A. Pavlenko (2002). “Emotion vocabulary in interlanguage”. Language Learning 52(2), 265-324.
Dewaele, J.-M. & V. Regan (2001). “The use of colloquial words in advanced French interlanguage”. In S. Foster-Cohen & A. Nizegorodcew (eds.), EUROSLA Yearbook 1. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 51-68.
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Kasper, G. & K.R. Rose (2001). “Pragmatics in language teaching”. In K.R. Rose & G. Kasper (eds.), Pragmatics in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1-9.
Kraft, B. & R. Geluykens (2002). “Complaining in French L1 and L2: A crosslinguistic investigation”. In S. Foster-Cohen, T. Ruthenberg & M.-L. Poschen (eds.), EUROSLA Yearbook 2. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 226-42.
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Mougeon, R., T. Nadasdi & K. Rehner (2002). “État de la recherche sur l’appropriation de la variation par les apprenants avancés du FL2 ou FLE”. In J.-M. Dewaele & R. Mougeon (eds.), Appropriation de la variation en français langue étrangère. Special issue of AILE 17, 7-50.
Paradis, M. (1997). “The cognitive neuropsychology of bilingualism”. In A.M.B. de Groot & J.F. Kroll (eds.), Tutorials in Bilingualism. Psycholinguistic Perspectives. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum, 331-54.
Pavlenko, A. (1999). “New approaches to concepts in bilingual memory”. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 2, 209-30.
Pavlenko, A. (2002a). “Poststructuralist approaches to the study of social factors in L2”. In V. Cook (ed.), Portraits of the L2 User. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 277-302.
Pavlenko, A. (2002b). “Bilingualism and emotions”. Multilingua 21, 45-78.
Rayson, P., G. Leech & M. Hodges (1997). “Social differentiation in the use of English vocabulary: Some analyses of the conversational component of the British National Corpus”. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 2(1), 133-52.
Register, N.A. (1996). “Second-language learners and taboo words in American English”. English Today 12, 44-49.
Rintell, E. (1984). “But how did you feel about that? The learner’s perception of emotion in speech”. Applied Linguistics 5, 255-64.
Romero Trillo, J. (2002). “The pragmatic fossilization of discourse markers in nonnative speakers of English”. Journal of Pragmatics 34, 769-84.
Santiago-Rivera, A.L. & J. Altarriba (2002). “The role of language in therapy with the Spanish English bilingual client”. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice 33, 30-38.
Singleton, D. (2001). “Age and Second Language Acquisition”. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 21, 77-89.
Stenstrom, A.B. (1995). “Taboos in Teenage Talk”. In G. Melchers & B. Warren (eds.), Studies in Anglistics. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 71-79.
Stenstrom, A.B. (1999). “He was really gormless-she’s bloody crap. Girls, boys and intensifiers”. In H. Hasselgard & S. Oksefjell (eds.), Out of corpora: Studies in honour of Stig Johansson. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 69-78.
Toya, M. & M. Kodis (1996). “But I don’t want to be rude: On learning how to express anger in the L2”. JALT Journal 18(2), 279-95.
Van Lancker, D. & J.L. Cummings (1999). “Expletives: Neurolinguistic and neurobehavioral perspectives on swearing”. Brain Research Reviews 31, 83-104.
Altarriba, J. (2003). “Does cariño equal ‘liking’? A theoretical approach to conceptual nonequivalence between languages”. In A. Pavlenko, R. Schrauf & J.-M. Dewaele (eds.), New directions in the study of bilingual memory [=International Journal of Bilingualism 7(3)], 305-22.
Altarriba, J. & A.L. Santiago-Rivera (1994). “Current perspectives on using linguistic and cultural factors in counseling the Hispanic client”. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice 25, 388-97.
Amati-Mehler J., S. Argentieri & J. Canestri (1993). The Babel of the unconscious: Mother tongue and foreign languages in the psychoanalytic dimension. Madison, CT: International Universities Press.
Anooshian, L. & P. Hertel (1994). “Emotionality in free recall: Language specificity in bilingual memory”. Cognition and Emotion 8, 503-14.
Austin, J.L. (1962). How to do things with words. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bardovi-Harlig, K. (2001). “Evaluating the empirical evidence. Grounds for instruction in pragmatics?”. In K.R. Rose & G. Kasper (eds.), Pragmatics in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 13-32.
Bayard, D. & S. Krishnayya (2001). “Gender, expletive use, and context: Male and female expletive use in structured and unstructured conversation among New Zealand university students”. Women and Language 24, 1-15.
Bond, M. & T.-M. Lai (1986). “Embarrassment and code-switching into a second language”. The Journal of Social Psychology 126, 179-86.
Cohen, J. (1992). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences. New York: John Wiley.
DeKeyser, R. (2000). “The robustness of Critical Period effects in Second Language Acquisisition”. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 22(4), 499-533.
Dewaele, J.-M. (2002). Bilingualism and emotion: A pilot-study. Unpublished manuscript.
Dewaele, J.-M. (2004). “Individual differences in the use of colloquial vocabulary: The effects of sociobiographical and psychological factors”. In P. Bogaards & B. Laufer (eds.), Learning Vocabulary in a Second Language: Selection, Acquisition and Testing. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 127-53.
Dewaele J.-M. (to appear, 2004). “The emotional force of swearwords and taboo words in the speech of multilinguals”. In J.-M. Dewaele & A. Pavlenko (eds.), Languages and Emotions: A crosslinguistic perspective. (= Special double issue of Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 25).
Dewaele, J.-M. & A. Pavlenko (2001). Web questionnaire Bilingualism and Emotions. University of London.
Dewaele, J.-M. & A. Pavlenko (2002). “Emotion vocabulary in interlanguage”. Language Learning 52(2), 265-324.
Dewaele, J.-M. & V. Regan (2001). “The use of colloquial words in advanced French interlanguage”. In S. Foster-Cohen & A. Nizegorodcew (eds.), EUROSLA Yearbook 1. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 51-68.
Dörnyei, Z. (2003). Questionnaires in second language research: Construction, administration, and processing. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Drescher, M. (2000). “Eh tabarnouche! c’était bon. Pour une approche communicative des jurons en français québecois”. Cahiers de praxématique 34, 133-60.
García Mayo, M.P. & M.L. García Lecumberri (eds.) (2003). Age and the Acquisition of English as a Foreign Language. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Gonzalez-Reigosa, F. (1976). “The anxiety arousing effect of taboo words in bilinguals”. In C.D. Spielberger & R. Diaz-Guerrero (eds.), Cross-cultural anxiety. Washington, D.C.: Hemisphere, 89-105.
Graham, C.R., A.W. Hamblin & S. Feldstein (2001). “Recognition of emotion in English voices by speakers of Japanese, Spanish and English”. International Review of Applied Linguistics 39, 19-37.
Harris, C.L., A. Ayçiçegi & J.B. Gleason (2003). “Taboo words and reprimands elicit greater autonomic reactivity in a first than in a second language”. Applied Psycholinguistics 24, 561-79.
Huston, N. (1999). Nord perdu. Arles: Actes Sud.
Javier, R. (1989). “Linguistic considerations in the treatment of bilinguals”. Journal of Psychoanalytic Psychology 6, 87-96.
Javier, R. & L. Marcos (1989). “The role of stress on the language-independence and code-switching phenomena”. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 18, 449-72.
Kasper, G. (2001). “Classroom research on interlanguage pragmatics”. In K.R. Rose & G. Kasper (eds.), Pragmatics in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 33-60.
Kasper, G. & K.R. Rose (2001). “Pragmatics in language teaching”. In K.R. Rose & G. Kasper (eds.), Pragmatics in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1-9.
Kraft, B. & R. Geluykens (2002). “Complaining in French L1 and L2: A crosslinguistic investigation”. In S. Foster-Cohen, T. Ruthenberg & M.-L. Poschen (eds.), EUROSLA Yearbook 2. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 226-42.
Lieury, A., I. Boissière, E. Jamet & K. Marinkovic (1997). “Les mots grossiers et sexuels sont-ils mieux mémorisés que des mots neutres?”. Le Langage et l’Homme 32(1), 17-37.
Mougeon, R., T. Nadasdi & K. Rehner (2002). “État de la recherche sur l’appropriation de la variation par les apprenants avancés du FL2 ou FLE”. In J.-M. Dewaele & R. Mougeon (eds.), Appropriation de la variation en français langue étrangère. Special issue of AILE 17, 7-50.
Paradis, M. (1997). “The cognitive neuropsychology of bilingualism”. In A.M.B. de Groot & J.F. Kroll (eds.), Tutorials in Bilingualism. Psycholinguistic Perspectives. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum, 331-54.
Pavlenko, A. (1999). “New approaches to concepts in bilingual memory”. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 2, 209-30.
Pavlenko, A. (2002a). “Poststructuralist approaches to the study of social factors in L2”. In V. Cook (ed.), Portraits of the L2 User. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 277-302.
Pavlenko, A. (2002b). “Bilingualism and emotions”. Multilingua 21, 45-78.
Rayson, P., G. Leech & M. Hodges (1997). “Social differentiation in the use of English vocabulary: Some analyses of the conversational component of the British National Corpus”. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 2(1), 133-52.
Register, N.A. (1996). “Second-language learners and taboo words in American English”. English Today 12, 44-49.
Rintell, E. (1984). “But how did you feel about that? The learner’s perception of emotion in speech”. Applied Linguistics 5, 255-64.
Romero Trillo, J. (2002). “The pragmatic fossilization of discourse markers in nonnative speakers of English”. Journal of Pragmatics 34, 769-84.
Santiago-Rivera, A.L. & J. Altarriba (2002). “The role of language in therapy with the Spanish English bilingual client”. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice 33, 30-38.
Singleton, D. (2001). “Age and Second Language Acquisition”. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 21, 77-89.
Stenstrom, A.B. (1995). “Taboos in Teenage Talk”. In G. Melchers & B. Warren (eds.), Studies in Anglistics. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 71-79.
Stenstrom, A.B. (1999). “He was really gormless-she’s bloody crap. Girls, boys and intensifiers”. In H. Hasselgard & S. Oksefjell (eds.), Out of corpora: Studies in honour of Stig Johansson. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 69-78.
Toya, M. & M. Kodis (1996). “But I don’t want to be rude: On learning how to express anger in the L2”. JALT Journal 18(2), 279-95.
Van Lancker, D. & J.L. Cummings (1999). “Expletives: Neurolinguistic and neurobehavioral perspectives on swearing”. Brain Research Reviews 31, 83-104.
Published
2004-02-26
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Dewaele, J.-M. (2004). Blistering barnacles! What language do multilinguals Swear in?!. Sociolinguistic Studies, 5(1), 83-105. https://doi.org/10.1558/sols.v5i1.83
