Speakers without power have nothing to lose by swearing
Speakers with moderate power have the most to gain/lose so they swear the least to avoid offense or being seen as lower status
who swears?
gender of speaker
Caveats
Most studies done with white, cis, educated
Observer paradox: observing something can impact results
age
Boys swear more than girls as early as age 5 (Jay)
McEnry & Xiao (2004) counted number of fucks (and variants) by age in British National Corpus
Across each age group, men had more than women
Sometimes women out-swear men, but age is a factor
class
McEnry & Xiao (2004) counted number of fucks by class
Distinctions
Upper-Middle Class
Lower-Middle Class
Upper-Working Class
Lower-Working Class
Men out-swore women within classes
LOWC women swore more than LMC men and around same as UMC men
addressee
Jay (1992): M and W more likely to swear in same-sex groups
Coats (2003) studied same and mixed-sex friend groups
M to M: 72 fucks
W to W: 0 fucks
W in mixed-sex group: 7 out of 12 fucks
i.e. M tone down taboo usage with W while W may tone it up when M are present
motive
M and W swear for different reasons
Stapleton’s (2003) self-report study
Both M and W swear when angry, for emphasis
W swear because it shows trust/intimacy
More social cost
M swear for entertainment (joke/story-telling), out of habit, because it is expected
expectations
More acceptable for M to swear in public than W
W judged more harshly, considered more offensive when swearing than M
tabooness
M use more offensive terms, larger vocabulary than W
W use less offensive terms, more euphemisms
M view swearwords as less taboo than W
May explain why M swear more in public and use stronger words
Laboratory studies
W have greater skin conductance responses to taboo words than M
Pain decreased more while swearing than M (Jay 1980)
gender of referent
Comparing slurs referring to M and W can inform us about culture’s view of gender differences (James 1998)
Slurs for W more taboo than for M
Most slurs for W baed on sexuality, promiscuity
Most for M based on disrespectful, bad behavior
age
McEnergy & Xiao (2004): number of fucks by age
Teenagers/young adults (15–24) higher than most age groups
Reasons
Early rise is imitative
Getting older brings increased awareness of seriousness of taboo words
“They have no power so they have little to lose by swearing”
Low swearing in middle-age (35–44)
May have young kids
Still “striving” socially
Least among elderly
Small sample size
Fuck may not be common?
education
McEnergy & Xiao (2004): number of fucks by age at which they left school
Highest: high-school dropouts at age 15–16
Generally, swearing decreases as one’s education level increases
Folk explanation: uneducated use swear words because they have few others at their disposal
False: studies actually show higher education level corresponds with larger taboo lexicon
Exception: people who left school at 14/under show unexpected low swearing because now mostly 60+
class
Number of fucks by class
Upper Middle Class (managerial, professional)
Lower Middle Class (supervisory, clerical)
Upper Working Class (skilled, manual)
Lower Working Class (unskilled, unemployed)
LMC < UMC < UWC < LWC
Dip in LMC, most in LWC
Anxiety about swearing is a middle class problem (Jay)
swearing and power
Swearing as a function of power
“[Those who have] greater power in the world [have] more right to profane the world” (Johnson & Fine 1985)
Speakers with power swear because they suffer no social consequences for doing so
Those without power do so because they have nothing to lose
Speakers with moderate status swear least
Social strivers: careful not to offend those in power as doing so may have social cost
Swearing excessively can be viewed as marker of low social status
Vulgarity: being of the common people
race and ethnicity
Jay (2000): “Different ethnic groups have different thresholds for what they define as verbal aggressiveness”
Spears (1998): Black and white speakers have different “cultural norms” for swearing; black speakers are often seen as “more insulting” by white speakers as a result
Jacobi (2014): hypothetical speakers with subject
When using non-ethnic profanities (i.e. asshole, fuck), black speakers were judged as more offensive than white speakers
White speakers’ use of the n-word was rated more offensive than black speakers’ use
Beers-Fägersten (2012): record what swear words said by each group, done on college campus
Fuck* was most freq swear word among Whites, Hispanics, and Asian-Americans
Shit was most frequent among Black speakers
Black speakers had highest % of swearing used in-group for social purposes
White speakers responsible for 17/18 incidents of swearing addressed to individuals of greater social distance and differing social status