Profanity Blasphemy Types of Swear Words

19 reasons for swearing into three parts which are psychological motives, social motives and linguistic motives as cited in Karjalainen 2002, p.24.

a. Psychological Motives

Almost everybody has experienced that sometimes the reality, does not always come the same as what heshe has planned before. Something can always go wrong Anggawati L., personal communication, 2014. That sentence is a reflection that everything may be not as beautiful as what have planned before. Mobile phone drop into the water, late to go to schooloffice, lost some money, hit the knee on the table, etc. In these situations, people have different reaction toward the situations. People may release their feelings with different expression. One of expression that may be used is swearing. As Montagu 1967 states, swearing is the verbal expression, or venting, of the aggressiveness which follows upon frustration. Therefore, the desire to swear will always be experienced under conditions which give rise to the frustration-aggression syndrome as cited in Karjalainen 2002, p.26. People not only swear to insult, but also to express their happiness, surprise and frustration. As Jay 2009 states, swearing can be used to express someone‟s emotion or feeling, for instance anger, frustration, joy, and also surprise. That statement is supported by Montagu 1967 that states crying can develop into swearing when the child acquires language as cited in Karjalainen 2002, p.25. Those statements reflect that swearing is a reaction to express someone feeling about something. Based on the discussion above, emotional feelings which are 20 involved in psychological motive are joy, anger, frustration, joy, surprise, and sorrow. Those feelings make people swear in order to relief the emotions they get.

b. Social Motives

Not all swearing is triggered by frustration or aggression. Karjalainen 2002 states that someone may swear to assert hisher identity in a group, to shock, to amuse, to insult, to indicate friendship etc. By doing so, social life can also trigger someone to swear. Crystal 1995 describes “social swearing is the most common swearing pattern” as cited in Karjalainen 2002, p.26. Those statements mean that social issues can make someone swear also. People may swear because of their surroundings are doing so. Therefore, there are several social motives for someone to swear. For the example is when someone joins a gang. If the ganggroup members often swear, someone who joins the gang will follow the gang‟s old member to swear because heshe will try to assert hisher identity in the gang.

c. Linguistic Motives

Everyone has different point of view about language as well as swear words. Some people may say that certain swear word is acceptable, but other people may say that they should be banned. According to Andersson 1985, “we are free to use any of the tens of thousands of words in our vocabulary, as long as they convey the message we wish to communicate ”. So, from a purely theoretical and linguistic standpoint, people could say “What a very nice rocking chair” just as well as “What a fucking nice rocking chair” – both would be just as acceptable as cited in Karjalainen 2002, p.30. Therefore, because people have different