16 The socialization process will allow the language users to know that every
society has something that should not be said and certain words contain a strong connotation, so that those words cannot be used in a polite or formal situation.
Uttering or doing taboo words is strongly against the social value because it will bring embarrassment and offensiveness to the members of the certain society.
Embarrassment has a tendency to be connected with sexual activity. Offensiveness is identified with different substance like the body, and the
distinctive forms of physical, mental, and social abnormality. Being more specific, Wardhaugh 2006, p. 239 defines taboo in the following way:
Taboo is the prohibition or avoidance in any society of behavior believed to be harmful to its members in that it would cause them anxiety,
embarrassment, or shame. It is extremely strong politeness constraints. Consequently, so far as language is concerned, certain things are not to be
said or certain objects can be referred to only in certain circumstances.
In the statement above, Wardhaugh tried to emphasize that a certain object
can only be referred to the certain circumstances. It also means that the use of taboo words can create misunderstanding between two people who are involved in
a conversation if they have different knowledge since they belong to different societies and different cultures. This idea is also brought by Freitas 2008, p. 26
who states that certain words and expressions may be considered as taboos for certain people, especially when these words and expressions are used by other
social class members. An example of this case is the use of taboo words like nigger. The word nigger can be extremely offensive if white persons use it.
However, it may be used freely by some groups of black people without feeling being offended. Therefore, it can be concluded that the parameter of certain words
17 or expressions which are thought to be taboo usually depends on the values in one
society, the relationship between the speaker and listeners, and also the atmosphere where the words are uttered.
Something that must be understood based on the theories related to the concept of taboo acts and taboo words is that people keep the taboo concept alive
by continuing it in their children unconsciously. While children do not realize or even understand which words are inappropriate or taboo until they have said them
and get a negative reaction such a warn from their environment, especially adults. Unconsciously, environment and society continue keeping the existance of taboo
concept and taboo words. Besides, while people are talking about something which is regarded as taboo, shame is usually attached.
3. The Use of Taboo Words and Swear Words
After regarding the concept of taboo words and swear words, it can be said that swearing words and taboo words are two different things. However, there is a
similar concept related to swear and taboo words by looking at a certain way. Karjalainen 2002 states that even though all the swear words are taboo, not all
taboo words are swear words. Cannibalism, for instance, is taboo in some cultures, but there is no swear word which is derived from that theme. On the
other side, as stated before, swear and taboo words have different concept. Ljung 2011, p. 4 describes the criteria of swear words as follows:
a. Swearing uttering swear words is the use of swear words which is the taboo
words are involved. b.
Taboo words are use with non-literal-meaning.
18 c.
Many utterances that constitute swearing are subject to several lexical, phrasal, and syntactic constraints which suggest that most swearing qualifies
as formulaic language. d.
Swearing is emotive language: its main function is to reflect, or seem to reflect, th
e speaker‟s feeling or attitude. The second point of Ljung‟s criteria shows that taboo words have already
been transformed into swear words. Those taboo words might be used as metaphor to anything else which are possibly not taboo. However, one thing that
must be underlined to be the basic concept of this research is that all swearing act is taboo act. It depends on the society‟s norms. Besides, the researcher of this
study only discusses the swear words, especially the types and the motives, which refer to taboo words and taboo concept because those two terms have the same
concept considering that swearing is a taboo act.
4. Types of Swear Words
Functional distinctions are made among the kinds of obscene language one can usually use or hear. These distinctions are mainly based on the function of the
words or expressions. The main focus here is the social complexities involved in using obscenities; pragmatic distinctions are more relevant to the arguments made
in this research than etymological or gram matical ones. Jay‟s 1992 work is the
most current research on dirty language an expression he prefers to use, and he provides clear, useful definitions for the many terms used to label offensive
language. Jay points out that pragmatic distinctions can be made because each
19 “curse event” is “coherent in that it fulfills specific types of needs and intentions
of the speaker and listener” p. 2.
a. Cursing
Cursing enables someone to express strong emotions verbally in a manner that non-curse words cannot express such as emotional, sexual, and aggressive
gestures. Because they have strong emotions and speech, they learn to use cursing to express their emotions. Besides, people choose words that come from culturally
powerful categories and use them in contexts in which they are appropriate to use. As stated by Jay and Kristin 2008, people use culturally defined curse words to
represent their strongest feeling or emotions and forbidden thoughts, but they learn how to inhibit forms of cursing that are illegal or censored by employers.
These expressions act like verbal assaults where a speaker targets a specific individual, group, or thing and clearly expects harm, pain, or other evil
consiquences on him, her, or something. Generally, cursing is proscribed by the churches and most of societies for those reasons, so curses such as eat shit and
die are considered to be powerfully threatening utterances. In some cases, people choose curse words because:
1. They repeat curse words that other people commonly use.
2. They choose curse words that their culture proscribes for specific practices and
contexts. 3.
They choose curse words from a small semantic pool which is considered as taboo or disgusting, profane or obscene.
4. They choose curse words in order to affect other‟s feeling.
