23
2.1.3. Taboo Words and Swear Words
There is a certain similarity which makes these two kinds of words share a same definition. The similarity is the root of both kind of word which is
emanated from taboo. Nonetheless, there is a difference between both. Karjalainen 2002 states that although all swear words are taboo, not all taboo words are
swear words. Cannibalism, for instance, is taboo in some cultures, yet the swear words derived from that theme are absent p.18 The using of the words here is
specifically how the users use the words and involve their emotion to their utterance. However, Ljung 2011 thinks that taboo word and swear words are two
different cases. The difference could be clearer by observing Ljung‟s criteria of swear words:
1. Swearing uttering swear words is the use of utterances containing taboo
words. 2.
The taboo words are used with non-literal meaning. 3.
Many utterances that constitute swearing are subject to severe lexical, phrasal, and syntactic constraints which suggest that most swearing qualifies
as formulaic language. 4.
Swearing is emotive language: its main function is to reflect, or seem to reflect, the speakers‟ feeling or attitude.
Ljung, 2011, p. 4 The second point of Ljung‟s criteria underlines that the reference of taboo
words which has transformed into swear words might be used as metaphor to refer to anything else which is possibly not taboo. For example, the word shit taboo
24 word refers to
“feces”, but in utterance “put that shit in your bag” the word shit t might refer to
“something which is considered unpleasant” p. 17. The third point of
Ljung‟s criteria emphasizes on the fixed grammar formulaicity of swear words of which meaning cannot be simply derived from the composing word. In
the expression “what the fuck do you mean?” for instance, the sense is deduced from the grammatical arrangement rather than from each composing word p. 19.
In one of his approaches Approach 1: Meaning and References, Frawley 1992 splits up the referential meaning into two: reference and sense. Reference is the
actual object or real world entity packed out by linguistic expression e.g. shit for feces. Reference can also be understood as the relation which holds between
speakers and what they are talking about on particular occasions Lyons, 1995, p. 294
e.g. the word “bat” in one context refers to “a nocturnal animal” and refers to “sport instrument” in another context which is commonly called homonymy
Aitchison, 2003. Meanwhile, sense means the idea or other information of how the expression is expressed, f
or example when someone shouts “Fuck my toes” it can be derived that the person does something bad or terrible toward his her
toes. As the third point of Ljung‟s category suggests, swear word emphasizes on
the sense they make when they are uttered since it is not related their reference as taboo word is.
At the fourth point, Ljung highlights that uttering swear words involves “direct expression of the speaker‟s attitude what he she is speaking about” p.
21. The presence of emotive function might be identified by the emergence some features such as expletive interjections when expressing anger, disappointment,
25 joy, fear, pain, or surprise, emphasizer usually after interrogative WH-word such
as “What the hell are you doing?”, and expletive slot-filler such as in “I need the bloody
hammer.”.
However, the reference or sense of taboo words and swear words can only be known considering the context and the way they are used. Pinker 2007
presents five different ways in which people use taboo words or swear words: 1 descriptively, 2 idiomatically, 3 abusively, 4 emphatically, and 5 cathartically
Pinker, 2007, p. 219. Terminologically, that typology is called the typology of swearing.
Pinker‟s typology of swearing provides a concise tool to analyze what people do when they use swear words.
Descriptive swearing includes the use of taboo words which refers directly to their literal meaning. Literal meaning is defined as the meaning of word or
sentence which is computed from the lexical meaning automatically associated any entries before any extra interferences based on contextual assumptions have
been derived Giora, 1997, p. 185. e.g. “let‟s fuck” with the word fuck refers to
“have sex”. Mere utterances of taboo words with no context which might change the references of those words also indicate that those taboo words are used with
their literal meaning. The next is idiomatic swearing. As the name suggests, the use of taboo
words and swear words as idioms is included here. Idioms are the expressions with fixed phrases, consisting of more than one word, with meaning which cannot
be inferred from the meanings of the individual words Fromkin et al., 2000. Fromkin et al. 2000 explain that many idioms may have originated as
26 metaphorical expressions which established themselves in the language and
became frozen in their form of meaning p. 181 e.g. “when the shit is going to hit
the fan” means “when disastrous consequences of something become known”. Idioms also involve collocation of a special kind Palmer, 2001, p. 79. e.g.
“fucked up” for “destroyed”. Taboo words and swear words in a form of metaphor also belong to this type. In the case of metaphor, the words are not used with their
literal meaning as their reference. Instead, the reference of the words swaps with something else based on a certain context, as it is conceptualized by Lakoff and
Johnson 2003. Lazar 2003 defines that metaphor is a comparison which identifies one thing with another in which some qualities of the second are
transferred to the first p. 3. For example in the case of “job is unpleasant thing”,
the reference of the word shit in “I think I can‟t finish this shit” is possibly “task”.
The third type is abusive swearing in which people use taboo words to abuse or offend someone. An utterance of taboo words or swear words might be
offensive since it serves the emotional needs of the speaker and affects the listeners addressees emotionally as well Jay, 2000. It strongly carries emotive
function like the example “fuck you, motherfucker” As the example shows, swear
words which belong to this type are used as expletive interjections and the utterance is directed to addressees Ljung , 2011.
Emphatic swearing here is manifested in the use of taboo words as expletive interjections or slot-filler
like in “that painting is fuckin’ amazing” Ljung, 2011. The taboo words here usually role as an adjective intensifier which
give stronger emotional sense to an admiration, for instance. The use of swear
27 words as interjections might also belong to this type when it is followed by
utterances which contain a sense of amazement. The last but not least is cathartic swearing. Here the taboo words are used
to spontaneously convey the emotional burst of the speaker in response to something that happens to him her Pinker, 2007. In this case of cathartic swear
word, Crystal 1986 also adds that uttering swearing words might ease the emotionally psychological burden of the swearer, which he claims as an
“excellent relief mechanism”. Cathartic swear words might occur when the swear words or taboo words are used as expletive interjections to express anger,
surprise, pain, relief and other feelings and not addressed to anyone Ljung, 2011, which differentiate this type from abusive swearing, e.g. when someone hits his
her own finger with hammer he she shouts “fuck” or “damn”. Nevertheless, Ljung 2011
gives an overlook to Pinker‟s typology. He states
that the typology “spills over each other” p. 26, which means an utterance of taboo words could possibly belong to more than one type, for example the
utterance “fuck you” might belong to abusive swearing, idiomatic, or cathartic swearing p. 26. Therefore, a discursive review about the utterance becomes
necessary at this point. There can be one more than one type to be applied in analysis by considering the context in the discourse.
Furthermore, according to Ljung, not all type of Pinker‟s typology deal
with the complexity of swear words p. 27. In the other word, some of the categories are out of the discussion about pragmatic use of taboo words and swear
words. As can be seen above, Ljung has made criteria by which a word can be