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Survey: vulgarisms of different languages | ||
Tags: Swearing | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| rhapthorne Newbie Poland Joined 5331 days ago 5 posts - 5 votes Speaks: English | Message 1 of 25 21 April 2010 at 11:39am | IP Logged | ||
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Hello,
I am new here, so I would like to introduce myself: my name is Dominik and I am the student of the last year of linguistics a the University of Gdańsk in Poland, currently writing MA paper on the cross-cultural (and also cross-linguistic) aspects of swearing. The particular interest of the study is how different nations, cultures and language use the indecent words, what is the attitude towards swearing in different societies and, most importantly, what are the tabooed areas in different parts of the world. I am especially aware of the fact that vulgarisms are one of the first linguistic items when learning a new language, and the reasons are obvious: swear words constitute a very natural, direct means of enriching communication. Therefore, I decided to introduce my questionnaire here as the forums are visited by learners of different nations would contribute to a non-biased and reliable data on this fascinating and barely touched topic.Also, as soon as I get a sufficient number of responses I will post the results here to share the data with the forum readers. Of course, the it is a completely non-profit research which serves purely academical purpose. If you have any questions concerning the survey or the theory of vulgarisms in general - feel free to post it here, I've been studying this matter for several months so I think that I'll be able to provide answers and dissipate your doubts. Here is the link: kwiksurveys.com/online-survey.php?surveyID=KIDKGG_be87c18e thanks, Dominik EDIT: the link was broken, but now it is fixed - just copy and paste it manually into the address bar. Edited by rhapthorne on 21 April 2010 at 5:21pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5381 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes  Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 2 of 25 21 April 2010 at 1:00pm | IP Logged | ||
Can you explain that claim? I disagree with both parts. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| clang Groupie United States Joined 5339 days ago 54 posts - 82 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian, Italian | Message 3 of 25 21 April 2010 at 2:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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I also disagree. I am very actively trying not to learn Russian swear words as I fear I will accidently use them.
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| clang Groupie United States Joined 5339 days ago 54 posts - 82 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian, Italian | Message 4 of 25 21 April 2010 at 2:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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Maybe I should say I don't fully understand your argument and would like to hear more about it.
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| rhapthorne Newbie Poland Joined 5331 days ago 5 posts - 5 votes Speaks: English | Message 5 of 25 21 April 2010 at 4:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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Right, maybe I didn't express myself clearly, so here we go: of course, vulgarisms are not something that is intentionally learnt (studied from the books) per se, but it is undobtedly one of the first things that attracts our awareness when acquiring a language and living among the native speakers of it. It is mainly because of the fact that vulgarisms are often filled with emotions (positive or negative) which makes them easier to be memorized than 'regular' words. There is also a theory stating that swearwords are stored in completely different parts of brain than non-offensive words, which is proven by the cases of patients suffering from cerebral dysfunctions (aphasia etc.) who despite the lack of ability to form fluent and logical sentences are still capable of swearing.
As for the second claim (about natural means of communication), it is known that vulgarisms are capable of expressing emotions in a way than non-vulgar words cannot achieve, so they convey an emotional meaning which makes the speech more informal, relaxed and casual. However, we'll see if the theory is correct or not after seeing the results of the poll, which was created also to clarify that matter. Edited by rhapthorne on 21 April 2010 at 4:38pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tracker465 Senior Member United States Joined 5352 days ago 355 posts - 496 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 6 of 25 21 April 2010 at 5:30pm | IP Logged | ||
But the problem about this theory for me is the fact that non-native speakers are surely to attach different emotions to words when first learning the language, than their native-speaking counterparts. A few examples: I had a friend from Nepal who performed a few songs with me on guitar, for a formal dinner. He was not sure why I was opposed to play a few Green Day songs with the word "f**k" in them, yet I the reason would be clear for a native speaker. To me, this kind of language would have been inappropriate for the formal dinner, even if it was in the songs, but to him, it was just one of many words of the song, nothing noteworthy. Another time, when I was in Germany, I met a penpal and I had asked her if she had an "Arschgeweih" as we walked past a tattoo shop. Unfortunately she did, and it killed the friendship. In this case, she placed all of the negative emotions on the word, something which I felt nothing, other than a colloquial way of saying a word which I otherwise did not know how to say. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mrhenrik Triglot Moderator Norway Joined 6079 days ago 482 posts - 658 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, French Personal Language Map | Message 7 of 25 21 April 2010 at 5:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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In the survey there is only nationality, not location, but question 7 seems to presume my
nationality is the country in which I live? This could create some phony results, particularly whilst gathering results from a forum such as this - a lot of people seem to live in another country than their country of birth. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5453 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 8 of 25 21 April 2010 at 6:21pm | IP Logged | ||
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I also disagree.
My own experience is that swear-words and vulgarisms are among the last things learnt. And if you look at children, they don't use a lot of "bad words", except for some childish words for faeces. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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