MySpaceSwearingextendedpreprint.docx
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MySpaceSwearingextendedpreprint.docx
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MySpaceSwearingextendedpreprint
FkyeaIswear:
CursingandgenderinacorpusofMySpacepages
MikeThelwall
SchoolofComputingandInformationTechnology,UniversityofWolverhampton,WulfrunaStreet,WolverhamptonWV11SB,UK.E-mail:
m.thelwall@wlv.ac.uk
Tel:
+441902321470Fax:
+441902321478
Youth-orientatedsocialnetworksiteslikeMySpaceareimportantvenuesforsocialisingandidentityexpression.Analysingsuchsitescanthereforegiveatimelywindowintootherwisehiddenaspectsofcontemporaryculture.InthisarticleacorpusofMySpacememberhomepagesisusedtoanalyseswearingintheU.S.andU.K.TheresultsindicatethatmostMySpacesof16yearoldsandabout15%ofmiddle-agedMySpacescontainstrongswearing,forbothmalesandfemales.TherewasnosignificantgenderdifferenceintheU.K.forstrongswearing,especiallyforyoungerusers(16-19).Thisisperhapsthefirstlarge-scaleevidenceofgenderequalityinstrongswearingfrequencyinanyinformalEnglishlanguageusecontext.Incontrast,U.S.maleMySpacescontainsignificantlymorestrongswearingthanthoseoffemales.TheU.K.femaleassimilationoftraditionallymaleswearingintheinformalcontextofMySpaceissuggestiveofdeeperchangesingenderrolesinsociety,possiblyrelatedtotherecentrisein‘ladetteculture’.
Keywords:
Swearing,gender,MySpace,socialnetworksites.
1.Introduction
MySpaceisahighlypopularyouthorientedsocialnetworksite,whichapparentlybecamethemostvisitedwebsitein2007forU.S.webusers(Prescott2007).Ithasbeendescribedasreplacingthe(shopping)mallastheplacewheremodernU.S.teenshangout(boydinpress).MySpacealsohasawideuserbaseintheU.K.(Prescott2007)althoughothersocialnetworksiteslikeFacebookandHi5arepreferredbysomepopulationsegmentsandinsomecountries.Asavirtualplacewheremanyteensspendmuchtimeandexpresstheiridentitywithrelativefreedom,itisbothanimportantaspectofyouthcultureandaplacethatshouldreflectofflinemodernyouthattitudesandbehaviour.
Inthisarticlethefocusisonswearing.Swearingisinterestinginitselfasanaspectoflanguagethatistypicallynottaughtorreceivedfromauthorityfigures(parents,schools,politicians).Itisalsostronglytiedtogenderrolesandexpectationsinsociety,andthewordsthemselvesaretypicallyrelatedtotabooissues.Hence,ananalysisofswearingcanbeexpectedtoprovideawindowintodeepersocialissues,particularlythoserelatingtogender.
Therehasbeenwidespreadresearchintoswearingwithindisciplinessuchaslinguistics(McEnery2005),neurolinguistics(vanLanckerandCummings1999),psycholinguistics/developmentalpsychology(Jay1992,2000),sexuality(Sigel2000),education(Dewaele2004),history(Smith1998),sociology(StokoeandEdwards2007),socialpsychology(Green2003),women’sstudies(BellandReverby2005),andnursing(Schapiro2002).Nevertheless,itisdifficulttogatherlarge-scalenaturallanguageswearingdatabecausewrittentextsarenormallyproducedinlanguageregistersthatexcludeswearing(McEneryandXiao2004).Henceconsiderableeffortisneededtocollectsufficientdatatoinvestigatefactorssuchassocialclass,ageandgender.Forexample,Jay’s(1992:
139)studyofnaturalswearingwasapparentlythefirstextensivefieldstudy,usingsixtravellingstudentstogatherdataonconversationsinvolvingawidevarietyofpeople.Moreover,mostpsychologicalandsociologicalswearingresearchhasusedrelativelysmallnumbersofpeoplefromarestrictedsocialgroup(oftenstudents).Forexamplearecentstudyintroducedanewsamplingmethodwithanintermittently-activatedelectronictaperecordergathering30secondburstsofsoundfromthedailylivesof52undergraduates,includingsomeswearing(MehlandPennebaker2003).Asaresultofthedifficultyingaininglarge-scaledata,muchlinguisticswearingresearchhasbeenqualitativeorhasusedstandardgeneralpurposecorporaofspokentexts,suchastheBritishNationalCorpus(BNC)collectionofconversationsfrom5,300speakersgatheredby73malesand75femalesfromtheyears1991-1993(Burnard1995;Rayson,Leech,andHodges1997).Suchstandardcorpora,whichenjoylongtermuseandvalue,maynotreflectcurrentlanguagetrends(seeJay1992:
115-116foramoredetailedcritique).
Thewebhasbeennotedasanimportantsourceforcorpuslinguistics(Meyer,Grabowski,Han,MantzouranisandMoses2003)andthecontentsofsocialnetworksiteslikeMySpacemaypotentiallyrevolutioniseswearingresearchbecausetheyarearelativelyeasilyaccessiblesourceoflargescalecurrentlinguisticdatarelevanttoswearing.Thisisbecausethelanguageofsocialnetworksitesseemstobeveryinformalandisprobablyclosertospeechthanmostwrittenforms.Moreover,asignificantproportionofthepopulationofsomecountriesnowusessocialnetworksitesandsosamplingthesesitesgivesaccesstoabroadcross-sectionofpeople,althoughprobablybiasedtowardsyoungerpeopleandthosewithregularaccesstotheInternet.Ofcourse,socialnetworklanguagehassomeuniqueaspects–suchasunusualspellingsandacronyms,probablypartlyinheritedfromotherelectronicformslikeinstantmessaging–anddiffersfromnormalconversation,forexampleduetotherarityofdisfluencieslikeerandum,andprobablyalsoduetodifferentconversationtopicsandrhythmsofdiscussion.Nevertheless,largescaleanalysesofsocialnetworksitescanbeusedtoresearchsocialnetworklanguage,whichisimportantforitsownsake,andalsotoinvestigatefactorsthoughttobesignificantincontemporaryswearingandotherlanguageuse,suchasgender,age,andsocialclass.
PreviousresearchintheU.K.andU.S.suggeststhatgenderandage(andsocialclassintheU.K.)areimportantfactorsinthepropensitytoswearandthetypeofswearingused.Inparticular,menseemtoswearmorethanwomen(BaileyandTimm1976)andmalesswearespeciallyinall-malegroups(Coates2003;BayardandKrishnayya2001).Infact,recentU.K.researchsuggeststhatmenusestrongswearwordsmorefrequentlythanwomen,althoughwomenusemilderswearingmore(McEnery2005).Personalobservationsuggeststhatthisisnolongertrue;youngwomenintheU.K.seemtoswearmorethanmen,evenwiththestrongestswearwords.Thisisanimportantissuenotonlyforresearchersbutalsoforparents:
iftheyglimpsetheirchildswearingonline,shouldtheybeconcernedorhasthisbecomenormal?
Parentsmaybeparticularlyconcernediftheirdaughterswears(e.g.,Jay1992:
32).TheobjectiveofthisarticleistotestthegendergaphypothesiswithcurrentdatafromMySpace,includingageasalikelyinteractingfactor.ThedatausedconsistsofacorpusofMySpacehomepagesfromtheU.K.andU.S.:
thesite’stwobiggestnationalusergroups.
2.SwearinginEnglish
Swearingistheuseofanywordorphrasethatislikelytocauseoffencewhenusedinmiddleclasspoliteconversation(adaptedfromMcEnery2005).Theemphasishereisonthelanguageusedratherthanthecontentandsothedefinitionexcludesdiscussionsoftabootopicswhenthelanguageitselfwouldnotberecognisedasthecauseofoffence.Perhapsincontrasttopopularperceptions,however,theoffensivenatureofawordisunrelatedtoitssoundbutissociallyconstructedandchangesovertime.Swearingoriginallymeanttakingalegalorreligiousoath.Thesubsequenttrivialisingofsuchoaths(e.g.,byGodthismealisgood)allowedthetermswearingtotakeonasecondmeaning,oneofusingoffensivelanguage.Thecloselyrelatedtermcursewasinitiallyusedtorefertoawishordemandforsomethingbadtohappen(i.e.,imprecate)butisnowsynonymouswithswear.Similarly,blasphemyhaspurelyreligiousoriginsbutnowhasonemeaningsynonymouswithswearing–inEnglandthisblurringapparentlyoccurredinthenineteenthcentury,perhapsaroundhighprofileblasphemytrials(Marsh1998:
204-215).Othersimilartermsinclude:
bad,foul,Billingsgate,vulgarorcoarselanguage;obscenity;profanity;oath;expletive;naughtyorrudewords.Inadditiontherearemanyassociatedinformalsayingssuchaseffingandblinding,andtoswearlikeafishwife/lord/sailor/trooper.
Swearing,includingverymildwordslikepoo,seemstobesomethingthatisanaturalpartofchilddevelopmentandchildren’sswearwordsandthewaytheyusethemseemtodependupontheircognitiveandsocialdevelopmentstages,forexamplewithfocusesonpottytrainingandsexdifferencesatdifferentages(Jay1992:
35).Initiallyatleast,swearingseemstoperformthepositivefunctionofreplacingviolentactionsasameansofexpressinganger(Goodenough,citedinJay,1992:
21),andmanyarguethatswearingthusperformsausefulroleandshouldevenbeencouragedincontext(AnderssonandTrudgill1992).Punishmentseemstohavelittleeffectinanycase(Jay,King,andDuncan2006).
Historically,swearingintheU.K.hasundergonemajorchangesinthetypesofswearingemployed,thetypesofwordsused,theactualwordsused,andinthesocialconventionsaboutthecontextsinwhichswearingisacceptable.Twoextremesofacceptabilityinbehaviourarea1604exampleofanEnglishkinggiving“aturdfor”abishop’sargumentatanimportanttheologicalmeetingandbeingapplaudedforgooddebatingskills(McEnery2005:
62);andaVictorian(latenineteenthcentury)politesocietywhenreferringtotrouserswasconsideredindelicate,eveninprivate,andtheeuphemisminexpressiblesusedinstead(Marsh1998:
215-230).Theformerexampleillustratesatime–possiblythemajorityofhumanhistory–whenswearingdidnotparticularlystigmatisetheswearerevenif,bydefinition,itshocked.
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