You Know Who Pop the Most Shit?

You know who pop the most shit?

A study of profanity and gender differences in modern pop music

Johanna Sandén

Student Vt 2020 Examensarbete för kandidatexamen, 15 hp Engelska

Abstract

Are there any gender differences in how profanity is used in modern pop music in 2019? The purpose of this study was to analyse music lyrics with particular attention paid to frequency and profanity profiles between female and male artists. The corpus used in the investigation contains a total of 34 music lyrics equally divided between the genders and was collected from a Billboard chart called “Hot 100 Songs”. Although this sample was small and may not be representative of all modern pop music lyrics, trends in this data show that the female artists sampled from the Billboard chart actually use profanity more frequently than male artists, which is in contrast to previous research. Furthermore, the result shows that male and female artists have distinctive profiles regarding the types of profanity used. Female artists use the swear word bitch more frequently whereas male artists tent to use nigger with a greater frequency.

Keywords: Profanity, swear words, gender, frequency, profanity profiles, music lyrics

Table of contents

1 Introduction ...... 3 1.1 Hypotheses ...... 5

2 Aim and research questions ...... 6

3 Theoretical framework and previous research ...... 7 3.1 Profanity in music ...... 7 3.2 Gender and language ...... 8 3.3 Gender and profanity ...... 9

4 Material and method ...... 11 4.1 Defining and categorising profanity ...... 11 4.2 Data collection ...... 11 4.3 Reliability, validity and representativeness ...... 12 4.4 Data analysis ...... 12

5 Results and analysis ...... 14 5.1 Frequency of profanity by gender ...... 14 5.2 Types of profanity by gender ...... 20

6 Discussion ...... 21

7 Conclusion ...... 26

8 References ...... 28

9 Appendix ...... 31

1 Introduction

Fuck, shit, nigger, pussy, bitch... These are examples of profanities that commonly appear in pop song lyrics today (see Table 1). Profanity is a linguistic activity that has become universal and acts as a powerful communication tool that we all have come to know, love or despise. To many people, it is a controversial and a provocative aspect of language that is often seen as bad or taboo language. Differences in the way female and male speakers use language and profanity seem to be frequently discussed among researchers. You know who pop the most shit? is the title of this research and is taken from a song lyric performed by a female artist called Cardi B. To most people, this is an example of inappropriate language and may be considered especially offensive coming from a woman. Swearing in language is an ancient phenomenon and is considered to be a characteristic of human communication that is fundamental and ubiquitous. It is a common aspect of language and people utter about 80-90 swear words per day (Jay, 2009, p. 154-156). Andersson and Trudgill (1990) state that it is difficult to define swearing, but a general characterisation is needed. According to them, swearing is a type of language use in which the expression “(a) refers to something that is taboo and/or stigmatised in the culture; (b) should not be interpreted literally; (c) can be used to express strong emotions and attitudes” (p. 53). Profanity can be used for a variety of reasons. It is widely considered to express emotions, usually anger towards a specific target (Eckert and McConnell-Ginet, 2013, p. 163; Jay, 2009, p. 155; Rassin and Muris, 2005, p. 1673; Stapleton, 2003, p. 28) with the function to either weaken or strengthen the effort of what a person is saying (Talbot, 2010, p. 37). Swear words can include sexual references (fuck), those that are profane (goddamn), disgusting objects (shit), animal names (bitch) and ethnic/racial/gender slurs (nigger). Swear words go from the mildly offensive (damn) to the very offensive (nigger) and the offensiveness depends on the contextual variables and people’s sensitivity to the context. Swearing with sexual references and words that are profane are most commonly used in English (Jay, 2009, p. 154). The frequency and strength of profanity use are often connected to gender, where male speakers seem to swear more and use a stronger vocabulary than female speakers. However, the context and the gender of the hearer also seem to impact the

frequency of profanity (Coates, 2004, p. 97; Jay, 2009, p. 156). Men use profanity more frequently in public than women and tend to use a less offensive term when in mixed company (Jay, 2009, p. 156). If women adopt a more adversarial language, they might be perceived as aggressive and confrontational (Coates, 2004, p. 201). De Klerk (1991) notes the same trend that even though males seem to use a stronger language to a greater extent than females, it is not the sex alone that influences the use of profanity (p. 161), but also age, education and social power (p. 167). According to Stapleton (2003), the relationship between profanity and gender is more complex than what previous studies have identified. She claims that research seems to be restrained in the dichotomy of inherent differences between women and men that perceive swearing as a masculine quality (p. 32). Eckert and McConnell-Ginet (2013) argue that women are increasingly using more profanity today than before (p. 162). There is also evidence that females may use different kinds of profanity. Research shows that women use words like heavens and gosh, whereas men use terms like bastard and damn to a greater extent (Romaine, 1999, p. 100). Previous work shows that language and profanity are notions that are not only performed by people (Andersson and Trudgill, 1990, p. 46). The mass media, for example, seem to have great impact on how people talk. Music may shape language since it is an effective way to reach a larger audience (p. 43-44). Profanity is typically found in spoken language, such as in music, rather than in written form (p. 72). Andersson and Trudgill (1990) found that many people these days think that the stylistic level in language in mass media is getting worse. Words and phrases that used to be considered as bad language are now seen as neutral language (p. 69-70). The research on swearing has been extensive within different areas such as linguistics, sexuality, education, sociology and women’s studies (Thelwall, 2008, p. 84). A study on profanity in music will therefore be of interest in many fields. Thelwall (2008) argues that it is difficult to collect data on natural swearing language because written texts are often produced in language registers that exclude swear words. It therefore takes some effort in order to study factors such as social class, age and gender (p. 84). However, when studying profanity use, song lyrics seem to be a relevant corpus to investigate. The purpose of this study is to test the gender gap hypothesis on swearing with data from pop song lyrics. This study attempts to challenge previous research that

claims that women swear less than men do (Coates, 2004, p. 97; Jay, 2009, p. 156; McEnery, 2006, p. 29). Andersson and Trudgill (1990) found that the majority of people in their study believed that language is getting worse and claim that our vocabulary was more appropriate before than it is today (p. 159). This study will be of importance in order to get current data on the frequency of swear words on music charts during 2019. Profanity is interesting because it highlights gender roles, which is a relevant topic to the music industry, parents and teachers. To test this hypothesis, data will be collected from a Billboard chart, which is a well-known media brand that tracks the most famous American songs and albums in different genres.

1.1 Hypotheses

Based on previous research that suggest that females are increasingly using more profanity (Eckert and McConnell-Ginet, 2013, p. 162; Lakoff, 2004, p. 44) it is expected that this trend will be reflected in pop music lyrics so that we will see a frequency effect where female and male artists use a similar amount of profanity. However, there is also evidence that females may use different kinds of profanity (Romaine, 1999, p. 100) so it is expected that female and male pop lyrics will show different profanity profiles. The following hypotheses are subject to investigation.

(a) Frequency

HF0: Female and male artists swear to the same extent.

HF1: Female and male artists do not swear to the same extent.

(b) Profanity Profiles

HP0: Female and male artists do not systematically use different categories of profanity.

HP1: Female and male artists systematically use different categories of profanity.

2 Aim and research questions

The aim of this study is to investigate gender differences in the use of profanity in pop songs from the Billboard chart in 2019. The thesis attempts to answer the following questions: • Is there a difference in the frequency of profanities use between female and male artists? • What profanity profiles are found in pop song lyrics in 2019? • Are there any differences in the way female and male artists use profanity?

3 Theoretical framework and previous research

There appears to be no consensus on whether or not men use more profanity than women. Research seem to show different findings depending on factors like age, education, social power and so on. Eckert and McConnell-Ginet (2013) argue that profanity is not used less by women, it is rather that women use bad language to a greater extent these days (p. 162) and that women use different types of swear words than men (Romaine, 1999, p. 100). A study by Rassin and Muris (2005) claims that women swear regularly, with shit as the most popular swear word (p. 1672). Research also shows that offensive language in pop song music is increasing over the years (Knobloch-Westerwick, Musto and Shaw, 2008, p. 19). In regard to this, previous research on profanity in relation to music and gender will be presented in more detail.

3.1 Profanity in music

There will probably always be a difference between formal and informal language, even though the demarcations between formal and informal language are difficult to define. The main assumption is that there will be an increasing use of informal language in music (Ljung, 2006, p. 102). Chirico (2016) highlights the same point, explaining that historically, profanity use in music has been a rare phenomenon that was used to shock people. It is today used to a larger extent mostly in rock and rap music. Knobloch-Westerwick, Musto and Shaw’s (2008) study did not focus on swearing specifically, but rebelliousness in pop chart music, which can include the use of bad language. They found that the majority of pop music lyrics contain rebellious messages that seem to be the norm and are here to stay (p. 20-21). Out of the 260 songs that were studied, the majority of songs (80%) contained at least one rebellious line (p. 18-19). Lyrics have become more explicit in their references to offensive sexual language, drugs and violence. The study shows that the use of swear words in pop song lyrics is more frequent compared to everyday speech. It is clear that the frequency of profanities differs between the different music genres, with rap artists using a high number of swear words. This is what is evident in a study by Frisby and Behm-Morawitz (2019). They argue that rap and hip-hop music lyrics contain more profanity than other music genres and claim that male artists perform songs containing profanity more often than female artists (p. 8). The use of

profane language in pop music lyrics is being criticised in media. Matthew Horton (2016), a music journalist, argues that profanity has become ubiquitous in the music charts and suggests that lyrics should be free from profanity since it reaches many children and the artists risk loosing their prospective audience.

3.2 Gender and language

Robin Lakoff’s article ”Language and woman’s place” (1973) is an influential study in the area of gender and language. This work on gender and language generated academic discussion (Coates, 2004, p. 5; Eckert and McConnell-Ginet, 2013, p. 37). Lakoff (1973) argues that women and men talk differently and established something called “women’s language” (p. 48), which is characterised by linguistic phenomena such as empty adjectives (adorable, charming, divine), hedges (I think) and tag questions (It’s nice weather today, isn’t it?) (p. 51-55). She claims that gendered language can act as an expression of the unequal roles of women and men in society (p. 46) and claims that women are being discriminated against by the language everyone uses, which keeps them in place (p. 49). According to Lakoff, women’s sensitivity to linguistic norms is a marker of their insecure social position that will have consequences for women’s influence in society. She claims that women are denied equality, which in turn makes them powerless. Furthermore, she states that certain features are typical for the way women speak and one of these is its lack of profanity (p. 48-51). Researchers have both agreed and disagreed with Lakoff’s statements. Talbot (2010) claims that Lakoff’s accounts are based on stereotypical expectations of women’s speech and how Lakoff made her own interpretations in how women and men should speak (p. 36). However, Talbot points out that the value of Lakoff’s research is not primarily the speech characterisations that she identified, but the political argument that she put forward that became the starting point for much of the research on gender and language (p. 41). The different findings highlight the problem of having a fixed approach to profanity, where gender is seen as the variable that stands out. In gender difference framework, a fundamental question that is worth asking is “which women and which men do you mean?” (Cameron, 2005, p. 487). Eckert and McConnell-Ginet (2013) highlight the same point as Talbot, meaning that Lakoff’s work lacks empirical evidence since the research is based on her own intuitions and impressions and argues

the importance to distinguish reality from global generalisations. They mean that Lakoff’s claim about women and men talking differently supports and is a result of male dominance over women that will continue to keep women in a subordinate position. However, there are other research to be found that claims that women’s speech style is being more empathic, collaborative and supportive than men’s speech (p. 37- 39).

3.3 Gender and profanity

There are both historical and contemporary assumptions that men use profanity more frequently and with stronger expressions than what women use (Coates, 2004, p. 97; Jay, 2009, p. 156; Lakoff, 1973, p. 51; McEnery, 2006, p. 29). In this sense, language and profanity seem to be gendered and associated with stereotypical norms around femininity and masculinity. According to Lakoff (1973), there are differences in choice and frequency of linguistic items in the way women and men speak (p. 49). She claims that men’s speech is coarser and more direct than women’s formal and polite language (p. 56). Regarding gender differences in profanity usage, research shows that male speakers seem to swear more and use a stronger vocabulary (e.g. fuck, shit, motherfucker) than female speakers (Coates, 2004, p. 97; Jay, 2009, p. 156). Women tend to use oh my god, bitch and piss more frequently than men do. Women were five times more likely than men to say the mild profanity oh my god (Jay, 2009, p. 156). Women are considered, for various reasons, to strive for a more proper language and therefore consciously to adapt their speech to the current standard language. As a result, women are more aware of the social impact and therefore use fewer and milder profanity (Ljung, 2006, p. 93). Coates (2004), claims that the picture of the “tough- talking male and the pure, never-swearing female” (p. 98) is not true. However, she does support that swearing is associated with men’s way of talking and appears to be an essential part of modern masculinity (p. 98). The widespread belief that profanity is considered unsuitable for women has been discussed many times. Eckert and McConnell-Ginet (2013) describe a study by Vincent (1982) showing that people, and especially men, express discomfort when women use profanity. However, even though this norm seems to be changing, it has been widely discussed historically (p. 162).

The belief in the stereotype that men use a more offensive and potent language than women (McEnery, 2006, p. 30) has been criticised by other research that considers it to be a strong generalisation (Stapleton, 2003, p. 32). Swearing is rather described by many, as a common linguistic activity that is equally used by women and men in everyday speech (de Klerk, 1991, p. 161; Stapleton, 2003, p. 27). The clear gender divide that can be seen is that the majority of women in the study considered profanity that is referring to female body parts (e.g. cunt) as obscene compared to men, who regularly use the word cunt (Stapleton, 2003, p. 27). Participants in the study stated that they avoid certain words because it conveys derogatory images of women (p. 30). The critics indicate that male terms are considered as the norm and female terms as subordinate, imposing how women ought to talk. Almost all of the male respondents claimed that words that were regarded as more masculine were more acceptable for men to say than for women (p. 31). However, what research shows is that it is not the sex alone that influences the use of profanity. Other factors like age, education, group culture and socio-economic status seem to have a great impact on people’s language (de Klerk, 1991, p.161; Stapleton, 2003, p. 28).

4 Material and method

4.1 Defining and categorising profanity The definition of profanity is heavily debated and the listener can interpret swear words in different ways. McEnery (2006) defines swearing as the use of any word or phrase that is likely to cause offence when it is used in, what he calls, “polite conversation” (p. 1). Bad language includes swearing, but also words that are being blasphemous, homophobic, racist and sexist (p. 2). Andersson and Trudgill (1990) claim that profanity can be divided into three major groups: (a) dirty words that has to do with sex and excretion (bugger, shit), (b) words associated with the Christian religion (Jesus, Christ), (c) words that have to do with animal names (bitch, cow) (p. 15). According to the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, a swear word is defined as “a word that is considered to be rude, offensive, and shocking by most people”. In this research, the cover term profanity will be used to refer to swear words in general and is furthermore intended to refer to the use of words specifically limited to fuck, shit, bitch, ass, damn/goddamn, nigger, hell, pussy, dick, piss you off and motherfucker, as presented in Table 1.

4.2 Data collection

A cross-sectional study with a quantitative research methodology was conducted in order to examine the frequency of profanities and possible gender differences in modern pop music lyrics. A smaller corpus of pop songs was collected from a chart that reflects the most popular songs of 2019 called “Hot 100 Songs” (see Table 2 and Table 3). This time period was selected because it has not been examined in previous research on this topic. To gain an unbiased sample of songs, an equal number of female and male artists was selected from the official Billboard list. Billboard is an American media brand that is widely known for its music charts, including “Hot 100 Songs”, tracking the most sold singles and albums in the U.S. across all genres of music (Billboard, 2020). Out of 100 pop songs, only 17 unique vocalists represented in this context were females. Since there was a smaller number of female artists on the Billboard list “Hot 100 Songs” for 2019, all the female artists (n=17) from the chart was selected followed by as many male artists (n=17) starting from the top of the list. A total of 34 pop song lyrics were

used in the analysis. The song lyrics were printed and the words that appeared to be swear words were underlined as possible profanity. The words were then checked in the online version of Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English. If the word was listed as taboo and/or not polite/insulting/offensive/unpleasant word, the word was included in the research. The expressions Jesus Christ and oh my god appeared in one pop song performed by a male artist. According to Andersson and Trudgill (1990), terms that are associated with the Christian religion (Jesus/Christ) are claimed to be swear words (p. 15). The two expressions were not referred in the Dictionary of Contemporary English as taboo or offensive words and were therefore excluded from the result. The swear words might have appeared in different word class, through common suffixes like –ed, –er and –ing, but they were all collected and will in this text be written in base form. Songs performed by music groups consisting of both female and male artists were excluded from the sample. In order to examine the hypothesis that female and male artists use profanities in unique ways, the data was analysed by the frequency of profanities per song with the purpose to see if the swearing could be categorised.

4.3 Reliability, validity and representativeness To gain an adequate sample, data from a chart representing the most popular songs of 2019, included all genres of music, was selected. The intention was to get a larger sample to make it more representative. Since there were no more than 17 female artists on the list and the sample was to be equally divided between the sexes, the corpus became a total of 34 song lyrics. The data is based on popular songs in the U.S. and can therefore only be representative of songs in English included in the sample. Based on the small material in this research, results cannot be generalised to a greater context. However, it might be possible to notice trends within pop song lyrics, which could possibly be of a more general character. Since this research is conducted on existing material with no influence of the researcher, the results can be regarded as objective.

4.4 Data analysis In this study, descriptive and comparative statistics was adopted. Since the study aimed to investigate if there were gender differences in the use of profanities in pop music lyrics, female and male lyrics are compared. To see if female artists used more

profanities in song lyrics than male artists, the swear words were calculated and collected for each lyrics and types of profanity by gender.

5 Results and analysis

The results of the investigation focus on the types and frequencies of swear words, in order to answer the question if there are any gender differences in the use of profanity in pop music in 2019. In accordance with this study’s definition of what counts as a profanity, there were 9 different types of swear words uttered by women found, as shown in Table 2 and 11 types of swear words used by men, as shown in Table 3. Female artists included in the data were Ariana Grande, Ava Max, Billie Eilish, Cardi B, City Girls, Ella Mai, Halsey, Lauren Daigle, Lizzo, Pink, Saweetie and Taylor Swift. Male artists included in the data were Chris Brown feat Drake, Da Baby, Ed Sheeran and Justin Bieber, J Cole, Jonas Brothers, Khalid, Lewis Capaldi, Lil Baby and Gunna, Lil Nas X feat Billy Ray Cyrus, Lil Tecca, Marshmello and Bastille, Meek Mill feat Drake, Panic! At the disco, Post Malone and Swae Lee and Travis Scott.

5.1 Frequency of profanity by gender Table 1 reports the main results, the percentages of profanity profiles by gender. The data shows that swearing is a relatively common phenomenon in the present study, as also previously research has found (Knobloch-Westerwick, Musto and Shaw, 2008, p. 19). To see the frequency of swearing in the study’s 34 pop song lyrics, the swear words were calculated for female and male artists. Table 1 presents the frequency for each profanity by women and men and shows that profanity appeared in slightly half of all the songs, which can be seen in Table 2 and Table 3. Out of 34 songs in total, profanity appeared in 19 of the lyrics. The material shows that female artists in the corpus use profanity to a greater extent than male artists. Female artists uttered swear words in 58.8% of the 17 songs compared to male artists who swore in 53.0% of the songs. These findings contradict previous studies that claim that women swear less than men do (Coates, 2004, p. 97; Jay, 2009, p. 156; Lakoff, 1973, p. 51; McEnery, 2006, p. 29). As presented in Table 1, profanities occurred 152 times in the song lyrics performed by female artists and 132 times by male artists, together making up a total of 284 swear words in the entire corpus of 34 song lyrics. The profanity that is most frequently used is nigger, which stands for almost one third of all the profanities used by female and male artists together and scores an even higher percentage within the group of male artists (40.2%). The profanities damn/goddamn, hell, pussy, dick, piss

you off and motherfucker appeared in lower frequencies in general in the data. The rates were under 5% in total for each of these profanities. Hell is the only profanity that occurred with the same frequency between the genders.

Table 1. Frequency of profanities by women and men Profanity Frequency % Frequency % Total % women men Fuck 22 14.5 20 15.2 42 14.8 Shit 14 9.2 28 21.2 42 14.8 Bitch 38 25.0 16 12.1 54 19.0 Ass 24 15.8 4 3.0 28 9.9 Damn/Goddamn 5 3.3 3 2.3 8 2.8 Nigger 32 21.1 53 40.2 85 30.0 Hell 1 0.7 1 0.8 2 0.7 Pussy 10 6.6 2 1.5 12 4.2 Dick 6 3.9 2 1.5 8 2.8 Piss you off 0 0.0 1 0.8 1 0.4 Motherfucker 0 0.0 2 1.5 2 0.7 Total 152 100 132 100 284 100

The songs by female artists that include most profanities are Act Up with City Girls (49), My Type with Saweetie (47) and Money with Cardi B (26), as shown in Table 2 below. These artists are all playing in the genre of rap music.

Table 2. Female Artist’s Profanity Use in Pop Music Profanity Fuck Shit Bitch Ass Damn / Nigger Hell Pussy Dick Goddamn Song title Artist

Without Me 2 ------Halsey Bad Guy ------Billie Eilish 7 Rings - 1 2 1 - - - - - Ariana Grande Thank U, Next 7 2 ------Ariana Grande Truth Hurts 2 - 5 ------Lizzo Sweet But Psycho ------Ava Max Break Up With Your 2 1 - - 2 - - - - Girlfriend, I’m Bored Ariana Grande Money - 3 12 5 2 3 - - 1 Cardi B You Need To Calm Down - - - - 1 - - - - Taylor Swift You Say ------Lauren Daigle When The Party’s Over ------Billie Eilish Act Up 6 - 8 18 - 9 1 7 - City Girls Breathin - 2 ------Ariana Grande Bury A Friend ------Billie Eilish My Type 3 5 11 - - 20 - 3 5 Saweetie Trip ------Ella Mai Walk Me Home ------Pink

An example from the song Act Up that has the highest number of swear words of all song lyrics in the data performed by female artists begins like this:

Real ass bitch, give a fuck ‘bout a nigga Big Birkin bag, hold five, six figures Stripes on my ass so he call this pussy Tigger Fuckin’ on a scammin’ ass, rich ass nigga Same group of bitches, ain’t no adding to the picture Drop a couple racks, watch this ass get bigger (Genius Media Group Inc, Act Up lyrics, 2020)

This paragraph includes the profanities ass (5), bitch (2), fuck (2), nigger (2) and pussy (1), making up a total of 12 swear words. The City Girls describe a picture of what type of life they are living. The song is about how they, as women, want to act in a way that challenges the norm of what is expected of them. They want to take advantage of “rich ass nigga” and are willing to spend money on making “this ass get bigger”. This song consists a total of 511 words and 49 of these are considered as profanity, thereby showing a ratio of 9.6%. That means that almost every tenth word is a swear word. This finding seems to tally with what the quantitative data in this investigation shows, but question Lakoff’s study (1973) for example, that claims that women do not use profanity when they speak (p. 50). The songs that used most profanities among male artists were Suge with Da Baby (47), Middle Child with J Cole (22) and Sicko Mode with Travis Scott (14), as shown in Table 3. These artists are all playing in the genre of rap music.

Table 3. Male Artist’s Profanity Use in Pop Music Profanity Fuck Shit Bitch Ass Damn Nigger Hell Pussy Dick Piss you Mother- off fucker Song title Artist

Old Town Road ------Lil Nas X feat Billy Ray Cyrus Sunflower ------Post Malone and Swae Lee Wow - 3 ------1 - Post Malone Happier ------Marshmello and Bastille Talk ------Khalid Sicko Mode 1 6 3 - - 2 - 1 - - 1 Travis Scott Sucker ------Jonas Brothers High Hopes ------Panic! At the disco I Don’t Care ------1 - - - - Ed Sheeran and Justin Bieber Going Bad 3 3 2 - - 2 - - - - - Meek Mill feat Drake Better ------Khalid No Guidance 4 3 - - 3 3 - - - - - Chris Brown feat Drake Suge 4 5 9 1 - 27 - - - - 1 Da Baby Middle Child 2 4 - - - 14 - - 2 - - J Cole Drip Too Hard 6 2 1 - - 3 - 1 - - - Lil Baby and Gunna Someone You Loved ------Lewis Capaldi Ransom - 2 1 3 - 2 - - - - - Lil Tecca

Below is a paragraph from the first verse from the track Suge that has the highest number of swear words among male artists.

Opp, I’ll slap the shit out a nigga No talkin’, I don’t like to argue with niggas (I don’t) Ain’t gon’ be no more laughin’ You see me whip out guns, I’m gon’ be the ‘shot me a nigga’ (No cap) I don’t follow no bitches on IG But all of your bitches, they follow a nigga (Ha) And that lil’ nigga ain’t gon’ shoot shit with that gun He just pull it out in his pictures (Bitch, uh) (Genius Media Group Inc, Suge lyrics, 2020)

This part of the song includes the profanities: shit (2), nigger (5) and bitch (3), making up a total of 10 swear words. The song seems to be about intensity (“slap the shit out a nigga”) and the lethal aspects of violence (“shoot shit with that gun”). The song consists a total of 748 words and 47 of them are considered as swear words, which make a ratio of 6.3% being profanities. The songs Act Up, performed by a female artist, and Suge, performed by a male artist, were two the lyrics in the corpus that had the highest frequency of profanity. The findings above indicate that female artists in the corpus have a higher frequency of profanity in their tracks than male artists. Act Up had a ratio of 9.6% of swear words in the track and Suge measured 6.3% being profanity. See Table 2 and Table 3 for frequencies by individual songs.

5.2 Types of profanity by gender This study’s data identifies profanities from all of the categories described by Jay (2009), which are, among others, sexual references (fuck), those that are profane (goddamn), disgusting objects (shit), animal names (bitch) and ethnic/racial/gender slurs (nigger) (p. 154). In accordance with Jay (2009), the profanity type that is the most common in the data is related to sexual references (fuck, pussy, dick). The profanity that occurs in the corpus are 11 in total: fuck, shit, bitch, ass, damn/goddamn, nigger, hell, pussy, dick, piss you off and motherfucker. The different types of swear words that female and male artists use are mostly the same, even though differences can be seen in the frequency of each word. When looking at the number of profanities, female artists use 9 types of swear words, compared to male artists where 11 types of swear words appear in the song lyrics. As shown in Table 2, the swear words fuck (used by six artists), shit (used by six artists) and bitch (used by five artists) are profanities that are used by most female artists in the corpus. The same tendency is seen among male artists. Fuck (used by six artists), shit (used by eight artists), bitch (used by five artists) as well as nigger (used by seven artists) are the profanities that most male artists uttered, as seen in Table 3. The profanities piss you off and motherfucker are used exclusively by male artists, even though the frequencies are low. Since men tend to have a wider vocabulary in using more types of profanity, this might illustrate that profanities can be seen as male dominant (Coates, 2004, p. 97; Jay, 2009, p. 156). In the entire corpus, there are two words that represent the majority of profanities in the song lyrics in total, presented in Table 1; nigger (30.0%) and bitch (19.0%). The same swear words are most used by female artists; bitch (25.0%) and nigger (21.1%). The profanities that are the most represented by male artists are nigger (40.2%) and shit (21.2%). The types of profanity used by women and men in this study are in agreement with previous research by Jay (2009) who found that out of 11, 609 words that were recorded from conversations, 70 words were taboo words where bitch and shit were two of the most frequently used swear words (p. 156). The main difference that distinguishes the present study from previous research is that the racial profanity nigger scored significant highest percentage in the entire corpus. This finding is not evident in Jay’s study where nigger occurred relatively infrequently in conversations (p. 156).

6 Discussion The present study reports on profanity with a focus on gender differences in a small corpus of pop music lyrics. It is evident that profanity appears in several tracks in the data, which is in accordance with previous research that claims that there is an increasing use of informal language within music (Ljung, 2006, p. 102). The primary goal in the study was to challenge previous research that claims that women swear less than men do (Coates, 2004, p. 97; Jay, 2009, p. 15; McEnery, 2006, p. 29). Swear words seem to be a part of pop artists’ vocabulary and vary in frequency and profile. Some lyrics contain strong language to a very high degree and in an insulting way, which Da Baby’s Suge is an example of. A paragraph from the track goes like this “use the brain in your head ‘fore you lose it (Bitch) I’ll pull up after school and I’ll teach her some shit”. Other artists use swear words to emphasise certain things for the purpose of achieving a stylistic effect like in Ariana Grande’s Thank U, Next where it goes “I’m so fuckin’ grateful for my ex”. In terms of the frequency of swearing, this study’s findings are in contrast to the stereotypical speech style for women and men. It presents that the frequency of profanities are higher within female artists than their male counterparts. Out of 17 songs, female artists use profanity in 10 of the songs, which make a ratio of 58.8% compared to male artists who utter swear words in 9 of the 17 songs making profanity in 53.0% of the songs. These findings confirm one of the research questions for this study and make the hypothesis HF1 (female and male artists do not swear to the same extent) more plausible than HF0 (female and male artists swear to the same extent). The frequent use of profanities might be seen as breaking society’s expectations of femininity, wherein they are deferent and polite with the quest to come closer to a standard speech form (Stapleton, 2003, p. 22). An explanation for that could be that it is more commercially viable if female artists sing more in the way male artists do that might also attract a larger audience. Another explanation could be that since the social role of women changes, patterns of profanity usage will change accordingly meaning that if women in general use more profanity in their everyday talk, that will probably reflect what kind of language women use when they sing. For women to express themselves in song lyrics could be a way to feel powerful without fear of retribution. De Klerk (1991) emphasises that male speakers are condoned when using profanity while

females generally are condemned (p. 158). Being aware of the fact that language is in constant change, one must keep in mind that de Klerk’s article (1991) as well as Lakoff’s research (1973) are written decades ago and might not be as relevant today, but still seem to reflect some linguistic stereotypes. A word that today is considered as a profanity tends to get less likely to cause offence since they are constantly replaced by new words. As an example, in many languages, most of the religious swear words have lost their taboos they once had. A swear word that was seen as very strong has become mild in our secularised western society. It seems that today’s profanities will follow the same pattern as well (Ljung, 2006, p. 38). In contrary to the descriptions that women use a more formal and polite language (Lakoff, 1973, p. 56) that is “powerless” (de Klerk, 1991, p. 156), this study shows that female artists use the same strong swear words that male do. Even though there are some differences in profanity profiles, the types of swear words seem to be more similar than different between the genders. The majority of profanities (fuck, bitch, ass, damn, pussy, dick) are more frequently used by female artists in this study, with bitch (25.0%) as the most commonly used. Profanities that were associated with male artists were shit, nigger, piss you off and motherfucker, with nigger (40.2%) as the most frequent used by male artists. One of the findings is that profanities with sexual references are being overrepresented. Fuck, pussy and dick are the profanities with sexual references that are used to a greater extent by female artists in the study than male artists. A possible factor that should be considered is that women’s use of these strong words may represent a shift that challenges male dominance and claims authority of belonging to a certain group (Eckert and McConnell-Ginet, 2013, p. 163). Women’s use of strong language could also be a way to shock people (Stapleton, 2003, p. 29). Furthermore, it might be argued that female artists are more allowed to use a high frequency of profanity in mass media with the purpose to entertain without being limited by the language. As in previous frequency counts (Thelwall, 2008, p. 98), significant for male artists are the profanities shit and nigger. What distinguishes female artists from male artists in this study in terms of profanity profile is that they do not use as many different types of swear words that male artists do. The data shows that female artists use strong forms of profanities in

much the same way as male artists, which is in agreement with previous research (Eckert and McConnell-Ginet, 2013, p. 162-163). Lakoff’s (1973) claims about women using “weaker” swear words such as goodness and oh dear (p. 50) does not seem to occur in pop song lyrics in the present study even though the pattern that men use “stronger” forms of profanities (Coates, 2004, p. 97; Jay, 2009, p. 156; Lakoff, 1973, p. 51; McEnery, 2006, p. 29) can to some extent be seen in this material. Men tended to use the offensive words like fuck, shit, motherfucker, which is in accordance with previous research (Jay, 2009, p. 156), whereas women more frequently use bitch and ass. What is meant by “stronger” profanity depends on the context and people’s sensitivity to the context and can therefore vary (p. 154). There are obvious words that we are not supposed to say, those that are insulting (bitch) or being taboo (nigger) for example (Andersson and Trudgill, 1990, p. 55). Looking at the title of this study, You know who pop the most shit? that is taken from the third verse in the song Money (see Appendix) performed by the female rap artist called Cardi B. The song represents one of the lyrics that have got the highest number of profanities in this study’s material. Even though the text consists of multiple swear words, the text does not seem to have any rebellious message. Cardi B sings about herself as being rich and economically independent. The way a woman may call herself a “bad bitch”, like in Money, does not necessarily have to come with a negative meaning. If a woman utters “bad bitch” could be a source of strength and a statement of power, whereas if a man using bitch when referring to a woman, it could be seen as insulting and derogatory. The results show that the gender specific pronoun bitch was the most significant profanity for women as a whole, which is in line with previous research (Jay, 2009, p. 156). Bitch scored a high ratio of regularly used profanity in the study by Stapleton (2003), but the swear word was equally used by women and men (p. 26). The data shows that it is not unusual to sing about a nigger, especially in the song Suge by Da Baby (see Table 3). What appears to be significant for the term nigger is that the songs are all performed by artists with Afro-American heritage. Using the powerful word nigger seems to be a matter of culture. It might be explained by the fact that Afro-American people can utter nigger about themselves without being insulting, whereas if artists from another culture and in another context would sing about niggers

it would be seen as racist and strongly forbidden. These findings are in line with Thelwall (2008) who reports that the degree of offence is depending on usage. The word nigger is considered offensive in an abusive context, but less insulting in an inoffensive context (p. 107). Belonging to a particular culture or a community seem to have a bigger impact on how people speak rather than our gender. Language is a part of group identification and can be a powerful sign of being included in a certain group. Using a strong language is more common in the context of shared group activity and does not necessarily have to mark the speech style as typically “masculine” (Stapleton, 2003, p. 32). This might also affect why rap artists use profanity to a greater extent than artists performed within another genre. People’s view on what is referred as being bad language differs depending on who is being asked. The distinctions between what is good and bad in a language are closely tied to cultures and ideologies. The types of swear words that are used may indicate something about the values and beliefs of the speaker (Andersson and Trudgill, 1990, p. 15). Words that used to be profanities are becoming more neutral and are today a part of our language (p. 70). For comparison purpose, to call someone using body parts like dick may not be as inappropriate as nigger even though it is, according to Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, seen as “an offensive word for a stupid annoying person”. As already mentioned, the result shows that sexual references are being overrepresented and it seems reasonable to infer that we ought to be able to talk about sexual references like dick without it being taboo. That is why it is important to be careful about how to use these inappropriate words, both in formal and informal language, such as in music lyrics (Jay, 2009, p. 155). The results show that the use of profanity and music genre matters. The study’s findings support prior research (Frisby and Behm-Morawitz, 2019, p. 8) and suggest that rap music is the genre that has the highest frequency of profanity, regardless of gender. An explanation as to why rap is the predominantly genre in the use of profanity might has something to do with the aspect of culture, mentioned above. The culture may have historical roots of being more supportive and tolerant to references centring on the use of profanity. It could be that rappers come from an environment with violence and poorer living conditions and using profanity is how people speak. Furthermore, it could

be that the genre of rap is under more scrutiny than other genres such as country music for example. Another aspect to consider when it comes to profanity use in pop music is that people cannot choose if they want to be exposed by lyrics with offensive language or sexual references. Regarding songs playing on the radio, you are not warned in advance like you are when you watch violence on TV for example. Music is a popular form of entertainment among young people. A pop song often comes with a music video that could be inappropriate for young people to watch if the song contains references to sex, violence and have tendency to characterise women in a sexualised and stereotypical way. Pop artists can act as powerful role models to young people and by providing large numbers of sexualised images, the music industry may be partly responsible for shaping children and teenagers’ beliefs about women, sex and intimate relationships. What the difference is between the influence of profanity in music and on TV, is an interesting area that could be looked more into. However, the picture is clear. Swearing is a powerful communicative tool and is used by many people in different context no matter if you are a woman or a man. There are shared opinions about female swearing and those will only change if we challenge them.

7 Conclusion This study explored gender differences in the use of profanity in pop song lyrics on the Billboard chart of 2019 and attempted to challenge previous research that claims that women swear less than men do. Furthermore, the frequency of profanities in song lyrics were investigated and if there was any pattern to be seen in what types of swear words female and male artists use. The study found that profanities are used by both female and male artists in pop music of 2019, but with variations of frequency and profanity profiles. In general, it seems reasonable to infer from this study that profanity use is a complex linguistic phenomenon that cannot be investigated only through a calculation of frequency and profiles without considering a variety of other factors that may influence the outcome, such as age, education and social power. These aspects affect female speech in the same way as male speech and it might be a difficulty to isolate the variable “sex” from other factors since language is not only a reflection of gender. The use of profanity can be seen as a tool to construct and display the artist’s identity. However, the results from this study show that female artists use profanity to a greater extent than their male counterparts. They use strong swear words similarly to male artists, even though specific gendered patterns were revealed. The word bitch was the most significant for women and represented 25% of all the profanities within lyrics performed by female artists, while nigger was the most commonly used profanity performed by male artists and accounted for 40.2%. Nigger was the profanity that has the highest frequency looking at female and male artists in total. Results from the present study show that the use of profanity was most likely to be found in the genre of rap music lyrics with sexual references being overrepresented. Being exposed to sexual themes will most likely influence people’s beliefs and attitudes about sexual behaviour. There is also a concern that pop music lyrics can depict women in a sexualised way that in turn will distort the attitudes and beliefs about women. What is remarkable to consider is it that a pop song could include sexual content that put women as sexual objects and being sexually subordinate to men, but still being the track that scores highest rates. This study might give us some clues of how frequent profanities appear in pop song lyrics and what profiles female and male artists use in music today. Certain swear

words can be said to be representative for female artists or male artists, but both genders use profanity that is mostly the same. However, the corpus is small due to few female artists on the chart that was studied. There were some words that probably could be seen as bad language by some people, but since the dictionary did not consider them as profanities, they were eliminated, which in turn might have affected the result. Other limitations to consider are that the sample includes only song lyrics in English and is collected from an American chart and it is therefore not generalised for a greater context.

According to this study, the hypothesis concerning frequency is that HF1 is more plausible than HF0, saying that female and male artists do not swear to the same extent. When it comes to profanity profile, female and male artists in the study seem to use different categories of profanities, but the differences are not big and the patterns seem to be more similar than different. This makes HP1 more plausible than HF0. Findings suggest that usage of profanity by female artists in pop music lyrics needs further research since people still are under the impression that swearing is more frequently used by men. The song lyrics were all from last year, 2019, which shows how the music industry and the artists portray women and men’s language today. It should therefore be interesting to repeat this study in ten years’ time to test for a diachronic effect and see how profanity is used in the artist’s language, but then using a larger dataset in order to be more representative of a bigger population. To summarise, the main trends that can be seen in this study’s data are that female and male artists commonly use profanity in pop music lyrics in 2019, but it is more frequently used in songs performed by female artists. Profanities with sexual references are overrepresented and nigger and bitch are the two swear words that are most commonly used. Even though this is a smaller investigation and the result cannot be representative of a bigger context, the study challenges previous research that has provided information about women using less and milder forms of profanity than men. However, more research is needed in this field in order to explore if there is a clear gender difference in how artists use profanity in pop song lyrics of today and what effects that have on the listener. Profanity is a controversial part of language, but it is an area that should not be dismissed as it is very much part of our daily life.

8 References

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9 Appendix

Money – Cardi B

Look, my bitches all bad, my niggas all real I ride on his dick in some big tall heels Big fat checks, big large bills Front, I'll flip like ten cartwheels Cold ass bitch, I give broads chills Ten different looks and my looks all kill I kiss him in the mouth, I feel all grills He eat in the car, that's meals on wheels (Woo)

I was born to flex (Yes) Diamonds on my neck I like boardin' jets, I like mornin' sex (Woo) But nothing in this world that I like more than checks (Money) All I really wanna see is the (Money) I don't really need the D, I need the (Money) All a bad bitch need is the (Money flow) I got bands in the coupe (Coupe) Bustin' out the roof I got bands in the coupe (Coupe) Touch me, I'll shoot (Bow) Shake a lil ass (Money) Get a little bag and take it to the store (Store, money) Get a little cash (Money) Shake it real fast and get a little more (Money) I got bands in the coupe (Coupe) Bustin' out the roof I got bands in the coupe (Brrr) Bustin' out the roof (Cardi)

I gotta fly, I need a jet, shit I need room for my legs I got a baby, I need some money, yeah I need cheese for my egg All y'all bitches in trouble Bring brass knuckles to the scuffle I heard that Cardi went pop Yeah, I did go pop (Pop) That's me bustin' they bubble I'm Dasani with the drip Baby mommy with the clip Walk out Follie's with a bitch Bring a thottie to the whip If she fine or she thick, goddamn Walkin' past the mirror, ooh Damn, I'm fine (Fine) Let a bitch try me, boom (Boom) Hammer time, uh

Bitch, I will pop on your pops (Your pops) Bitch, I will pop on whoever (Brrr) You know who pop the most shit? (Who?) The people whose shit not together (Okay) You'da bet Cardi a freak (Freak) All my pajamas is leather (Uh) Bitch, I will black on your ass (Yeah) Wakanda forever Sweet like a honey bun, spit like a Tommy gun Rollie a one of one, come get your mommy some Cardi at the tip-top, bitch Kiss the ring and kick rocks, sis (Mwah) Jump it down, back it up (Ooh, ayy) Make that nigga put down 2K I like my niggas dark like D'USSÉ He gonna eat this ass like soufflé

I was born to flex, diamonds on my neck I like boardin' jets, I like mornin' sex But nothing in this world that I like more than Kulture (Kulture, Kulture, Kulture) All I really wanna see is the (Money) I don't really need the D, I need the (Money) All a bad bitch need is the K.K.C (Woo)