You Know Who Pop the Most Shit?
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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 3 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 4 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