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When She Rhetorically Swears in Arabic: a Sociolinguistic Approach to Women’S Swearing in a University Speech Community

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When She Rhetorically Swears in Arabic: a Sociolinguistic Approach to Women’S Swearing in a University Speech Community The American University in Cairo School of Humanities and Social Sciences When She Rhetorically Swears in Arabic: A Sociolinguistic Approach to Women’s Swearing in a University speech community A Thesis Submitted to The Department of Applied Linguistics in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for The Degree of Master of Arts By Mohamed Bayoumi December 2017 I The American University in Cairo School of Humanities and Social Sciences When She Rhetorically Swears in Arabic: A Sociolinguistic Approach to Women’s Swearing in a University speech community A Thesis Submitted by Mohamed Bayoumi Submitted to the Department of Applied Linguistics December 2017 In partial fulfillment of the requirements for The degree of Master of Arts in Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language has been approved by Dr. Zeinab Taha ___________________________________________ Thesis Supervisor Affiliation: The American University in Cairo Date ____________________ Dr. Dalal Abu El Seoud _____________________________________ Thesis first Reader Affiliation: The American University in Cairo Date ____________________ Dr. Mona Kamel Hassan _____________________________________ Thesis Second Reader Affiliation: The American University in Cairo Date ____________________ Dr. Amira Agameya _________________________________________ Chair, Department of Applied Linguistics Date ____________________ Dr. Robert Switzer __________________________________________ Dean, School of Humanities and Social Sciences Date ____________________ II ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS To my grandmother, parents, and sisters; Soad Siddiq, Reda Ghareeb, Said Ibrahim, Mervat, Asmaa and Nada. I really owe it all to you. You have always provided unconditional love and support in my life. Thank You! I am quite grateful to Dr. Raghda El Essawi the one who supported me to conduct my sociolinguistic research on the AUC campus. I am also very grateful to Dr. Zeinab Taha, Dr. Dalal Abo El Seoud, and Dr. Mona Hassan for their recommendations and invaluable feedback during the thesis writing and defense. I thank Dr. Ashraf Abdo, and Dr. Reem Bassiouney for the unique, and invaluable learning experience I had with. Deepest gratitude is extended to David Kanbergs, Emily Goldman, Denna Mansour, Hagar Lotfy, and Magdalena Zawrotna for their unfailing support and assistance. My sincerest thanks is allotted to Alla Hassan, Miled Faiza, Mirena Christoff, and Jill Stewart for their love, support, appreciation and understanding. I am also very grateful to Mahmoud El Rifaai, Mohamed Ali Soliman, Said Hamid, and Yasser Abd El Ghani for their tolerance. Thanks to all the AUC students who participated in my study survey and interview. Thanks to all my friends who always supported, encouraged and believed in me. Finally, thanks to all my colleagues especially Hasnaa Essam, Hossam Ebid, Magdy El Badry, Mohamed Hassan, Mostafa Younis, Noha Enab, Shereen Shendy, and the most helpful and thoughtful lady in the department Sarah Tarek! Thank You! III ABSTRACT Swearing, a controversial linguistic phenomenon, has recently become more of a social norm in some segments of Egyptian mass media. Much of the blame for the growth of swearing as a linguistic phenomenon, meanwhile, has been directed at mass media itself. This study investigates swearing in the speech community of female college students affiliated with the upper class in Egyptian society. The study examined the commonly-held notion that women use weaker swear words than men. Also examined were the effect of gender constellations on swear words use, and the social and linguistic functions swear words accomplish in this speech community. 154 participants responded to the study online survey and 6 of the questionnaire respondents participated in the follow-up interviews. The study, in line with Stapleton (2003), Fägersten (2012), Zawrotna (2016), and Rosenberg et al. (2017), revealed that the female speech community analyzed in this study uses swear words less frequently than males of the same speech community, yet equally offensive. Swearing takes place in both same sex and mixed gender groups. 67.2 % of participants’ swearing behavior has not been inhabited by the presence of males. While some participants in accordance with Frank and Anshen (1983) showed no change in their swearing behavior or in accordance with Jay (1986) decreased their swearing, some participants in accordance with limbrick (1991) increased their swearing in males’ presence. The study population uses swear words to express anger as well as emphasis, intimacy, humor/joy, pain, social bonding and solidarity. Keywords: offensive language, swear words, impoliteness, gender, taboo language, language appropriate use, swearing, Arabic language teaching IV TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT IV LIST OF TABLES VII LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS IX CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION 1 Introduction 1 Statement of the Problem 2 Gap and Rationale 5 Research Questions 6 Important Definitions 7 Operational Definition 8 CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW 9 Gender and Swearing 9 Functions of Swearing 17 Swearing and Gender Constellations 19 CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY 22 Introduction 22 Research Design 23 Questionnaire Informants 23 Interview Informants 24 Data Analysis 24 CHAPTER FOUR: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 26 1. Social Class, Gender, and Swearing 26 1.1 Social Class 26 1.2 AUC Speech Community 27 1.3 Female AUCians’ Swearing Behavior 30 2. Swearing and Gender Constellations 37 3. Social and Linguistic Functions of Swearing 41 CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSION 44 Pedagogical Implication 44 Limitations of the Study 47 V APPENDICES 48 Appendix A: Swear word Tables 48 Appendix B: Arabic Phonemic Transcription Symbols 53 Appendix C: Questionnaire Items 54 Appendix D: Interview Questions 60 REFERENCES 62 VI LIST OF TABLES Page Table (1) AUCian participants’ Education Background 26 Table (2) Swear words use on the AUC campus 27 Table (3) Frequently used Swear Words on the AUC campus 49 Table (4) AUCian Females’ conversation on campus 28 Table (5) AUCian females’ perception of their swearing behavior 29 comparing to AUCian males’ Table (6) Participants’ swearing habits 30 Table (6.1) Participants’ swearing habits on/out of campus 31 Table (7) Swear words severity used by the participants 32 Table (8) Swear words categories 33 Table (9) Data of different swear words categories 49 Table (10) Swear words most frequently used by AUCian females 50 Table (11) Top reported swear words in the study 50 Table (12) Swear words no longer perceived as swear words 34 Table (13) Most used language to swear in 36 Table (14) Used languages of offensive swear words 36 Table (16) Swearing Behaviour in Gender Constellations 37 Table (17) Participants’ attitudes towards other AUCian females’ 39 swearing Table (18) AUCian females’ reaction to AUCian males’ swearing 39 Table (19) AUCian females’ use swear words on social media 39 Table (20) AUCian females’ use of swear words in classrooms 39 VII Table (21) AUCian females’ reaction to other AUCian females swearing 41 Table (22) Participants’ perception on AUCian males’ reaction to 41 AUCian females’ swearing Table (23) Swearing/Swear Words Functions 41 Table (24) Swear words used to show anger 51 Table (25) Swear words to used show Surprise 52 Table (26) Swear words to used show Solidarity 5 2 Table (A) Swear word Numbers 48 VIII LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS S : Swearing SW : Swear Word/s AUC : The American University in Cairo AFL : Arabic as a Foreign Language IX CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION Introduction Swearing, in basic terms, is the use of potentially offensive, inappropriate or unacceptable words in a given social context (Fägersten, 2012). Dirty words, curse words, bad words, cuss words, obscenities, vulgarisms, expletives, profanities, epithets, blasphemy, bawdy language, foul language, rude language, or taboo language are all – interchangeable – aliases of swear words. While these words, which “have become increasingly prevalent in oral communication” (Sapolsky & Kaye, 2005, p.293), are generally not supposed to be used in certain situations, their use is not always equivalently offensive in all contexts (Jay, 1992; Kapoor, 2016). Swearing, as an act of speech, could be a matter of reward, punishment or complete indifference depending on the sociocultural context, and community (of practice in a culture) in which it occurs. This makes swearing a fascinating social behavior, especially when taking into consideration diverse variables such as speaker-listener relationship (including gender, occupation, and status), the social-physical setting, and the level of formality (Jay, Timothy, and Kristin, 2008 & Fägersten, 2012). Swearing fulfills "unique”, yet sometimes overlapping functions: expletive, abusive, social and stylistic functions (Wang, 2013 and Allan & Burridge, 2009). The bulk of research on this topic, which in fact amounts to a relatively small number of studies, tends to analyze and delineate the use of swear words rather than addressing it as "socially determined behavior" (Fägersten, 2012, p.20). The investigation of the influence of social context on swearing was undertaken in situations where swear words occurred at a high frequency in the informal conversations of college students (e.g., Staley, 1978; Krishnayya, 2001; Bailey and Timm,1976; Risch, 1987; Stapleton, 2003; Fägersten, 2012). This was undertaken by word frequency studies giving credit to sociolinguistic approach to swearing by 1 focusing on a hypothetical situation, interlocutor age, and interlocutor gender (Fägersten, 2012). Wierzbicka (1991), Staley (1978),
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