Diplomarbeit
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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by OTHES DIPLOMARBEIT Titel der Diplomarbeit „Bad language: A study of German- English bilinguals’ perception of swear words in L1 and L2“ Band 1 von 5 Bänden Verfasserin Ioana-Adriana Rusu angestrebter akademischer Grad Magistra der Philosophie (Mag.phil.) Wien, 2012 Studienkennzahl lt. Studienblatt: A 190 334 347 Studienrichtung lt. Studienblatt: UF Englisch UF Französisch Betreuer: Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Nikolaus Ritt Contents Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................4 List of abbreviations ........................................................................................................................5 1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................6 1 Theoretical part ..........................................................................................................................7 1.1 Research question ...............................................................................................................7 2.2 General Introduction to swear words ................................................................................ 11 2.2.1 Categories .................................................................................................................. 11 2.2.2 Epithets by Goffman .................................................................................................. 11 2.2.3 Categorizations of BLW by Jay, McEnery, Pinker, Allan and Burridge ......................... 13 2.3 Theories ............................................................................................................................ 20 2.3.1 Psychology ................................................................................................................. 20 2.3.2 Emotions ................................................................................................................... 22 2.3.3 Bilingualism and Emotions ......................................................................................... 25 2.3.4 Neurolinguistics ......................................................................................................... 28 2.3.5 Gender differences .................................................................................................... 31 3 Empirical part ............................................................................................................................ 33 3.1 Research design and question ........................................................................................... 33 3.1.1 Research design ......................................................................................................... 33 3.1.2 Context ...................................................................................................................... 33 3.1.3 Choice of swear words ............................................................................................... 36 3.1.4 Questionnaire and dialogues ...................................................................................... 38 3.1.4.1 Dialogues ................................................................................................................... 39 3.1.4.2 Questionnaire ............................................................................................................ 40 3.1.5 Participants ................................................................................................................ 43 3.1.6 Problems during the empirical study .......................................................................... 51 3.2 Results of the empirical study ............................................................................................ 52 3.3 Body parts ......................................................................................................................... 53 3.3.1.1 Arschloch and asshole ................................................................................................ 54 3.3.1.2 Fotze and cunt ........................................................................................................... 58 3.3.2 Body parts’ L1-L2 difference ....................................................................................... 61 3.3.3 Body parts-male-female differences .......................................................................... 62 Arschloch, asshole, Fotze and cunt ............................................................................................ 62 3.4 Bodily Effluvia .................................................................................................................... 67 3.4.1 Scheiße, shit, bullshit ................................................................................................. 67 2 3.4.2 Bodily effluvia L1-L2 difference .................................................................................. 76 3.7.1 Bodily Effluvia male female difference ....................................................................... 77 3.5 Sexual Behavior ................................................................................................................. 80 3.5.1 Fuck, Fuck G, Fick dich................................................................................................ 80 3.5.2 Schlampe, slut ........................................................................................................... 86 3.5.2 Wanker, Wichser ....................................................................................................... 90 2.1.1 Sexual Behavior L1-L2 difference................................................................................ 94 3.7.2 Sexual Behavior: male female difference.................................................................... 95 3.6 Buffer words ...................................................................................................................... 99 3.7.3 Buffer words male female difference ....................................................................... 102 3.8 The personality’s influence on BLW perception ............................................................... 103 4 Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 106 5 Bibliography Swear Words ...................................................................................................... 107 6 Appendix ................................................................................................................................. 111 6.7 Table charts ..................................................................................................................... 111 6.8 Dialogues......................................................................................................................... 123 6.8.3 German dialogues .................................................................................................... 123 6.8.4 English dialogues ..................................................................................................... 123 6.9 Questionnaire s ............................................................................................................... 125 6.9.3 Questionnaire for the control group......................................................................... 125 6.9.4 Questionnaire fort he study group ........................................................................... 126 6.10 Personal questionnaire .................................................................................................... 127 6.10.3 Personal questionnaire for the control group ........................................................... 127 6.10.4 Personal questionnaire for the study group ............................................................. 128 6.11 Abstract in German.......................................................................................................... 129 6.12 Curriculum Vitae .............................................................................................................. 131 3 Acknowledgements I want to thank Professor Nikolaus Ritt for having given me the opportunity and freedom to chose and develop the very specific and controversal topic of swear words. I also want to thank Mag.ª Laura Gandlgruber for her strong professional, technical and moral support and for her patience and perseverance with me. Furthermore thanks to Bogdan Rusu, Erich Orchard, Julia Brugger and Maria Willomitzer for helping me to record the dialogues. Also, big thanks to Zoltan Varga, who formatted the dialogues and made listening to them possible. Special thanks go to my friend Sabine Palmberger, who patiently advised me in the field of Microsoft Office. Last but not least I want to thank all my friends and my family, who put up with my moody ups and downs during the whole diploma thesis period. 4 List of abbreviations BLW= bad language word/s (McEnery) ENS= English native speaker(s) F= female Fuck G= fuck in a German context, dialogue GNS= German native speaker(s) L1= first language, native language L2= second language, in this paper English M= male Shit E= shit in an English context, dialogue Shit G = shit in a German context, dialogue 5 1 Introduction “We swear by, we swear that [something is so], we swear