Framing Neapolitan swearwords in contemporary AVT scenario: swearing as lingua-cultural phenomenon Flavia Cavaliere, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II Citation: Cavaliere, Flavia (2019) “Framing Neapolitan swearwords in contemporary AVT scenario: swearing as lingua-cultural phenomenon”, mediAzioni 24, http://mediazioni.sitlec.unibo.it, ISSN 1974-4382. 1. Introduction The phenomena of swearing and impoliteness “are impossible to define universally because all are culturally and personally determined” (Jay and Janschewitz 2008: 269)1. Additionally, swearing and cursing are often interchangeably used as umbrella terms and may include obscenities, profanities, blasphemy, name-calling, insulting, verbal aggression, taboo speech, ethnic-racial slurs, vulgarity, slang and scatology (Jay 2000: 9)2. Notwithstanding this confusion – most probably also a reflection of the academic neglect of this language domain – all swearwords (SWs) are ‘emotional’ words and are all closely linked to culture. Though not a global feature of human communication, swearing is a regular linguistic practice common to most societies and cultures, “as old as man and coeval with 1 The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000) establishes a taboo or swear word as a “ban or inhibition resulting from social custom or aversion”. 2 It might be useful to roughly distinguish between the concepts of swearwords, taboo words, slang and vulgarisms. As a general rule, swearwords are offensive words used intentionally to scorn someone. Taboo words and profanities, instead, are not just insults but proscribed words that are not accepted in a given society. Uttering them is generally perceived as an offence to the listener and they are used more frequently in oral speech than in written texts, though it is not unusual to find them in written language. Swearwords tend to be considered more offensive in written language than in oral language. Slang words and vulgarisms correspond to informal language expressions. However, henceforth, for brevity’s sake, the all-encompassing expression ‘swearword’ (SW) will be used to allude to potentially offensive language. 1 language” (Montagu 2001: 5). Most cultures have in fact their own taboo matters (Hughes 1998) depending on the hierarchy of values that are prevalent in a given society, and the strength of a taboo subject mirrors a community’s values and will therefore never be exactly the same from one to another. Accordingly, although there is great variation in what constitutes swearing in different cultures and how it is expressed, it is generally considered as rude and inappropriate language and, in the majority of languages, swearing seems to share similar patterns. In most languages, swearing usually refers to things that are not to be talked about in public, and some forms of swearing/taboos – such as sex, religion, and defecation – appear to be quasi-universal “but not necessarily to the same degree within similar situations” (Baker 2001: 234). Unmentionable bodily functions and/or substances which generate repulsion are thus commonly considered inappropriate/unutterable in almost every formal register. For example, words for excrement can be found as common SWs in most European languages: ‘shit’ (English), ‘merde’ (French), ‘mierda’ (Spanish), ‘merda’ (Italian and Portuguese), ‘Scheisse’ (German), ‘szar’ (Hungarian), ‘skit’ (Swedish), etc. These SWs fall within the category of taboo words related to scatological referents and disgusting objects, including words and/or expressions concerning bodily waste and fluids (e.g. ‘shit’, ‘crap’, etc.). In most languages, SWs are connected with every aspect regarding sex, such as sexual organs, sexual practices, masturbation, homosexuality, and so on (e.g. the notorious four-letter words in English such as ‘cunt’, ‘fuck’, etc.). Ethnicity and race may represent other sources of taboo words as well, ‘nigger’ and ‘fag’ being ethnic/racial/gender insults3. Additionally, in many religions, the name of God must not be mentioned ‘in vain’, and expressions like ‘goddamn’, ‘Jesus Christ’, etc. are considered as blasphemy or profane. Likewise, because certain religions do not permit their believers to eat certain kinds of food/animals, in some languages, a number of words related to food have become taboo (‘bitch’, 3 These two categories, referring to certain bodily organs and functions, are considered as so- called ‘negative taboos’ since they are related to feelings of disgust and revulsion. 2 ‘pig’, etc.)4. Other semantic fields may concern mental and physical disabilities (‘retard’, ‘lard ass’, ‘lame’), ancestral allusions (‘son of a bitch’, ‘bastard’, etc.) or even death. However, swearing, whatever one’s own personal attitudes are towards this phenomenon, is an intrinsic part of a language (Dewaele 2010; Ljung 2011) and any “structure of a language is a powerful tool for understanding a culture” (Sagarin 1968: 18). Therefore, the social and cultural significance of swearing must be acknowledged. Unquestionably, swearing is also increasingly becoming less marked as a sociolinguistic activity. It is no longer mostly constrained within face-to-face and/or private interpersonal settings, but it is progressively and routinely spreading into and being accepted in new domains including literature, television, films, social media, and so on (Henry 2006; Dynel 2012). As a consequence, in recent decades, the practice of swearing has begun receiving scholarly investigation, though it is still underrepresented in comparison to research on many other sociolinguistic areas5. As mentioned before, swearing is influenced by the culture and the society to which the speakers belong, and SWs “are often used to express connotative meaning, such as the emotional overtones of [the] word, the feelings, moods, attitudes and power that is comprehended along with the denotative referent” (Jay 1992: 10). As such, their meaning changes according to the situation in which they are used. In particular, crucial elements in decoding SWs are the social locations where the dialogue takes place (Trudgill and Andersson 1990) and the relationships between the characters involved in the speech act (Jay and Janschewitz 2008: 272-3; Jay 2009: 154). The personal relationship 4 These are generally deemed ‘positive taboos’ since they are associated with the names of powerful beings and with feelings of fear or awe, though their misuse is also regarded as sinful in many religions. 5 Research conducted on swearing to date has focused on sociolinguistic variables including, apart from gender (see footnote 6), age (Jay 1992, 1996; Jay and Janschewitz 2008; Jay et al. 2006; Rathje 2014) and socioeconomic status (Hughes 1992; Hughes 1998; McEnery 2004). There are also studies that have explored swearing in specific contexts such as in the workplace (Baruch and Jenkins 2007; Faulkner 2009; Johnson and Lewis 2010; Stone et al. 2010, 2015) or in the media (Cressman et al. 2009; Kaye and Sapolsky 2004, 2009; Sapolsky and Kaye 2005). 3 between the interlocutors in fact plays an important role in the use of SWs: the number of SWs used is proportional to the degree of familiarity between the participants, and the more familiar this relation is, the more SWs may be used. Additionally, in terms of gender, SWs are more likely to be used in male- dominated contexts since men tend to use more SWs than women6. Another important factor related to swearing concerns the (non-)native character of the speaker since native speakers are keener to swear compared to non-native speakers (Dewaele 2004). More importantly, whether or not an SW is perceived as an offence or insult depends on what is considered as appropriate for the participants. “The emotional impact of swearing depends on one’s experience with culture and its language conventions” (Jay and Janschewitz 2008: 267). Furthermore, it must be remembered that in every communicative act, the connotative meaning that is intended to be communicated mainly relies on the intentions and the attitude of the speaker. In spite of having a different denotation, if the speaker does wish to offend someone, almost every word could become offensive, since “practically all words may serve the swearer as makeweight” (Montagu 2001: 100). However, SWs are commonly uttered to state connotative meaning and can accomplish different pragmatic functions in conversational language (Pujol 2006: 123; Wang 2013: 72; Pluszczyk and Świątek 2016: 120). “The main purpose of swearing is to express emotions. […] Swear words are well suited to express emotion as their primary meanings are connotative” (Jay and Janschewitz 2008: 267)7. Speakers use them mainly to express their negative feelings and attitudes, which may include anger, surprise, disappointment, regret, exasperation, aggression, and so on (Jay 2000: 81). SWs can also be uttered to release tension when something unexpected and unpleasant occurs, thus performing a ‘cathartic function’ through which people 6 See studies carried out by Crawford (1995), Berger (2003), Stapleton (2003, 2010), Jay (2005), Thelwall (2008), Faulkner (2009), Murphy (2011), Beers Fägersten (2012), Murray (2012) and Coates (2015). 7 Pujol (2006: 123) maintains that taboo words cannot be classified in only one pragmatic category according to the emotion that the speaker is trying to show; instead, they can overlap and express more than one feeling at the same time. 4 could relieve excessive nervous energy in a very straightforward way and restore their emotional balance