DIPLOMARBEIT Titel der Diplomarbeit „Insults, gender: fictional representation in Breaking Bad & self-reported perception“ verfasst von Mag. Tanja Maria Schmidbauer angestrebter akademischer Grad Magistra der Philosophie (Mag.phil.) Wien, 2014 Studienkennzahl lt. Studienblatt: A 190 313 344 Studienrichtung lt. Studienblatt: Lehramtsstudium UF Geschichte UF Englisch Betreut von: Dr. hab. Malgorzata Fabiszak Acknowledgements First and foremost I would like to thank Professor Malgorzata Fabiszak for her patience and support, and the extra hours of discussion spent outside her office hours. She has counselled me in my research and without her I would not have been able to finish this diploma thesis. My special thanks go to my beloved parents Siegfried and Sonja Schmidbauer without whom I would not have been able to finish my study and therefore, I want to dedicate this work to them. Last but not least I want to thank Tobias for his delicious meals and support, and my little brother Kevin for being my little brother! i Table of contents Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................... i Table of contents ......................................................................................................... ii List of tables ................................................................................................................ v List of figures ............................................................................................................... v 1. Introduction .................................................................................................... 1 I. Theoretical Part: Cursing & censorship 2. Historical development ................................................................................... 3 2.1. Evolution of cursing and censorship in the UK from the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom to Modern Times ............................................................................. 4 2.2. Cursing & censorship in film and television in the United States ................. 11 2.2.1. Films and television .............................................................................. 11 2.2.2. Broadcasts, cable and premium channels ............................................ 13 2.2.3. The TV rating-system ............................................................................ 14 3. Censorship in US television ......................................................................... 15 3.1. The Freedom of speech and censorship ...................................................... 15 3.2. The FCC and the seven dirty words ............................................................. 17 3.3. The driving force(s) behind censorship ........................................................ 19 3.4. The legitimation of cursing by means of real-life depiction on television ...... 20 4. Pragmatics of usage .................................................................................... 22 4.1. The etymological difference between cursing and swearing ........................ 22 4.2. Connotative and denotative meaning ........................................................... 24 4.3. Psycholinguistic models ............................................................................... 25 4.4. Classification according to function .............................................................. 28 4.4.1. Insults & epithets ................................................................................... 29 4.4.2. Expletives.............................................................................................. 30 4.4.3. The bonding function ............................................................................ 30 5. Sociocultural features of insults ................................................................... 31 5.1. Gender-specific insults ................................................................................. 31 5.2. The bonding function ................................................................................... 35 5.3. Nativeness as an influence on insult perception .......................................... 37 ii 6. Breaking Bad – All Hail to the King .............................................................. 38 6.1. Facts & critics ............................................................................................... 38 6.2. Breaking Bad synopsis ................................................................................ 41 6.2.1. Season One .......................................................................................... 41 6.2.2. Season Two .......................................................................................... 42 6.2.3. Season Three ....................................................................................... 43 6.2.4. Season Four ......................................................................................... 45 6.2.5. Season Five .......................................................................................... 46 6.3. Character description ................................................................................... 48 6.3.1. The Whites ............................................................................................ 48 6.3.2. The Schraders ...................................................................................... 50 6.3.3. Jesse Pinkman ...................................................................................... 50 6.3.4. Bonding with friends .............................................................................. 51 6.3.5. Dealing with enemies ............................................................................ 51 II. Empirical Part: Fictional representation & self-reported perception 7. Fictional representation of insults in Breaking Bad ...................................... 52 7.1. Material and method .................................................................................... 53 7.2. Most frequently used insults per season ...................................................... 53 7.3. Top ten most frequently used insults ........................................................... 63 7.4. Gender-specific addressee-addresser analysis of top ten insults ................ 65 7.4.1. Gender-specific role allocations ............................................................ 66 7.4.1.1. Group 1 – males address males ..................................................... 66 7.4.1.2. Group 2 – females and males address males ................................ 67 7.4.1.3. Group 3 – gender-neutral addressing ............................................. 68 7.4.1.4. Group 4 – males address both genders ......................................... 70 7.4.2. Gender-specific addresser-addressee analysis .................................... 70 7.4.2.1. Cross-gender arguments ................................................................ 71 7.4.2.2. Inter-gender arguments .................................................................. 73 7.4.3. Gender-specific uses in self-referent forms........................................... 75 7.5. ‘Yo biatch!’ – Bonding in Breaking Bad ........................................................ 77 7.5.1. Group A – offensive insults ................................................................... 77 7.5.2. Group B – Friendliness > frequency of 10 % ........................................ 79 7.5.3. Group C – Friendliness < frequency of 10 % ........................................ 79 iii 7.6. Seven dirty words in Breaking Bad .............................................................. 81 8. Questionnaire on self-reported perception of insults by NS & NNS ............. 84 8.1. Design .......................................................................................................... 85 8.2. Research questions & hypotheses ............................................................... 86 8.3. Results & discussion .................................................................................... 88 9. Conclusion ................................................................................................... 98 10. References................................................................................................. 100 11. Appendix .................................................................................................... 106 11.1. Questionnaire............................................................................................. 106 11.2. Abstract ...................................................................................................... 113 11.3. German summary ...................................................................................... 114 11.4. Curriculum vitae ......................................................................................... 115 iv List of tables Table 1 Distribution of gender relation between addressee and addresser of insults which directly address the listener ........................................................... 72 Table 2 Ratio of insults to turns by males and females......................................... 73 Table 3 Ratio of male and female turnsand insults ............................................... 75 Table 4 Seven dirty words in Breaking Bad .......................................................... 82 Table 5 Use of insults as friendly term in total and Fisher’s contingency test (p = 0.05) ................................................................................................