There are few scholars that studying the major variety of taboo words and one of them is Chunming Gao. In his article entitled: A Sociolinguistic Study of English Taboo Language, he stated that the taboo language is made up from the taboo subjects that include, body functions about sex and excretion, private parts of the body, illness and death; words believed to be blasphemy; income, salary, age of ladies, etc. He then focus his study on the major types of the taboo languages that are bodily excretions, death and disease, sex, four-letter words, privacy and discriminatory language and he also provided the examples for each type of taboo language.
Bodily excretion, except tears are considered inappropriate to be mentioned publically and Gao …show more content…
In his study, he identified the taboo words are usually referred to the sexual references such as ‘blow job’ and ‘cunt’, and also the words that believed to be profane and blasphemous such as ‘goddamn’ and ‘Jesus Christ’. Other than that, scatological referents (excrement), disgusting object such as ‘shit’, ‘crap’, ‘douche bag’ are another types of this inappropriate language. Animal names (bitch, pig, ass), the harsh words indicating ethnic, gender, race (nigger, fag, dago), an insult that refers to psychological, physical, or social deviation (retard, wimp, lard ass), ancestral allusion (sons of bitch, bastard), substandard vulgar terms (fart face, on the rag), and an offensive slang such as ‘cluster fuck’, and ‘tit run’ are the language that considered as taboo. According to Jay (2009) the taboo words mentioned above are best to be categorized as sexual taboos, religious taboos, scatological taboos, etc (Jay, …show more content…
The categories are epithet, profanity, obscenity, cursing, and sexual harassment. Epithet are the various types of slurs that refers to race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and also can be referred to appearance, disabilities, or other characteristics that are offensive to be mentioned. The examples are ‘midget’, ‘gimp’ and ‘retard’. The second category is profanity that related to the religious terms such as ‘goddamn’, ‘hell’ and ‘for the love of Christ’ (Ningjue, 2010). The third category of taboo words is obscenity which related to the usage of offensive words or phrases that characterising the sex-differentiating anatomy, sexual functions or bodily excretion in an offensive way (Ningjue, 2010). She gave the words ‘fuck’ and ‘shit’ as the examples to describe the third category. Ningjue (2010) describe the forth category of taboo word which is cursing, aims to have it take effect to be happen in the future. The function of this word is similar to the swear words although they are not in the same degree (Ningjue, 2010). The last category of taboo language according to Ningjue (2010) is sexual harassment. As cited from Jay (1996), Ningjue argues that sexual harassment is a form of “unwanted sexual remarks, dirty jokes, references to one’s appearance, or sexual behavior”. According her, the definition of this word is constantly changing and she indicated the term sexual harassment is indicating the sexual
Bodily excretion, except tears are considered inappropriate to be mentioned publically and Gao …show more content…
In his study, he identified the taboo words are usually referred to the sexual references such as ‘blow job’ and ‘cunt’, and also the words that believed to be profane and blasphemous such as ‘goddamn’ and ‘Jesus Christ’. Other than that, scatological referents (excrement), disgusting object such as ‘shit’, ‘crap’, ‘douche bag’ are another types of this inappropriate language. Animal names (bitch, pig, ass), the harsh words indicating ethnic, gender, race (nigger, fag, dago), an insult that refers to psychological, physical, or social deviation (retard, wimp, lard ass), ancestral allusion (sons of bitch, bastard), substandard vulgar terms (fart face, on the rag), and an offensive slang such as ‘cluster fuck’, and ‘tit run’ are the language that considered as taboo. According to Jay (2009) the taboo words mentioned above are best to be categorized as sexual taboos, religious taboos, scatological taboos, etc (Jay, …show more content…
The categories are epithet, profanity, obscenity, cursing, and sexual harassment. Epithet are the various types of slurs that refers to race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and also can be referred to appearance, disabilities, or other characteristics that are offensive to be mentioned. The examples are ‘midget’, ‘gimp’ and ‘retard’. The second category is profanity that related to the religious terms such as ‘goddamn’, ‘hell’ and ‘for the love of Christ’ (Ningjue, 2010). The third category of taboo words is obscenity which related to the usage of offensive words or phrases that characterising the sex-differentiating anatomy, sexual functions or bodily excretion in an offensive way (Ningjue, 2010). She gave the words ‘fuck’ and ‘shit’ as the examples to describe the third category. Ningjue (2010) describe the forth category of taboo word which is cursing, aims to have it take effect to be happen in the future. The function of this word is similar to the swear words although they are not in the same degree (Ningjue, 2010). The last category of taboo language according to Ningjue (2010) is sexual harassment. As cited from Jay (1996), Ningjue argues that sexual harassment is a form of “unwanted sexual remarks, dirty jokes, references to one’s appearance, or sexual behavior”. According her, the definition of this word is constantly changing and she indicated the term sexual harassment is indicating the sexual