CHARACTER COUNT: 19,073
PERCEPTION OF “CURSE WORDS” IN
THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
GLOBAL ENGLISHES AND THE MARKETPLACE
Indholdsfortegnelse
INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................... 2
LITERATURE REVIEW .................................................................................................................................... 2
CONCEPTS ........................................................................................................................................................ 3
ENGLISH AS A LINGUA FRANCA (ELF) ...........................................................................................................................3
ENGLISH AS A NATIVE SPEAKER (ENL) .........................................................................................................................3
ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE (EFL) ....................................................................................................................3
DATA & METHOD ............................................................................................................................................ 3
METHOD ..........................................................................................................................................................................4
DATA ...............................................................................................................................................................................4
ANALYSIS.......................................................................................................................................................... 5
DAWAELE’S QUESTIONNAIRE ........................................................................................................................................5
Results from Daeale’s Questionnaire .......................................................................................................................5
MOHAMMADI’S QUESTIONNAIRE ..................................................................................................................................8
Results from Mohammadi’s Questionnaire..............................................................................................................8
DISCUSSION .................................................................................................................................................... 10
CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................................................. 12
LIST OF REFERENCES .................................................................................................................................. 13
APPENDICES................................................................................................................................................... 13
1
The purpose of this paper is to investigate how curse words are used and perceived among native
English speakers (ENL) and foreign English speakers (EFL). This has been done, firstly by
investigating the meaning of curse-words and describing the relevant concepts. Secondly, analyzing
two selected questionaries with great relevance to the topic. Thirdly, discussing the complexity of
curse-words and the results from the analysis. Finally, the paper concludes how ENL and EFL
speakers perceive and use curse-words.
Introduction
English is the most taught foreign language, and most English speakers use it as their second
language. Therefore, speakers of English can be divided into three categories: English as a native
language (ENL), English as a Second language (ESL), and English as a foreign language (EFL)
(Galloway & Rose, p. 12).
Regardless of these categories, English is still bound by the same system of communication. Cursewords belong within this system and denote a particular type of linguistic behaviour. In practice,
swearing functions similarly across languages to express emotional utterance (Ljung, p 1).
Although swearing is a cross-linguistic phenomenon, the meaning and how speakers use and
perceive curse-words are based on the social norms of the given culture. Thus, swearing is not
necessarily alike within the same language, which has led to the following questions:
Do bilinguals put more emotional weight on curse-words when they use them in their first language
rather than in a language acquired later in life? Is there a consistent level of understanding
regarding the meaning and purpose of using curse-words among ENL and EFL speakers? Is the
perception of cursing in the English language the same amongst ENL and EFL speakers?
This paper aims to research these questions with a primary focus on how ENL and EFL speakers
use and perceive curse-words within the English language.
Literature review
The act of swearing is a complex matter which needs to be defined, to understand how English
speakers use and perceive curse-words. The definition of curse-words in this paper is based on the
cross-cultural linguistic study “Swearing” by Magnus Ljung. According to him, swearing can be
determined by four criteria: “1. Swearing is the use of utterances containing taboo words. 2. The
taboo words are used with non-literal meaning. 3. Many utterances that constitute swearing are
subjective to severe lexical, phrasal, and syntactic constraints which suggest that most swearing
2
qualifies as formulaic language. 4. Swearing is emotive language: its main function is to reflect, or
seem to reflect, the speaker’s feelings and attitudes” (Ljung, p 4).
Concepts
This section concerns a brief description of the relevant concepts used in the analysis.
English as a lingua franca (ELF)
English as a lingua franca is a new sensation, although its spread has continued worldwide since the
seventeenth century. Historical events such as the expansion of the British Empire and globalization
have been important factors in the rise of English as a lingua franca (ELF). The English language
holds the status of being the world’s first truly global language and is used amongst speakers from
diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds (Galloway & Rose, 12).
English as a native speaker (ENL)
The term ENL is used to cover native English speakers, mainly including the UK, the USA,
Canada, Australia, and New Zealand population, which is associated with being “the traditional
cultural and linguistic bases of English” (Galloway & Rose, p. 14). Today between 320-380 million
people are estimated to belong within this category. In this paper, ENL denotes the British
participants in a questionnaire.
English as a foreign language (EFL)
The term EFL covers speakers of English as a foreign language, which primarily is people from
countries where English has no internal purpose and was acquired to communicate with native
English speakers. However, because of English's status as ELF, speakers now use the language to
communicate with other non-native speakers more than native speakers. Today, nearly one billion
people speak English as a foreign language which makes the term “EFL” less fitting (Galloway &
Rose, pp 11-14). However, this paper will use EFL to refer to speakers who acquired English later
in life.
Data & Method
The cognitive psychologist Timothy Jay has questioned why curse-words lack interest among
psychologists and linguistics and wonders whether “the topic is too taboo for academicians”
(Dewaele, p. 1). His assumption reflects well with the initial amount of available data regarding the
3
matter, however, this issue was predicted before picking the topic. Although curse-words are not the
most extensively studied subject in academic research, it has been possible to detect a few highquality data to create a study.
Method
Literature from the educational activities has been used to explain the concepts of ELF, ENL, and
EFL. The introductory part and parts of the discussion are based on academic studies on cursewords and the analysis is based on two online questionnaires.
The method used to collect litterateur and data used in this paper has been internet research,
primarily on the database “AU library”. The inductive method has been implemented to observe
two carefully collected quantitative questionnaires and select studies for the paper's general context.
Data
The first questionnaire was conducted in 2011-2012 by Jean-Marc Dewaele, a professor in Applied
Linguistics & Multilingualism at Birkbeck, University of London. This survey is mentioned as
“Dewaele’s questionary” throughout this paper. His anonymous questionnaire was created by
questioning 2,500 participants the following: “For each word/expression, provide a score on a 5point scale (1 = very low, 5 =very) for the following “1) how well do you understand the meaning?
2) how offensive is it? 3) how frequently do you use it?” (Dewaele, p. 7). The participants were
asked to answer the survey based on 30 emotion-laden words extracted from BNC (see appendix
one) (Dewale, p. 6). In Jean-Marc Dewaele’s study, native English and foreign English speakers are
referred to as L1 and LX users, however, this paper uses the terms ENL and EFL.
The second questionnaire was published in 2020 by Ariana N Mohammadi, Ph.D. in Forensic
Linguist and currently affiliated with the Linguistics Consultancy Center of Canada. This survey is
mentioned as “Mohammadi’s questionnaire” throughout this paper. Her questionnaire aimed to
study the frequency of swearing in bilinguals' first and second language in response to “higharousing and low-arousing affective situations” (Mohammadi, p. 634). Mohammadi collected her
data through a web-based questionnaire with 34 EFL speakers as participants. The questionnaire
used emotional stimuli which varied from high-arousing to low-arousing, in the form of 14 short,
muted, and emotion-evoking videos. The survey was divided into three sections: The first section
being an informed consent, and the second section included the 14 videos. Each video was then
4
followed by a question written in both English and in the participant’s first language, asking them to
predict what emotional utterance the subject could have used to respond. In the final section,
participants were asked about their socio-demographic information, and presented with structured
open-ended questions about their swearing behaviour and use of a second language (Mohammadi,
pp. 635-636).
Analysis
The analysis investigates the difference between ENL and EFL speakers regarding meaning,
understanding, and frequency of use of curse-words.
Dawaele’s questionnaire
Firstly, an examination of the background data from Dewaele’s questionnaire is presented.
The total of participants completing the survey where 2,347 consisting of 1,636 females and 664
males with a mean age of 32 years old. The participants were classified as being highly educated
and originating from America (555), Britain (426), Poland (125), Germany (107), France (105, Italy
(90), Israel (86), Switzerland (86), The Netherlands (75), Canada (62), Belgium (43), Spain (43),
Austria (42), Sweden (39) and Australia (30). Additionally, there were smaller groups representing
another 75 nationalities, including a significant number of individuals with dual nationalities. Over
half of the participants had English as a foreign language (EFL), while a total of 1,159 participants
were ENL speakers. Both groups were asked to rate their frequency of use and oral proficiency in
English, which naturally were highest among the ENL speakers, but still relatively high among the
EFL speakers. The average age for acquiring English for EFL speakers was 9,7 years, most through
classroom instructions and some in combination with authentic use, while a smaller group acquired
English naturally. Moreover, a significant number of the EFL speakers had or were currently living
in an English-speaking country for more than 3 months (Dewaele, p. 8).
Results from Daweale’s questionnaire
Figure 1 shows a table of the average values for how well ENL and EFL speakers understand the
meaning of the 30 emotional words (Dawaele, p. 8).
5
The results show that the 1,165 EFL speakers had a significantly lower level of understanding
compared to the 1,159 ENL speakers in 22 of the 30 words. This indicates that the EFL speakers
were less certain about the meaning of most of the curse-words. However, the eight words “damn,
fucking hell, lost your mind, fool, maniac, stupid, shit & arsehole” was equally understood by both
groups. The figure also shows that the words “Daft, Wanker, Bonkers & Fruitcake” which
subjectively can be classified as being British slang, had a less familiar meaning to the ENL
speakers.
Figure 2 shows a table of the average values for how ENL and EFL speakers perceive the
offensiveness of the 30 emotional words (Dawaele, p. 9).
6
The results from Figure 2 show that the EFL speakers perceived 29 of the 30 words as significantly
more offensive compared to the ENL speakers. An interesting observation is that the word “cunt”
which is the only word EFL speakers underestimated in offensiveness, was perceived as the most
offensive word by the ENL speakers.
Figure 3 shows a table of the average value for how frequently ENL and EFL speakers use the 30
emotional words (Dawaele, p 11).
The results from Figure 3 show no significant differences in the ranking of how often the ENL and
EFL speakers use the curse-words. Both groups seem to agree on using the words “shit, idiot, weird
7
& fucking hell” more often than “daft, bonkers & fruitcake” which had been stated above as being
British slang. However, the EFL speakers use “shit” significantly more than the ENL speakers.
Mohammadi’s questionnaire
Firstly, an examination of the background data from Mohammadi’s questionnaire is presented.
The data obtained from her questionnaire came from 34 EFL speakers, “with Persian (16),
Portuguese (6), Spanish (6), and Arabic (6) as their first language” (Mohammadi, p 635). More than
half (54%) were male, and the rest (46%) were female, with an average age of 27.93 years old. All
participants reported holding a college or university degree and reported their level of proficiency in
English, which varied from intermediate to advanced. Moreover, 72.73% reported that they used
English daily while 27.27% reported a higher frequency of using their first language and a lower
frequency of direct interaction with speakers of English. After gathering information, the linguistic
data were pooled, and the total number of utterances was calculated. All utterances that included at
least one instance of swearing or insult were counted to measure the number of curse-words.
Mohammadi has defined the instance of swearing or insult as any utterance that contained a word
with “the potential to be offensive, inappropriate, objectionable, or unacceptable” (Mohammadi, p
636). The total amount of utterances discovered was 745, of which 380 of them were in response to
high-arousing scenarios and 365 utterances were in response to low-arousing scenarios.
Results from Mohammadi’s questionnaire
Figure 1.2 shows the raw frequency of utterances in high-arousing and low-arousing scenarios
(Mohammadi, p. 637).
8
The results show that the speakers had more frequent use of swearing when responding to higharousal emotional scenarios in both English and their native language. This suggests that the
amount of swearing when responding to emotionally stimulating scenarios with high-arousal levels
is not different based on the language. However, the participants were more likely to swear in
response to low-arousing emotional scenarios in English than in their first language.
Figure 2.2 shows the frequency of swearing and interjections in low-arousing scenarios
(Mohammadi, p. 639).
Although the participants showed a tendency to swear less in their native language, their ‘swearfree’ utterances did not necessarily lack emotional association. In low-arousing scenarios, the
participants replaced swearing with ‘interjections’ which are classified as other forms of denoting
emotional experience such as exclamation marks, capital letters, or repeating vowels in a word.
Figure 2.2 shows that the number of ‘interjections’ in response to low-arousing scenarios was
higher (59) in the participants' first language than in English (44).
Most of the interjections discovered in the data included common expressions such as ‘oh’ in
English, ‘ãkh’ in Persian, or ‘opa in Portuguese which translates to ’ouch’ and ‘oops’ in English
(Mohammadi, p 639). This indicates that the use of interjections in the first language compensates
for the lack of curse-words, when participants responded to low-arousing scenarios.
Figure 3.2 shows the self-reported language of choice for swearing in different hypothetical
scenarios (Mohammadi, p. 640).
9
Figure 3.2 illustrates a quantified summary of the answers from the third section of Mohammadi’s
questionnaire. The data suggest that bilingual participants prefer their native language when
expressing emotion. According to Mohammadi, those who reported preferring their ‘own’ language
argued that “expressing emotions is easier and less restrictive in the first language” (Mohammadi,
p. 640). Some participants also perceived curse-words to be more powerful in their native language
compared to the English language. The participants who preferred to express emotion through
English argued that they do not consider swearing in English to hold the same sense of
aggressiveness.
Discussion
This section examines the information gathered from the literature and the analysis to discuss the
research questions mentioned above.
As stated in the literature review, this paper has adopted Magnus Ljung’s definition of curse-words,
which determines swearing based on the four criteria mentioned above. However, this rather broad
definition can be questioned since curse-words and insults without violating either of the criteria
can emerge. The common phrase ‘Your mother! Your sister!’ etc, are perceived as insults, even
though the utterance does not include taboo words (Ljung, p. 5). Although curse-words function
similarly across languages, another issue arises when applying Ljung’s definition to bilinguals.
According to Pinker, the degree to which people consider an unpleasant word taboo is influenced
by how widely it is perceived as taboo by others, which is based on the social norms in the given
10
culture (Ljung, p. 8). This indicates that one single definition of the term cannot cover every
different community of people sharing a language. And even in a community, there is a distinction
between native speakers and foreign speakers, due to native speakers’ advantage in communicating
their intended message while including socio-cultural context (Dawaele, p. 1).
This distinction is also displayed in the results from the analysis of the two different questionnaires.
Dawaele’s questionnaire is based on both ENL and EFL speakers while Mohammadi’s solely
includes EFL speakers. Dawaele questions 2,500 participants to base their answers on a five-point
scale while Mohammadi uses a qualitative method to gather data from her 34 participants.
Additionally, Dawaele focuses on examining whether ENL and EFL speakers share the same
understanding, perception of offensiveness, frequency of use, and context for using 30 emotional
words (Dawaele, p. 8). Mohammadi puts her focus on investigating how affective arousal
influences swearing in bilinguals and how their perception of curse-words differs from their native
to foreign language (Mohammadi, p. 634).
According to Dawaele, the most significant difference between the ENL and EFL speakers occur in
the understanding of the curse-words. The data also show that EFL speakers overrate the
offensiveness of most English curse words. This information indicates that the EFL speakers use
curse-words less frequently because they are not familiar with the meaning and/or perceive them to
be more offensive.
Mohammadi’s questionnaire indicates that emotional arousal leads to swearing in both the
participants' first language and in English, with no significant difference in the frequency. In
addition, the EFL speakers tend to respond to low-arousing scenarios with curse-words in English
rather than in their native language. However, the data from the third section of the questionnaire is
not consistent with the trends from the former sections. These results indicate that bilinguals tend to
swear in their first language. Nonetheless, the questionnaire illustrates that EFL speakers perceive
their native language as a more effective resource for expressing emotions.
Although the questionaries have fundamental differences in their method, participants, and aim,
they have provided data used to discuss the research questions. Both studies agree that bilinguals do
put more emotional weight on curse-words when used in their native language, however, Dawaele’s
data indicates that EFL speakers perceive the English curse-words to be more offensive, while
11
Mohammadi’s data indicates the contrary. Dawaele also indicates a difference in the understanding
of curse-words among the speakers, while Mohammadi mostly focuses on the context of when
speakers use emotional utterances.
Conclusion
In sum, this paper highlights the complexity of swearing as a sociolinguistic practice which
becomes even more complex when applied to a foreign language. Additionally, the definition of
curse-words cannot cover all language landscapes since swearing is culturally determined. Based
on the acquired evidence from the analysis it can be concluded that ENL and EFL speakers use
curse-words equally in terms of frequency. However, EFL speakers swear more in their native
language due to a lack of certainty about the meaning of English curse-words or simply because
they perceive the utterance to be more effective. In conclusion, it can be inferred that ENL speakers
perceive English curse-words as less offensive than EFL speakers.
12
List of references
Dewaele, J. (2016) Thirty shades of offensiveness: L1 and LX English users’ understanding,
perception, and self-reported use of negative emotion-laden words. Journal of Pragmatics, 94, pp
112-127. Retrieved 29 April 2023 from http://library.au.dk.
Galloway, N., & Rose, H. (2015). Introducing Global Englishes. Oxon: Routledge.
Ljung, M. (2011). Swearing. A Cross-cultural linguistic study (1st “ed”). Macmillan Publishers
Limited: Palgrave Macmillan. Retrieved 1 May 2023 from http://library.au.dk.
Mohammadi, Ariana N (2022) Swearing in a second language: the role of emotions and
perceptions. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 43:7, pp 629-646. Retrieved
29 April 2023 from http://library.au.dk.
Appendices
Appendix one
13