Cursing is a unique phenomenon. Certain words hold strong negative connotations and then are labeled “bad language.” They demonstrate deep emotion in ways that normal language usually cannot convey. Curse words carry a “shock value” usually used to emphasize the speaker’s meaning. Yet they can be construed as extremely offensive and are often forbidden among young children by concerned parents. How did these words develop so distinctly that they form their own category of linguistic variety? Looking at this forbidden set of words, they are not phonetically unique from other words. They are composed of regular phonemes that also make up non-forbidden words. Apparently only certain combinations contain meanings that provoke anger and fear from those who hear them. The “forbidden-ness” of swearing is normally prorogated by parents teaching their children right from wrong. When parents scold and prohibit kids from saying these words, they give more importance to words that would otherwise be no different phonetically. Therefore, when a child starts to experiment with these words, he understands that not only is he saying a societally inappropriate word, but he is also violating his parents’ wishes. Thus, the act of swearing not only violates social conventions but it is also a conscious rebellion against parental control. These connotations learned early in life persist throughout one’s life. In addition, cursing is a construct of various languages that differs among the various world languages. Most bilingual speakers claim that they feel deeper emotion when they swear in their native language because they understand the weight these words carry in their society. Societal expectations shape the relative acceptance of these words. And there has been an increasing trend toward introducing more cursing into normal vernacular.
Swearing used to be rare, used only in moments of great passion and generally associated with the lower classes. However, through the years, people increasingly devalue the associations these words carry and use curse words in a normal conversational manner. The New York Times posted an opinion section in its learning blog about the effects of cursing on younger generations. Katherine Schulten poses the question, “How much do you curse? Why?” to the nation through this blog after first asking experts on language. Deborah Tannen argues that cursing is more common in “private conversations” and more frequently these private conversations are taking place in public. This is indicative of the deteriorating barriers between private and public spheres, which lead to more swearing overall. This starts to change the popular feeling toward cursing in general. If a swear word becomes a word that is used frequently in conversation, it starts to lose its weighty power. And that is exactly what has happened in the United States. Words that would have been socially unacceptable are now being heard on television. These effects are demonstrated in the later part of the blog. More youngsters are starting to swear because it has become more socially acceptable. The next logical question is if these words lose their “forbidden” powers, will new curse words appear to replace the older ones so that there can always be dirty language?
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