Critical Analysis of the Use of Profanity

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Introduction

1.1 Background of the Research Problem

The use of profanity is not an uncommon phenomenon. This term is also known as swearing, obscenity, foul language, taboo words, and the like. In this research, all of those terms would be included as profanity. Many people from various ages, educational backgrounds, cultural backgrounds, or social statuses use and/or understand the use of profanities. They are usually cautious in using it since it is seen as rude and offensive.

The term profanity has undergone a meaning shift. In the past, profanity, with its plural form profanities, was once used to refer to the act of disrespectfulness towards godly things. Today, however, it is also used to refer to the use of particular forms of a language that some people in a culture judge as intolerable in certain settings (Bergen, 2016:15). For instance, the word suck would be acceptable if it were used in a sentence that little girl always sucks on her thumb, but it would be deemed as improper if a newscaster in a broadcast states our economy sucks.

For years, there have been many researches about profanities and their usages. Many of the researchers found that despite the bad meaning behind them, the use of profanities is actually contextual. The main purpose of profanities usage is to express emotion, especially anger and frustration (Jay & Janschewitz, 2008:267). However, there are studies proving that they can be used to express positive emotions too. They found that profanities can be used in utterances to show surprise, joy, sadness, love, thankfulness, or solidarity (Wang, 2013:75; Wang et al, 2014:424)

In addition, based on the preliminary observation conducted by the researcher, like those researches, she also found that profanities can be used to convey positive emotions. One of them in particular is in complimenting someone. In a linguistic study, it is also known as the complement speech act.

For example, in a television series entitled How I Met Your Mother in Season 7 Episode 1 at 15:55, profanity son of a bitch was used. One of the main characters, Lily, asked his husband, Marshall, to keep her pregnancy secret for a while. However, Marshall, who encountered many babies at a party they were in, could not hold the secret any longer. Lily uttered the profanity while complimenting the baby Marshall holding for being cute (Alexander & Fryman, 2010):

Lily: Marshall, stop it. Stay strong. You can’t let holding some, some
little baby, oh with the cute little cheeks and the…the little arms and little legs. This son of a bitch has knee dimples.
Marshall: (smiles and laughs)
Lily: Let’s go tell everyone I’m pregnant.
Marshall: (laughs) Yeah!

The phrase son of a bitch, according to Oxford Online Dictionary (2019) is “used as a general term of contempt or abuse”. Nevertheless, the usage of the phrase son of a bitch in the example above did not mean as contempt or abuse reference to the baby. It was proved by the context and the utterance surrounding that phrase. Lily described how cute she thought the baby was, by stating “…with the cute little cheeks, little arms and little legs”. Marshall’s response by smiling and laughing indicates that he understood that the phrase son of a bitch was not intended as an insult and that the whole utterance is a compliment for the baby.

In another television series, Brooklyn 99, there is also usage of profanities in compliment speech acts. Brooklyn 99 is a comedy series about police officers. In Season 4 Episode 15, when the two main characters, police officers Jake and Charles chased a criminal, Charles stated that he had planted a GPS tracker for the criminal. Jake complimented him, and in his compliment speech act, he inserted the word bastard (Campbell & Mendoza, 2017).

Charles: I planted a bug with a GPS tracker on it.
Jake: Chip Rockets, you beautiful bastard! Charles: (smiles and lifts his shoulders)

Chip Rockets is Jake’s nickname for Charles. Jake who was happy that Charles did something to help them chase the criminal, saying Chip Rockets, you beautiful bastard! The word bastard is profanity or a derogatory term for a person whose parents are not married to each other (Oxford Online Dictionary, 2019). However, by the context of the conversation that Jake is happy with Charles’ doing, Jake’s expression, and the word beautiful, Charles and the viewers understood that Jake meant to compliment Charles. It was confirmed by Charles’ response where he smiled and lifted her shoulders, showing that he was happy with the compliment and proud of it.

Not only it was found in fiction, but researchers also found the use of profanities in compliment speech act in a real-world interaction. One of them is on social media Twitter. Twitter is the second most popular social media website, with 326 million monthly active users (Maina, 2016; “Number of Monthly Active”, 2018). It allows its users to interact through messages called tweets.

In some tweets, a researcher found samples of profanities used in the compliment speech act. For example, Noah Centineo, a celebrity with a verified account, on August 30, 2018, tweeted,

Picture 1. Noah Centineo’s tweet

Centineo did not refer to anybody in particular in that tweet. Nevertheless, judging from the replies, other Twitter users knew that it was meant as a compliment. For example, one of the replies said I know thank you. The word fuck is profanity which, as an exclamation, is used to “express annoyance, contempt, or impatience” (Oxford Online Dictionary, 2019). Conversely, in this context, Centineo meant it to show his surprise of how cute someone is. Most of the replies in that tweet thanked him and acted as if it was directed to them. This proves that the utterance is a compliment speech act.

Another example is from another user, @KaijuGreaser, who on November 28, 2018, tweeted,

Picture 2. @KaijuGreaser’s tweet

The user @KaijuGreaser tweeted pictures of her dog bothering her while working on her laptop. She wrote “UM EXCUSE ME YOU LITTLE FUCKER I’M TRYING TO GET SOME WORK DONE HERE” all in the capitalized letter. People usually write in all capitalized letters on social media to show strong emotion. However, the strong emotion that she portrayed only emphasizes the compliment speech act uttered. The whole utterance expresses the compliment of her dog’s antics. She also used profanity fucker. That word, according to Oxford Online Dictionary (2019) is an abusive term used to refer to a stupid person. In the utterance, on the other hand, she meant it as a noun to refer to her dog without any malicious meaning in it. The use of the adjective cute emphasizes that, as well as the replies of the tweet. The replies suggested that other users knew that the tweet was meant as a compliment.

The finding from the previous research and the preliminary observation conducted by the researcher confirms a language phenomenon where profanities are also used to convey positive emotions. Particularly, they can be used to emphasize compliment speech acts. That fact piques the researcher’s interest to study it. Up to now, a researcher has also not found any study about the use of profanities in compliment speech acts, which can serve as a novelty for this research. Hence, the researcher decided to conduct this study entitled Profanities in Compliment Speech Acts on Twitter.

1.2 Scope and Limitation of the Research

There have been a lot of researchers studying the use of profanities. They have different perspectives and limitations in conducting research about its usage. In this research, as implied in the background of the research problem, the researcher uses pragmatic perspectives. The researcher studies the use of profanities based on the context and the utterance stated by the speakers. The researcher also limits her study to the use of English profanities in compliment speech acts found on Twitter.

This research is focused on the finding of three aspects: the linguistic forms of the profanities, the pragmatic meaning of the profanities, and the pragmatic functions of the profanities. To find out the lingual forms of the profanities, the researcher uses the theory of Jurafsky and Martin (2005:3), Cruse (2006:190), Richards and Schmidt (2010:81), Slawson et al (in Southern Writing Center, 2011:11), and Ramlan (in Giyatmi et al, 2017:67). To identify the role of the profanities in clause-formed utterances, the researcher also utilizes the theories from Gerott and Wignell (1994:52-73) and Butt et al (2000:52-55). Meanwhile, the themes of the profanities found are determined by using the swearing themes by Ljung (2011:35).

The second aspect to find in this study is the pragmatic meanings of the profanities. The identification of the pragmatic meanings of the profanities is based on the theory of meaning by Kreidler (2002:49). In his book, Introducing English Semantics, Kreidler lists four types of meaning: lexical meaning, grammatical meaning, linguistic meaning, and utterance meaning. His theory is used in this study to determine the pragmatic meanings of the profanities found in complement speech acts on Twitter.

Finally, the last aspect is to find the pragmatic functions of the profanities. The researcher uses the theory of functions of profanities by Ljung (2011:30). Ljung mentions fourteen functions of profanities grouped into three categories: stand-alone, slot fillers, and replacive swearing.

1.3 Identification of the Problem

In this study, the researcher is concerned about the profanities used in compliment speech acts on social media Twitter. Based on the background of the research problem and the scope of the research, some research questions can be derived as follows:

What are the linguistic forms of the profanities used in compliment speech acts on Twitter?
What are the pragmatic meanings of the profanities used in compliment speech acts on Twitter?
What are the pragmatic functions of the profanities used in compliment speech acts on Twitter?

1.4 Objective of the Research

Based on the statements of the research problem above, some objectives of this research can be drawn. The objectives of this research can be stated as follows:

To identify the linguistic forms of the profanities used in compliment speech act on Twitter
To find out the pragmatic meanings of the profanities used in compliment speech act on Twitter
To explain the pragmatic functions of the profanities used in compliment speech act on Twitter

1.5 Significance of the Research

The significance of this research can be viewed from two perspectives. As a theoretical contribution, this research helps readers, especially linguistics students, to understand more about profanities. It is hoped to contribute to students’ understanding of profanities found in complement speech acts.

On the other hand, as a practical contribution, this research hopefully can ensure English teachers, especially EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teachers, teach this subject to their students. Since profanity is also used to express positive emotions, such as in the compliment speech act, and the closest English-speaking environment for the EFL students is social media, including Twitter, this research hopefully can contribute to the students’ better communication with English speakers from other parts of the world.

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Critical Analysis of the Use of Profanity

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