Taboo in Discourse


Book Description

Through a selection of empirical studies anchored in analyses of authentic and contextualized language data, Taboo in Discourse explores the complex interplay between taboo and language in a range of social contexts, cultural settings and real-world discourse types from a broad and multidisciplinary perspective.




Forbidden Words


Book Description

Many words and expressions are viewed as 'taboo', such as those used to describe sex, our bodies and their functions, and those used to insult other people. This 2006 book provides a fascinating insight into taboo language and its role in everyday life. It looks at the ways we use language to be polite or impolite, politically correct or offensive, depending on whether we are 'sweet-talking', 'straight-talking' or being deliberately rude. Using a range of colourful examples, it shows how we use language playfully and figuratively in order to swear, to insult, and also to be politically correct, and what our motivations are for doing so. It goes on to examine the differences between institutionalized censorship and the ways individuals censor their own language. Lively and revealing, Forbidden Words will fascinate anyone who is interested in how and why we use and avoid taboos in daily conversation.




Handbook of Research on Communication Strategies for Taboo Topics


Book Description

Social norms are valuable because they help us to understand guidelines for appropriate and ethical behavior. However, as part of that process, cultures develop taboo behaviors and topics for group members to avoid. Failure to discuss important topics, such as sex, drug use, or interpersonal violence, can lead to unwanted or unintended negative outcomes. Improving communication about forbidden topics may lead to positive social and health outcomes, but we must first develop the communication and coping skills to handle these difficult conversations. The Handbook of Research on Communication Strategies for Taboo Topics seeks both quantitative and qualitative research to provide empirical evidence of the negative social and health outcomes of avoiding taboo conversations and provides communication and coping strategies for dealing with difficult topics. Covering a range of issues such as grief and forgiveness, this major reference work is ideal for academicians, practitioners, researchers, counselors, sociologists, professionals, instructors, and students.




Linguistic Taboo Revisited


Book Description

Linguistic taboo has been relegated for a long time to a peripheral position within Linguistics, due to its social stigmatization and inherent linguistic complexity. Recently, though, there has been a renewed interest in revisiting the phenomenon, especially from cognitive frameworks. This volume is the first collection of papers dealing with linguistic taboo from that perspective. The volume gathers 15 chapters, which provide novel insights into a broad range of taboo phenomena (euphemism, dysphemism, swearing, political correctness, coprolalia, etc.) from the fields of sexuality, diseases, death, war, ageing or religion. With a special focus on lexical semantics, the authors in the volume work within Cognitive Linguistics frameworks such as conceptual metaphor and metonymy, cultural conceptualization or cognitive sociolinguistics, but also at the interface of pragmatics, discourse analysis, applied linguistics, cognitive science or psychiatry. This volume provides theoretical reflections and case studies based on new methods and data from varied languages (English, Spanish, Polish, Dutch, Persian, Gikũyũ and Egyptian Arabic). As such, it moves towards a new generation of linguistic taboo studies.




The Oxford Handbook of Taboo Words and Language


Book Description

This volume brings together experts from a wide range of disciplines to define and describe taboo words and language and to investigate the reasons and beliefs behind them. It examines topics such as impoliteness, swearing, censorship, taboo in deaf communities, translation of tabooed words, and the use of taboo in banter and comedy.




Taboo in Advertising


Book Description

Taboos are much more than just a synonym of ‘forbidden’. Proof of the concept’s complexity can be found in the way ads often try to hide the taboo inherent to their products or, conversely, in the way certain taboo readings are foregrounded on purpose in other ads. This volume shows why and how that happens, using print and television ads to exemplify (a) the elaborate strategies used by ads for certain products to cleverly hide the taboo inherent to them, and (b) the deliberate recourse to taboo references in ads for products that do not present any taboo connotation. The linguistic analysis undertaken takes into account the different modes (verbal language, music, sound effects, moving and static images) that convey meaning in ads. Taboo is very often conveyed or disguised through one of the channels while the others play the opposite role, thus achieving a balance that prevents the ad from being too obscure to be understood or too daring for the general public to accept it. For this comprehensive approach, concepts are drawn from different disciplines: textual and semiotic analysis from linguistics, theories of taboo from anthropology, and background to advertising from media studies.




Taboo Memories, Diasporic Voices


Book Description

Since September 11, public discourse has often been framed in terms of absolutes: an age of innocence gives way to a present under siege, while the United States and its allies face off against the Axis of Evil. This special issue of Social Text aims to move beyond these binaries toward thoughtful analysis. The editors argue that the challenge for the Left is to develop an antiterrorism stance that acknowledges the legacy of U.S. trade and foreign policy as well as the diversity of the Muslim faith and the dangers presented by fundamentalism of all kinds. Examining the strengths and shortcomings of area, race, and gender studies in the search for understanding, this issue considers cross-cultural feminism as a means of combating terrorism; racial profiling of Muslims in the context of other racist logics; and the homogenization of dissent. The issue includes poetry, photographic work, and an article by Judith Butler on the discursive space surrounding the attacks of September 11. This impressive range of contributions questions the meaning and implications of the events of September 11 and their aftermath. Contributors. Muneer Ahmad, Meena Alexander, Lopamudra Basu, Judith Butler, Zillah Eisenstein, Stefano Harney, Randy Martin, Rosalind C. Morris, Fred Moten, Sandrine Nicoletta, Yigal Nizri, Jasbir K. Puar, Amit S. Rai, Ella Shohat, Ban Wang




The Oxford Handbook of the Word


Book Description

This handbook addresses words in all their multifarious aspects and brings together scholars from every relevant discipline to do so. The many subjects covered include word frequencies; sounds and sound symbolism; the structure of words; taboo words; lexical borrowing; words in dictionaries and thesauri; word origins and change; place and personal names; nicknames; taxonomies; word acquisition and bilingualism; words in the mind; word disorders; and word games, puns, and puzzles. Words are the most basic of all linguistic units, the aspect of language of which everyone is likely to be most conscious. A 'new' word that makes it into the OED is prime news; when baby says its first word its parents reckon it has started to speak; knowing a language is often taken to mean knowing its words; and languages are seen to be related by the similarities between their words. Up to the twentieth century linguistic description was mainly an account of words and all the current subdivisions of linguistics have something to say about them. A notable feature of human languages is the sheer vastness of their word inventories, and scholars and writers have sometimes deliberately increased the richness of their languages by coining or importing new items into their word-hoards. The book presents scholarship and research in a manner that meets the interests of students and professionals and satisfies the curiosity of the educated reader.




Emotion in Discourse


Book Description

Interest in human emotion no longer equates to unscientific speculation. 21st-century humanities scholars are paying serious attention to our capacity to express emotions and giving rigorous explanations of affect in language. We are unquestionably witnessing an ‘emotional turn’ not only in linguistics, but also in other fields of scientific research. Emotion in Discourse follows from and reflects on this scholarly awakening to the world of emotion, and in particular, to its intricate relationship with human language. The book presents both the state of the art and the latest research in an effort to unravel the various workings of the expression of emotion in discourse. It takes an interdisciplinary approach, for emotion is a multifarious phenomenon whose functions in language are enlightened by such other disciplines as psychology, neurology, or communication studies. The volume shows not only how emotion manifests at different linguistic levels, but also how it relates to aspects like linguistic appraisal, emotional intelligence or humor, as well as covering its occurrence in various genres, including scientific discourse. As such, the book contributes to an emerging interdisciplinary field which could be labeled “emotionology”, transcending previous linguistic work and providing an updated characterization of how emotion functions in human discourse.




Taboo


Book Description

You Can’t Say That! Do you have a right to be offended by the facts? Against all the evidence, the mainstream media insist that America has never been more racist and sexist. The police are waging a war on Black people. “White privilege” means minorities never get a fair shake. Although this narrative of oppression is demonstrably fictitious, it is taboo to question it, and those who do so risk being labeled racist or sexist themselves. America needs an honest conversation based on common sense and cold, hard facts. Honesty and respect for the facts are the specialty of Wilfred Reilly, the celebrated author of Hate Crime Hoax. In Taboo, he fearlessly examines ten forbidden truths that have been buried by political correctness. They include: -The Black rate of violent crime is roughly 2.5 times the white rate. When demographic variables are taken into account, there are no racial differences in the rate of police-involved shootings. -Interracial crime is remarkably rare, but 75 to 80 percent of it occurs against white people. -Minorities can be racist—take the Nation of Islam, which holds that white people are an inferior race created by a Black scientist. -Disparities between racial groups in IQ testing and SAT performance are the result of cultural variables, such as the presence of a father in the home, not racism. Reilly goes where most social scientists fear to tread, using objective statistics and common sense to tackle taboo topics. Taboo is an essential takedown of the lies you hear every day from ideological activists and lazy, biased media.