Linguistic Research on Either; Expletives, Profanity, Taboo Language or Swear Words Watch

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The Empire Odyssey

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Could do with any help if anyone knows and linguistics who have spoken about any of the above, specifically relating it to how women and use it differently, and if men use more of the things above more than women.

This is for my A2 Language Investigation coursework.

Student_27

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I did a mock English language A2 investigation on taboo language but mine was to do with which words people found the most offensive rather than to do with gender!

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Nerol

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(Original post by Cool_JordH)
Could do with any help if anyone knows and linguistics who have spoken about any of the above, specifically relating it to how women and use it differently, and if men use more of the things above more than women.

This is for my A2 Language Investigation coursework.

Be careful with this topic - it can be a difficult one to do well.

Personally, I would suggest looking at male and female singers (in particular, those who write their own songs) as this is an easy way to compare the usage of this kind of language. You could compare several R&B singers and look at how frequent their use of taboo language and swearing is. Or, if you want to do something a little different, you could see how this has changed over time by comparing singers today with those from however long ago.

beccaxheapes

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Argh, I remember doing this coursework and it was the worst piece of work I ever had to do in sixth form. Not trying to scare you, I left it to the last minute and my teacher allocated what we had to do our investigation on and I couldn't find any sources. So I'd say go for something you are interested in and Something you will be able to write a lot on, and a subject where there a lot of sources available

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The Empire Odyssey

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(Original post by Nerol)
Be careful with this topic - it can be a difficult one to do well.

Personally, I would suggest looking at male and female singers (in particular, those who write their own songs) as this is an easy way to compare the usage of this kind of language. You could compare several R&B singers and look at how frequent their use of taboo language and swearing is. Or, if you want to do something a little different, you could see how this has changed over time by comparing singers today with those from however long ago.

It has to be based on spoken language. My methodology would be to compare how a group of females talk to a males and which one uses more swear words and what this signifies. E.g dominance and etc.

Nerol

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(Original post by Cool_JordH)
It has to be based on spoken language. My methodology would be to compare how a group of females talk to a males and which one uses more swear words and what this signifies. E.g dominance and etc.

Are you doing AQA English Language specification A? Sounds like you're doing the same coursework as me.

If so, this investigation can be based on prepared speech (i.e. speeches, songs etc), so as long as you looked at songs written by the singers you investigated, it would be an acceptable topic. In the specification it says to investigate spoken language including 'text that is intended to be spoken'.

Anyway, if you want to look at this at a conversational level, you would need to record several conversations and limit the variables. I'm going to be doing this very soon. For my topic, I'm looking at how native English speakers adjust their language when speaking to non-native speakers. My hypothesis will be that females try harder to accommodate the person they are speaking to.

The Empire Odyssey

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(Original post by Nerol)
Are you doing AQA English Language specification A? Sounds like you're doing the same coursework as me.

If so, this investigation can be based on prepared speech (i.e. speeches, songs etc), so as long as you looked at songs written by the singers you investigated, it would be an acceptable topic. In the specification it says to investigate spoken language including 'text that is intended to be spoken'.

Anyway, if you want to look at this at a conversational level, you would need to record several conversations and limit the variables. I'm going to be doing this very soon. For my topic, I'm looking at how native English speakers adjust their language when speaking to non-native speakers. My hypothesis will be that females try harder to accommodate the person they are speaking to.

Thank-you for your reply. It is for Language AQA Spec A!

I don't know how the methodology would work though and where I should look. I mean, songs and words vary according to genre, i.e. most hip-hop and rap have more swear words than pop songs. So how would I look at this as a topic?

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