Swearing in Modern British English: The Case of Fuck in the BNC

2004 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 235-268 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anthony McEnery ◽  
Zhonghua Xiao
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
American English ◽  
Systematic Account ◽  
British English ◽  
Parts Of Speech ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
Australian English ◽  
Morphological Variants ◽  
National Corpus

Swearing is a part of everyday language use. To date it has been infrequently studied, though some recent work on swearing in American English, Australian English and British English has addressed the topic. Nonetheless, there is still no systematic account of swear-words in English. In terms of approaches, swearing has been approached from the points of view of history, lexicography, psycholinguistics and semantics. There have been few studies of swearing based on sociolinguistic variables such as gender, age and social class. Such a study has been difficult in the absence of corpus resources. With the production of the British National Corpus (BNC), a 100,000,000-word balanced corpus of modern British English, such a study became possible. In addition to parts of speech, the corpus is richly annotated with metadata pertaining to demographic features such as age, gender and social class, and textual features such as register, publication medium and domain. While bad language may be related to religion (e.g. Jesus, heaven, hell and damn), sex (e.g. fuck), racism (e.g. nigger), defecation (e.g. shit), homophobia (e.g. queer) and other matters, we will, in this article, examine only the pattern of uses of fuck and its morphological variants, because this is a typical swear-word that occurs frequently in the BNC. This article will build and expand upon the examination of fuck by McEnery et al. (2000) by examining the distribution pattern of fuck within and across spoken and written registers.

“That’s well good”: A Re-emergent Intensifier in Current British English

2020 ◽  
pp. 007542422097914
Author(s):  
Karin Aijmer
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
British English ◽  
Discourse Marker ◽  
Time Gap ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
Semantic Types ◽  
Over Time ◽  
National Corpus

Well has a long history and is found as an intensifier already in older English. It is argued that diachronically well has developed from its etymological meaning (‘in a good way’) on a cline of adverbialization to an intensifier and to a discourse marker. Well is replaced by other intensifiers in the fourteenth century but emerges in new uses in Present-Day English. The changes in frequency and use of the new intensifier are explored on the basis of a twenty-year time gap between the old British National Corpus (1994) and the new Spoken British National Corpus (2014). The results show that well increases in frequency over time and that it spreads to new semantic types of adjectives and participles, and is found above all in predicative structures with a copula. The emergence of a new well and its increase in frequency are also related to social factors such as the age, gender, and social class of the speakers, and the informal character of the conversation.

‘How many taxis there needs to be?’ The sociolinguistic variation of need to in spoken British English

Corpora ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Soili Nokkonen
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Life Stages ◽  
Sociolinguistic Variation ◽  
British English ◽  
Semantic Variation ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
Upper Middle Class ◽  
National Corpus

This paper explores need to, a semi-modal of obligation and necessity, and its semantic variation in connection with the sociolinguistic variables of gender, age and social class in the spoken demographic part of the British National Corpus. The semantic/pragmatic uses of need to include internal, deontic, dynamic and epistemic domains based both on traditional concepts and cross-linguistic studies. The sociolinguistic analysis applies the generalisations by Labov, but pays attention to the interactional styles and the communicative needs of the various social groups as well. The results reveal that need to is undergoing change. It shows monotonic distribution among adults, but it is slightly more common among men than women, and, in terms of social class, the upper middle class takes the lead. The semantic variation corroborates these findings – older speakers stick to the more traditional domains – but also reflects the gendered life stages and discourse styles of the speaker groups.

scholarly journals British ‘Bollocks’ versus American ‘Jerk’: Do native British English speakers swear more – or differently – compared to American English speakers?

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 309-339 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean-Marc Dewaele
Keyword(s):  
American English ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
British English ◽  
Conceptual Representations ◽  
Frequent Use ◽  
Frequency Of Use ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
American English Speakers ◽  
National Corpus

AbstractThe present study investigates the differences between 414 L1 speakers of British and 556 L1 speakers of American English in self-reported frequency of swearing and in the understanding of the meaning, the perceived offensiveness and the frequency of use of 30 negative words extracted from the British National Corpus. Words ranged from mild to highly offensive, insulting and taboo. Statistical analysies revealed no significant differences between the groups in self reported frequency of swearing. The British English L1 participants reported a significantly better understanding of nearly half the chosen words from the corpus. They gave significantly higher offensiveness scores to four words (including “bollocks”) while the American English L1 participants rated a third of words as significantly more offensive (including “jerk”). British English L1 participants reported significantly more frequent use of a third of words (including “bollocks”) while the American English L1 participants reported more frequent use of half of the words (including “jerk”). This is interpreted as evidence of differences in semantic and conceptual representations of these words in both variants of English.

On the use of uh and um in American English

2014 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gunnel Tottie
Keyword(s):  
Gender Differences ◽  
American English ◽  
Linguistic Context ◽  
Santa Barbara ◽  
British English ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
Time Required ◽  
Difficult Subjects ◽  
National Corpus

This study examines the use of uh and um — referred to jointly as UHM — in 14 conversations totaling c. 62,350 words from the Santa Barbara Corpus of Spoken American English. UHM was much less frequent than in British English with 7.5 vs. 14.5 instances per million words in the British National Corpus. However, as in British English the frequency of UHM was closely correlated to extra-linguistic context. Conversations in non-private environments (such as offices and classrooms) had higher frequencies than those taking place in private spaces, mostly homes. Time required for planning, especially when difficult subjects were discussed, appeared to be an important explanatory factor. It is clear that UHM cannot be dismissed as mere hesitation or disfluency; it functions as a pragmatic marker on a par with well, you know, and I mean, sharing some of the functions of these in discourse. Although the role of sociolinguistic factors was less clear, the tendencies for older speakers and educated speakers to use UHM more frequently than younger and less educated ones paralleled British usage, but contrary to British usage, there were no gender differences.

scholarly journals Forms and Meanings of Stative Verbs in Progressive Tense: a Corpus Linguistics Research

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 184-190
Author(s):  
Upi Laila Hanum
Keyword(s):  
Corpus Linguistics ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
American English ◽  
British English ◽  
English Grammar ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
Mixed Categories ◽  
National Corpus ◽  
Descriptive Qualitative

 AbstractSemantics is the field of linguistic concerned with the study of meaning in language. The aims of the research are to analyze the forms and meanings of the stative verbs in progressive tense in corpora. The data of this research were obtained from Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) and British National Corpus (BNC). The data of the corpora used descriptive qualitative. The result of the research shows that the stative verbs are found and used in progressive tense. The stative verbs appeared in all types of progressive tense except future perfect progressive. The use of the stative verbs in progressive tense took place due to overgeneralization in the use of the native speakers’ form of American and British English. The stative verbs in progressive tense used to express temporariness, emotiveness, comprehension and mixed categories of meaning; temporariness and emotiveness, temporariness and tentativeness. Temporariness meaning almost appeared in all types of progressive. Stative verbs in progressive tense indirectly stated temporariness in stative sense of meaning, is contrary to the rules of English grammar.

scholarly journals CONVENTIONAL INDIRECTNESS STRATEGIES ON REQUEST USED BY MALE AND FEMALE SPEAKERS IN SPOKEN BRITISH NATIONAL CORPUS

PARADIGM ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Tantri Refa Indriarti ◽  
Yulia R. Mawarni
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Significant Role ◽  
Qualitative Approach ◽  
English Speakers ◽  
British English ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
Request Strategies ◽  
National Corpus

<p>This study aims at analysing conventional indirectness strategies on request used by British English speakers as shown in spoken British National Corpus (BNC). Conventional indirect strategy is often rated as the most polite expression of politeness. In this case, male and female obviously have different strategies for making the request, which may be influenced by some factors. A qualitative approach was employed to conduct this study since the data are the utterances produced by male and female speakers in spoken BNC. The study revealed that there were 187 utterances that contain Conventional Indirectness Strategies on request used by male and female speakers in spoken BNC. Ability conditions was the strategy of conventional indirect request that mostly used by the male and female speakers. Then, the three factors (i.e. gender, age, and social class) have an effect and significant role on the speaker’s choice of strategies employed by British English speakers. As this study is focused on the indirect request strategies, thus it is suggested to the next researchers who are interested in the same study could be expected to conduct the indirect request strategies by adding more factors.</p><p> </p>

scholarly journals The Analysis of Metaphorical Domain on English “Stab Verb” in Corpora

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-58
Author(s):  
LaOde Achmad Suherman
Keyword(s):  
Light Flash ◽  
American English ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Target Domain ◽  
Semantic Roles ◽  
British English ◽  
Pain Memory ◽  
Source Domain ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
National Corpus

Metaphor as part of language is taking special place on Semantics studies which is unique and needs more logical thinking in interpretation. The objective of this research was to ascertain the kinds of metaphorical domains of English stab verb in corpora. The data of this research consist of American English and British English which were mainly taken from two corpora, Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) and British National Corpus (BNC).  The result of this research indicated that, there were source domain and target domain that were employed on the semantic construction of English Stab verb. Source domain ascertained from the semantic roles which lied on the construction of stab verb, they are Agent, Target and Manip, while target domain consists of twenty noun phrases they are: eyes, looks, words, voice, question, guilt/ remorse, sadness, anger, pain, memory, fear, panic, light/ flash, ray, dark, air, sound and directions. Most of these nouns were mapped as Manip or stabbing instrument while dark, air, and direction were mapped as the stabbing target.

scholarly journals English comparative correlative constructions: A usage-based account

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 196-215
Author(s):  
Thomas Hoffmann ◽  
Thomas Brunner ◽  
Jakob Horsch
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Linguistics ◽  
American English ◽  
Standard Variety ◽  
British English ◽  
Corpus Studies ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
Large Corpus ◽  
National Corpus

AbstractEnglish Comparative Correlatives (CCs) consist of two clauses, C1 and C2:[The more we get together,]C1 [the happier we’ll be.]C2Recently, large corpus studies based on the Corpus of Contemporary American English have unearthed various meso-constructions in English CCs using covarying–collexeme analysis. The present study tests these findings against data from the British National Corpus (BNC), aiming to replicate previous results against data from another standard variety of English (British English) and a corpus that is sampled from a wider range of registers. Over 2,000 CC tokens from the BNC were analyzed with regard to hypotactic features, filler types encountered as comparative elements, and deletion phenomena. Moreover, in contrast to earlier corpus studies (such as Hoffmann, Thomas, Jakob Horsch, and Thomas Brunner. 2019. “The more data, the better: a usage-based account of the English comparative correlative construction.” Cognitive Linguistics 30(1): 1–36), the present study also investigates the frequency of the semantically related C2C1 construction (You will be the happierC2, the more we get togetherC1) that previously has been found to be considerably less frequent than its counterpart. The results of the present analysis confirm that English CCs possess more paratactic than hypotactic features and, supporting most of the findings of Hoffmann, Horsch, and Brunner (2019) provide even stronger evidence for the existence of several symmetric meso-constructions.

A Corpora-Based Analysis of Rely on and Depend on

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-21
Author(s):  
Namkil Kang
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
American English ◽  
The Other ◽  
Information State ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
National Corpus

The ultimate goal of this paper is to provide a comparative analysis of rely on and depend on in the Corpus of Contemporary American English and the British National Corpus. The COCA clearly shows that the expression rely on government is the most preferred by Americans, followed by rely on people, and rely on data. The COCA further indicates that the expression depend on slate is the most preferred by Americans, followed by depend on government, and depend on people. The BNC shows, on the other hand, that the expression rely on others is the most preferred by the British, followed by rely on people, and rely on friends. The BNC further indicates that depend on factors and depend on others are the most preferred by the British, followed by depend on age, and depend on food. Finally, in the COCA, the nouns government, luck, welfare, people, information, state, fossil, water, family, oil, food, and things are linked to both rely on and depend on, but many nouns are not still linked to both of them. On the other hand, in the BNC, only the nouns state, chance, government, and others are linked to both rely on and depend on, but many nouns are not still linked to both rely on and depend on. It can thus be inferred from this that rely on is slightly different from depend on in its use.

scholarly journals Semantic Modulation of the English Verbs of Leaving in Terms of the Space of Sets (On the Example of the Verbs Leave, Depart)

2020 ◽  
pp. 323-330
Author(s):  
A.S. Dautova
Keyword(s):  
American English ◽  
Data Sources ◽  
Semantic Structure ◽  
Semantic Group ◽  
Surrounding World ◽  
Research Hypothesis ◽  
British National Corpus ◽  
National Corpus ◽  
Linguistic Reality

The article presents the experience of studying the semantic structure of the English verbs with the meaning of leaving. The author focuses on the problem of modulating the meaning of the English verbs “leave”, “depart” and their transition into another lexical and semantic group. The urgency of the study lies in addressing the category of space as one of the basic linguistic forms of conceptualization and interpretation of extra-linguistic reality, which man operates in the process of cognition, interpretation of the surrounding world. The problem of research is solved by describing the modulation of meaning in terms of the concept of space of sets, as one of the factors contributing to the change of meaning. The verification of the research hypothesis is based on the analysis of lexicographical data sources of the British National Corpus and the Corpus of Modern American English.

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