Swearing and Cursing

Published by De Gruyter Mouton 2020

Swearing and Cursing

Contexts and Practices in a Critical Linguistic Perspective

Edited by: Nico Nassenstein and Anne Storch

Volume 22 in the series Language and Social Life [LSL]

https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501511202

Overview
Contents

About this book

While most of the more recent influential work on swearing has concentrated on English and other languages from the Global North, looking at forms and functions of swear words, this contribution redirects the necessary focus onto a sociolinguistics of swearing that puts transgressive practices in non-Western languages into the focus. The transdisciplinary volume contains innovative case studies that address swearing and cursing in parts of the world characterized by consequences of colonialism and increasingly debated inequalities. Turning away from more conventional and established methodologies and theoretical approaches, the book envisages to address transgressive linguistic practices, performances and contexts in Africa, Asia, America and Europe –including individuals' creativity, subversive power and agency. Due to its interdisciplinary and non-mainstream focus, this volume is an essential addition to the field of studies.

Author information

Nico Nassenstein, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz; Anne Storch, Universität zu Köln.

Topics

Frontmatter Accessible Download PDF	I
Contents Accessible Download PDF	V
Foreword Thomas Stodulka Accessible Download PDF	VII
Part I: Othering and abjection as deep practice
1. “I will kill you today” – Reading “bad language” and swearing through Otherness, mimesis, abjection and camp Anne Storch and Nico Nassenstein Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	1
2. Ten issues facing taboo word scholars Timothy Jay Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	37
3. “Damn your eyes!” (Not really): Imperative imprecatives, and curses as commands Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	53
4. “Oh, bald father!”: Kinship and swearing among Datooga of Tanzania Alice Mitchell Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	79
5. Aesthetics of the obscure: Swearing as horrible play Anne Storch Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	103
6. “I sh.t in your mouth”: Areal invectives in the Lower Volta Basin (West Africa) Felix K. Ameka Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	121
Part II: Cultural mobility as context of transgression
7. The linguistics of Jamaican swearing: Forms, background and adaptations Joseph T. Farquharson, Clive Forrester and Andrea Hollington Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	147
8. ‘Don’t say it in public’: Contestations and negotiations in northern Nigerian Muslim cyberspace Muhammad Muhsin Ibrahim and Aliyu Yakubu Yusuf Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	165
9. Mock Chinese in Kinshasa: On Lingala speakers’ offensive language use and verbal hostility Nico Nassenstein Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	185
10. The name of the wild man: Colonial arbiru in East Timor Ricardo Roque Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	209
Part III: Disruptive and trashy performance
11. Found and lost paradise: Bad language at a beach in Diani, Kenya Angelika Mietzner Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	239
12. The sexy banana – artifacts of gendered language in tourism Janine Traber Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	259
13. English- and Spanish-speaking teenagers’ use of rude vocatives Anna-Brita Stenström Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	281
14. “He shall not be buried in the West” – Cursing in Ancient Egypt Elisabeth Steinbach-Eicke and Sven Eicke Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	303
Afterword Neal R. Norrick Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	327
Index Requires Authentication Accessible Download PDF	333

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: De Gruyter Mouton
Audience: Researchers and Students
Pages
- Front matter: 9
- Main content: 335
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 4
- Coloured Illustrations: 18
- Tables: 18
Keywords: Sociolinguistics; Anthropological Linguistics and Linguistic Anthropology; Pragmatics; Postcolonial Studies; Southern Theory

eBook

Published: April 20, 2020
ISBN: 9781501511202

Hardcover

Published: April 20, 2020
ISBN: 9781501517242

Paperback

Published: January 31, 2022
ISBN: 9781501526817