Aliakbari and et al (2013) have conducted a study to investigate the nature of swearing expressions in Persian. The data were collected from daily conversations and divided into different sub-categories. Most of these data such as swearing by Allah, holly times, parts of body, the prophet and relatives show a great degree of similarities with the taxonomies provided by Abedel-Jawad (2000).
Additionally, they go along with Abedel-Jawad (2000) by saying that the similarities of swearing patterns in both cultures are originally religious in nature. They have added that the expansion and the presence of loan Arabic swearwords among Iranian swear words (بالله, by Allah) and, وغروب الغاربين), by the sunset of those who have been departed from their hometown) show” the footprints of cultural and lingual relations of one or both sides of an interaction” (Aliakbari and et al 2013: 56).
In standard Arabic, the swearing structure is divided into three parts:
First, swearing particles ( waw alqasam, ba’a alqasam and ta’a alqasam) walahi, billahi and tallahi.
Second, the nominal swearing which is a type of structure that begins with a name such as ( ؟amr, yameen and ayman).
Third, verbal swearing. This type of structure begins with a verb such as ( uqsem ,ihlaf, qasama).
2.3 History of Swearing
Swearing has a long history of practice; the word “swear” or “swearing” reveals its Christian origin, with the tradition of oath which dates back to the sixth century (Hughes :1998).
Vicens (2014) examines Muslims oaths that are found in Christian legal texts in the medieval and early modern Iberia. His study explains the development of Arabic formula of swearing from the twelfth to sixteenth century. Both Christian and Islamic texts emphasize that Muslims swear by God at that time. Additionally, the study indicates that Muslims in al-Andalus, who followed Maliki tradition, preferred oath formula” bi-l-Lahi llaði la ilaha illa Huwa. (By God, there is no other god but He) (P: 131).”
Harris (1987) warns of the possibility of mixing between the history of swearing and the history of swear words. The history of swearing reveals its origin as Christian oaths and curses, with the traditions of swear words in English which date back to the sixth century (Montagu, 1967).In the middle ages, women were criticized for using swear words while men were banned from using swear words in the presence of women (Hughes, 1992:292).
Montagu (1967: 71) states “Like most other human traits, swearing is a learned form of human behavior in cultures and under conditions in which it is encouraged”. So, the environment, situations, contexts and interaction among the interlocutors influence the speakers to learn such patterns of swearing. Anderson and Trudgill (1990: 15) argue that language reflects one’s values “the sort of swearing that goes on in a particular language may tell you something about the values and beliefs of the speakers”.
2.4. Syntax of Swearing
Many linguists have confirmed that swearing and swear words are compatible with certain syntactic conventions. These conventions are as follows:
1. Swear words have different syntactic roles (Anderson and Trudgill, 1990). They can be nouns (wallah al؟ðˤeem), verbs (uqsimu billah), adjectives or adverbs. Some swear words, such as “qassaman” can be used as two or more parts of speech.
2. McMillan (1980) argues that swear words have productive characteristics. They can obtain new syntactic roles and be used to constitute new words or expressions by the processes of infixing and interposing, for example “billah ؟alik” or “sayik ؟alik allah”.
3. Swearing serves as force markers such as imperative or interrogative force. For example, (ihlif billah, swear by God) or “Go to hell!”(Ljung, 1989:185).
2.5. Pragmatics of Swearing
Jay (1992), Jay and Janschewitz (2008) demonstrate that swearing is contingent on some pragmatic variables such as speaker’s( position, professions, gender and age), contextual factors (e.g. discourse type and the relationship with the interlocutors) and a type of word that is used in imprecation which carries greater or lesser face threat. Therefore, some swear words within a certain social group appear to be offensive or taboo to a person who does not belong to the same group. For example, swear by honor in collegiate community appears to be impolite to a person from another group.
Harris (1987: 187) claims that “swearwords become unmentionable precisely because institutionalized swearing is the unique and marginal case where locution and illocution are one: the utterance is the indeed and the indeed is utterance.”
Smith (1998:168) studies the social meaning of swearing in Russia. He states “much of the meaning of swearing depends upon context, upon the shared values and social intuitions of the speaker and addressee.” Swearing is controlled by situation, context and the relationships between people. For example, what is acceptable or appropriate in a particular situation becomes unacceptable or inappropriate in a different one.
2.6. Swearing and Mass Media
Swearing can be strongly noticeable in mass media, including TVs, newspapers, magazines, movies and throughout the internet.
Dynel (2012) discusses a number of methodological issues related to studies on the (im)politeness of swearing with special focus on internet discourse and the written commentaries on YouTube. In his research, he proposes that dirty words are not inherently impolite across all contexts and communities of practice. Several parameters affect language users’ idiosyncratic perceptions of dirty words even in spoken communications or computer-mediated discourse. Dynel presents some restrictions that govern the using of swear words in the media. For example, polish rules prevent the use of vulgar language in TV discourse, while in the UK all swearing words are allowed. However, in the USA, there is a ban on “seven dirty words” with the exception of film dialogues (Sapolsky &
Jay ( 2000), Jay and Janschewitz (2008) study swearing depending on a neuro-psycho-social (NPS) theory that looks at the neurological, psychological, and social reasons. The theory shows that people are used to swear depending on certain factors. These factors can be classified under one of three main factors discussed in the theory.
Each of NPS factors takes time to develop the person’s life and each factor depends on maturation and experience.
The first factor is neurological factor. It involves neurobiology which correlates to emotional language use. This factor states that swearing is involved with right cerebral hemisphere and neural substrata underlying a range of speech from non-propositional speech to prepositional speech (Jay and Janschewitz 2008:270-271).
Jay’s research (2000) reveals that Neurological control is represented by a continuum of functions ranging from very little neurological control to high neurological control. Very little control is used in reflex actions. High neuro-control is used in situations in which we can decide what to say.
Jay and Janschewitz (2008:270-271) demonstrate that “Neurological factors influence propositional and nonpropositional swearing, but nonpropositional utterances make it particularly clear that we are not always able to control swearing; emotions arise involuntarily”. Swearing is existing on continuum from thoughtful or purposeful (e.g. persons’ choose a particular swear word) to automatic and uncontrollable. For example, when a person accidentally hurts himself, there will be very little neuro-control or conscious awareness in what the person does. In this situation, the person may yell out a profanity. On the other hand, if the person is in a social setting talking to friends, he or she has high control and conscious awareness of his or her decision of what to say and whether to swear.
Swearing that is intentional or propositional may be produced with a lot of conscious awareness on the part of the speaker. If a person tells a dirty joke to a friend and uses a swear word in the punch line, he is using the swear word to communicate something funny to the audience. So, swearing can occur at different levels of awareness.
The second factor is psychological factor. According to Jay (2000:83-84) this factor specifies that whether or not people swearing depends to a great degree on one’s experiences during development. The psychological factors strongly associated with swearing are: trait, religiosity, verbal aggressiveness, sexual anxiety and type of personality.
Jay (2000:87) divides these motives into strong and weak categories. Weak motives tend to inhibit people from swearing. These can be strong religiosity, high level of sex anxiety, high self-control, history of being punished for cursing, and lack of role models for cursing. For example, if a person has a strong Islamic background, the person may be motivated not to swear because it is considered not very Islamic-like to do that. Strong motives which are related to emotional states help to increase the likelihood of swearing. When people are experiencing an emotional state, they may use a swear word to express what they feel. For example, when people are angry they may go on a swearing tirade to express their anger.
The final factor is sociocultural factor. Jay and Janschewitz (2008: 272) admit that “Sociocultural influences on swearing vary from culture to culture and take some time and experience within a culture to be fully appreciated”. The contextual variables (conversational topic, the speaker- listener relationship) determine the appropriateness and offensiveness of swearing. In why we curse, Jay (2000:19) explains that the speaker’s judgments about when to use swear words depend on his/her beliefs in the appropriateness of swearing language. The words can be in one context but not appropriate in another context with the same group of people. One can tell a dirty joke to his colleagues in a social setting but it would not be appropriate in a meeting at work.
2.7. Swearing and Venting Emotions
People swear to express their emotions such as anger, fear, elation, pain and happiness. Montagu ( 1967:71-72) states that “under such conditions one may learn to swear as a relief for angry feelings of an aggressiveness quality as means of relief to the over wrought individual by affording adequate release”. Echols (1980) ensures that” the oath interjectional provides an oral outlet, a safety valve, for man’s anger frustration, a reasonably acceptable substitute for an obviously impractical action”.
Jay and Janschewitz (2008:269-270) state that Swearing can be either propositional or non-propositional. Propositional swearing is planned controllable and intentional. In this case, the speakers can control their utterances and emotions whereas; non-propositional swearing is unintentional and uncontrollable. It involves sudden responses to events emotively.
Fine and Johnson (1984) conducted a study on swearing. Their results show that emphasizing feelings is an important motive for swearing. Moreover, people know that other people swear in part to emphasize feelings. In the field of persuasion, Fine and Johnson’s results suggest that if an audience hears a speaker swear when delivering a speech on a particular topic then the audience might guess that the speaker is emphasizing feelings. Accepting such a point might motivate the audience to take particular note of the argument and quite possibly to find the communication to be particularly influential.
Mulac (1976) has carried out a study about the effects of obscene language, sex differences and credibility. The participants listened to two types of speeches. One of the speeches contains obscene words and the other contains non-obscene word. The participants analyze the two speeches depending on socio-intellectual status (rich – poor or educated- uneducated), aesthetic quality (beautiful-ugly or pleasing-displeasing) and dynamism (weak-strong) dimensions. The results show that a speaker can demonstrate strong depth of feeling about a topic by using bad or foul language, but the bad language detracts from other aspects of how the speaker is perceived. Scherer and Sagarin (2006) found that profanity led people to perceive the speaker as having more depth of feeling. Actually, speaker depth of feeling partially mediated the relationship between profanity and persuasion.