
Contents
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10.1 ‘Raising Gooseflesh’—the power of taboo words 10.1 ‘Raising Gooseflesh’—the power of taboo words
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10.2 ‘The A-bomb of the English language’—a case study of change 10.2 ‘The A-bomb of the English language’—a case study of change
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10.2.1 The ‘female pudendum’ and other euphemisms 10.2.1 The ‘female pudendum’ and other euphemisms
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10.2.2 The X-phemism mill 10.2.2 The X-phemism mill
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10.2.3 A final note—‘the A-bomb’ today 10.2.3 A final note—‘the A-bomb’ today
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10.3 Taboo and the historical method 10.3 Taboo and the historical method
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10.3.1 Names and ‘the naturalist hypothesis’ 10.3.1 Names and ‘the naturalist hypothesis’
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10.4 Conclusion 10.4 Conclusion
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10 Taboo as a driver of language change
Get accessKate Burridge FAHA, is Professor of Linguistics at Monash University. Her main areas of research are language change, the Pennsylvania German of Anabaptist communities in North America, notions of linguistic taboo, and the structure and history of English. Recent books include Forbidden Words: Taboo and the Censoring of Language (with Keith Allan, 2006); Introducing English Grammar (with Kersti Börjars, 2010); Gift of the Gob: Morsels of English Language History (2010); Wrestling with Words and Meanings (with Réka Benczes, 2014); For the Love of Language (with Tonya Stebbins, 2015); and Understanding Language Change (with Alex Bergs, 2016). Email: [email protected].
Réka Benczes is Associate Professor at the Institute of Behavioural Studies and Communication Theory, Corvinus University of Budapest (Hungary), and an Affiliate of the School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics, Monash University (Australia). She is the author of Creative Compounding in English (John Benjamins 2006); Kognitív nyelvészet ([Cognitive linguistics] with Zoltán Kövecses, Akadémiai Kiadó 2010); and dozens of articles on compounding, lexical creativity, and metaphorical pg xconceptualization. Her most recent monograph is Rhyme over Reason: Phonological Motivation in English (Cambridge University Press 2018). Email: [email protected].
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Published:11 December 2018
Cite
Abstract
In this chapter the focus is on taboo and language development. Whether we are looking at the naming restrictions of Polynesia or the social taste constraints of English-speaking communities, taboo areas of the lexicon perpetuate instability. Existing vocabulary is often abandoned as speakers either borrow words or create new expressions; surviving vocabulary is often remodelled as speakers either give new meaning to old expressions or modify their pronunciation in some way. Thus word taboo is a counter-agent to the operation of regular change, and consequently plays havoc with the conventional methods of historical and comparative linguistics, which operate on principles such as the arbitrary nature of the word, the regularity of sound change and the nonexistence of true synonyms.
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