
Contents
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14.1 Introduction 14.1 Introduction
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14.2 Violating taboos 14.2 Violating taboos
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14.3 Strategies for circumventing taboo 14.3 Strategies for circumventing taboo
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14.4 Taboo words raise gooseflesh 14.4 Taboo words raise gooseflesh
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14.5 Names and taboo words 14.5 Names and taboo words
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14 Taboo Words
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].
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Published:03 March 2014
Cite
Abstract
From the earliest periods in history, and in all human societies, ‘those terrific things that go bump in the night’ have inspired taboos and inhibitions, whose linguistic impact has been considerable. When expressions become taboo, people behave as if somehow the form of such expressions communicates the essential nature of what they denote. The words are felt to be intrinsically nasty, and this is what makes them so disturbing. Taboo senses have a saliency that will dominate and eventually undermine the protective magic of any expression recruited as euphemism. Hence, taboo areas of the lexicon perpetually generate narrowing and deterioration of meaning; euphemism becomes dysphemism. Even across languages, taboo words can contaminate others, bringing down innocent expressions that happen to sound similar. Psychological, physiological, and neurological studies confirm the emotional quality of taboo expressions; forbidden words are more arousing, more shocking, more memorable, and more evocative than all other language stimuli.
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