A Sociolinguistic Study of Sexual and Animal Swear Words in English and Arabic Movies(1980s-2000s)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25130/Lang.10.1.P2.17Keywords:
Sociolinguistics, Swear words, movies, gender, cinematic discourseAbstract
This study investigates the sociolinguistic aspects of sexual and animal terms in English and Arabic movies produced between the 1980s and 2000s. The problem of the study is the lack of comparative studies that examine swear words from a diachronic sociolinguistic perspective. The main research questions are to what extent do gender, gender targets, and education level influence the use of swear words in movies, and which gender is the most frequently targeted in both languages. The study aims at identifying the historical development of sexual and animal swear words that are used in English and Arabic, and specifying the influence of gender and the level of education on the type of swear words. It is hypotheses that swear words are more used by females than males in most English movies, while this ratio differs in some modern Arabic movies and the speaker's education influence the type, frequency, and function of swear words used in languages and movies. A mixed methods approach, combining qualitative and quantitative analysis, is employed to compare the frequency, targets, and education. The findings reveal that English movies exhibit a higher frequency and diversity of swear words than Arabic movies, attributed to differences in cultural and religious censorship. The research underscores the influence of social factors such as education, and gender on the use of taboo language in cinematic discourse.
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