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Swearing

The document discusses the role of swearing in communication. While swearing is often seen as rude or inappropriate, it can serve important functions. Swearing allows people to quickly express strong emotions like pain, anger or surprise without needing longer explanations. It also emphasizes parts of conversations and helps convey a speaker's feelings. While swearing may have negative impacts on children in rare cases, most uses of swearing are harmless and do not lead to problems. Whether swearing is acceptable depends on the context and intent behind the words. Swearing can be inappropriate in formal settings but is usually fine in other situations if used without intentionally insulting others.

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41 views4 pages

Swearing

The document discusses the role of swearing in communication. While swearing is often seen as rude or inappropriate, it can serve important functions. Swearing allows people to quickly express strong emotions like pain, anger or surprise without needing longer explanations. It also emphasizes parts of conversations and helps convey a speaker's feelings. While swearing may have negative impacts on children in rare cases, most uses of swearing are harmless and do not lead to problems. Whether swearing is acceptable depends on the context and intent behind the words. Swearing can be inappropriate in formal settings but is usually fine in other situations if used without intentionally insulting others.

Uploaded by

Khanii
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Tu Le

4/12/2020 About 740


words
Swearing

SWEARING IS PART OF COMMUNICATION

By Tu Le

Not everyone swears, and this is also not a nice and must-be-appreciated action.

However, everything in life always has two sides, and swearing is not completely bad. Just like

how a bad negative expression such as anger is part of emotion, swearing is also a part of

communication.

Swearing is basically words that are inappropriate and informal. It is often seen as rude,

crude, and lewd words. Because parents want to keep children's minds full of beautiful and

innocent things to grow them up positively, they would not want their kids to swear even though

they do. But the reason why people say those words is because it shows their real emotions.

It is not like people have never sworn. They probably have seen somebody say things like

“Shoot!” when they have stubbed their toes. Instead of saying a long sentence to describe that

they are hurt, “My toe hurts,” at that time, people tend to swear because it is a quick response.

This shows their true expression. According to the research from Keele University in England,
Swearing/2/Le

“Researchers say swearing helps the body combat pain. It’s called the analgesic response, which

makes the body more impervious to pain.”

-More-

In a conversation, saying those taboo words help highlight the meaning and also express

an emotional reaction to it. This is the persuasion in communication. It not only emphasizes the

message but also expresses the speaker's feelings such as surprise, anger, pain, disgust without

resorting to actual physical action.

To explain why people do not like to swear, it might relate to morals or abuse. Hundred

years ago in Asian countries, swearing in public was seen as an uneducated behavior, and

swearing is prohibited in the King’s palace because it is a stain to educated people. However,

people might misunderstand swearing as cursing someone else such as “F you”, or “Go to Hell!”

That is different. Why is it different? Why do people still use the same words to assault someone

emotionally? Then people should consider innocuous swearing and intent offense are two

different things. It depends on the situations, emotions, meanings, and the tones of the speaker.

When a person is in anger and curses someone to die, they are using a foul and offensive

language to insult another. So in this case, using foul, rude, and abusive language to bring

someone down would be considered “offense” and “insult” verbally. While swearing without

insulting anyone would be like interjection, which means words to express emotions in an

informal way.

To those who do not like this kind of language, they think swearing would bring out a bad

result such as it has an abusive behavior and can impact mentally to individuals, especially

children. However, two psychological scientists, Timothy Jay and Kristin Janschewitz from
Swearing/3/Le

Massachusetts College do not deny that it can affect negatively to children, but it would be just a

small percentage. According to their study, The Science of Swearing, “Our work so far suggests

that most uses of swear words are not problematic. We know this because we have recorded over

-More-

10,000 episodes of public swearing by children and adults, and rarely have we witnessed

negative consequences. We have never seen public swearing lead to physical violence. Most

public uses of taboo words are not in anger; they are innocuous or produce positive

consequences (e.g., humor elicitation).”

Swearing is indeed an inappropriate behavior so people should not swear in places like

schools, libraries, museums, courts, and other formal occasions. Moreover, people do understand

not to swear in places like that. If they still do, it is because they don't understand how to respect

other people. As mentioned, this lazy language is usually innocuous and the speaker does not

intentionally insult others; therefore, for those who hate swearing think that saying a little of these

words is offensive, they have a unilateral and superficial thought.

So in conclusion, if people do not swear, then that is good. If they do, then that is

completely fine and nothing wrong with it. It is like people who keep a refined lifestyle, and those

who have some bad habits such as being messy and unorganized. Swearing does sound “ugly” in

some ways but it is harmless. Nobody is perfect so if someone says those words unintentionally,

don’t be disgusted and judge them.

-30-
Swearing/4/Le

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