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Swear words for sale: The commodification of swearing
Södertörn University, School of Culture and Education, English language.ORCID iD: 0000-0003-2277-2282
Saarland University.
2021 (English)In: Pragmatics and Society, ISSN 1878-9714, E-ISSN 1878-9722, Vol. 12, no 1, p. 79-105Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

Swearing has traditionally been associated with spoken language; however, swear words are appearing more often in print and, notably, explicitly featured in commercial products. In this paper, we consider this development an example of the commodification of swear words, or 'swear words for sale'. Our analyses of English-language swear word products show that the taboo nature of swear words is exploited and capitalized upon for commercial gain. We argue that swear word commodities trade on sociolinguistically incongruous aspects of swear word usage, increasing salability of the swear word products by targeting specific demographics. Specifically, we analyze (1) women's apparel and accessories, (2) domestic items and home décor, and (3) children's products for adults or articles targeting parents of young children. The study concludes with a discussion of whether the popularization of swearing via such commodification may ultimately result in a loss of distinctiveness and devaluation.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
John Benjamins Publishing Company , 2021. Vol. 12, no 1, p. 79-105
Keywords [en]
Age, Class, Commodification, Gender, Swearing, Taboo
National Category
General Language Studies and Linguistics
Research subject
Baltic and East European studies
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-44639DOI: 10.1075/ps.18024.beeISI: 000629370600005Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85102377057OAI: oai:DiVA.org:sh-44639DiVA, id: diva2:1539988
Part of project
A multidisciplinary study of feminist comic art, The Foundation for Baltic and East European StudiesAvailable from: 2021-03-26 Created: 2021-03-26 Last updated: 2021-04-15Bibliographically approved

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Beers Fägersten, Kristy

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CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

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Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • harvard-anglia-ruskin-university
  • apa-old-doi-prefix.csl
  • sodertorns-hogskola-harvard.csl
  • sodertorns-hogskola-oxford.csl
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf