A Sociolinguistic Study of Taboos in English and Iraqi Arabic

Abstract

Abstract This study investigates one of the cultural and linguistic phenomena which is found in many societies. This phenomenon is taboo words and uses of offensive language in everyday speech. Taboo is the use of words that cause embarrassment and shameful to the hearer when said. This phenomenon is a form of vulgar and slang variety of language. Taboo words are part of every culture and language and individuals at certain points in their life encounter taboo words. Sociolinguistics is the field that studies the relation between language and society, between the uses of language and the social structures in which the users of language live, since sociolinguistics studies how culture and society are reflected in language. The role played by social taboos in language behaviour is something that falls within the scope of sociolinguistics. This study investigates the use of taboo words by Iraqi Arabic and English speakers and how taboo words are conditioned by the social context in which they are used and the socio-cultural factors affecting their use. Taboo language refers to words which people may not use without causing offence, because they refer to acts, objects, or relationships which are widely felt to be embarrassing, distasteful, or harmful. Verbal taboos are usually related to sex, the supernatural, excretion, and death, but in some cultures they extend to other aspects of domestic life (such as in- laws, private names, and certain animals). Taboo language is not limited to obscenity, sacred language can also be tabooed. Moreover, it has been shown that social taboos and negative connotation are responsible for what are called 'euphemism' roughly, good or indirect terms for bad or tabooed things. This study aims at conducting a sociolinguistic study of taboo IX language in conversations produced by speakers in Iraqi Arabic and English society to examine the differences and similarities in the causes and ways of using taboo language. These words were selected from different conversations in the Iraqi society. While in English society, they were selected from different movies. This study falls into five chapters: Chapter One is an introduction specifying the nature of the problem, aims of the study, hypotheses, limits, methodology and value of the study. Chapter Two is devoted to the theoretical background concerning sociolinguistics, language and culture. It involves the main topics related to the main subject of taboo such as various definitions of sociolinguistics, language and culture, language variations, mixture of varieties, speech community, language and thought, standard language and components of sociolinguistics. This chapter ends with a cross cultural communication section focusing on how people in different countries behave, communicate and perceive language. Chapter Three gives perspectives on the offensive language in English and Iraqi Arabic and types of taboos. It gives some previous studies of taboos and gives an idea about the terms politeness and impoliteness as adopted by Brown & Levinson(1978,1987) and Culpeper (1996) in the theory of the face. It shows the main topic in this thesis which is taboo and gives various definitions and euphemisms for different taboo words. This chapter also gives an idea about the two models and their divisions that the researcher adopts in analyzing data. Chapter Four deals with twenty conversations in English society from different movies and twenty conversations and their translations in the Iraqi Arabic society. This chapter presents the analysis of taboo words in those conversations by adopting the two models. Finally, Chapter Five shows Conclusions which contain some similarities and differences between those societies, Recommendations and some suggestions for future research.