AN ANALYSIS OF SWEARING EXPRESSION IN A SCOTTISH

MOVIE ENTITLED SWEET SIXTEEN

(A Sociopragmatics Approach)

THESIS

Submitted as a Partial Fulfilment of Requirements

for The Sarjana Sastra Degree in English Department
Faculty of Cultural Sciences
Sebelas Maret University

By:

UZLIFATUS SA’ADAH

C0314048

ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF CULTURAL SCIENCES
SEBELAS MARET UNIVERSITY
SURAKARTA
2019
 PRONOUNCEMENT

Name : Uzlifatus Sa’adah

Student Number : C0314048

I state this pronouncement truthfully that this thesis entitled An Analysis of Swearing

Expression in A Scottish Movie Entitled Sweet Sixteen is originally written by myself, as the

researcher. It is no way a plagiarism. The previous works which are related to this thesis are all

written in the form of quotations and included in the bibliography.

If later, this pronouncement is proved incorrect, I as the researcher am ready to take

responsibility, including the withdrawal of my degree.

Surakarta, July 12th , 2019

The Researcher

Uzlifatus Sa’adah

iv
 MOTTOES

Fa innamaal usriyusraa. Innama al usriyusraa.

Karena sesungguhnya bersama kesulitan itu ada kemudahan.

Sesungguhnya bersama kesulitan itu ada kemudahan.

(Q.S. AlBaqarah: 286)

Even if I fall and hurt myself,

I will keep running towards my dream.

(Bulletproof Boys Scout)

Dream, hope, keep going.

(Uzlifatus Sa’adah)

v
 DEDICATION

With wholehearted praise, I dedicate this thesis gratefully, to:

My ultimate bias, Allah

My dearest parents, Pak Toha and Bu Yani

My self.

vi
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Alhamdulillahirobbil’alamin, all praises and thanks are to my one and only, Allah SWT

due to the blessing, guidance and miracles throughout my life, including finishing this thesis.

This thesis, entitled “An Analysis of Swearing Expression in Scottish Movie Entitled Sweet

Sixteen (A Sociopragmatics Approach), could not be finished without His mercy.

This part is especially dedicated to these inspiring people of my life who always

encourage me in finishing this thesis. Here, I would like to express my deepest gratitude and

appreciation to all of their contribution for this masterpiece:

1. Prof. Dr. Warto, M.Hum, as the Dean of Faculty of Cultural Sciences, Sebelas Maret

University, for approving this thesis.

2. Drs. Agus Hari Wibowo, M.A, PhD, the Head of English Department, who always

encourage us to finish our study in 4 years, or earlier.

3. Prof. Drs. Djatmika, M.A, as my thesis consultant. Thank you so much for all of the

guidance, attention, and advise during the process of finishing this thesis.

4. Ida Kusuma Dewi, M.A, as my academic supervisor, who has supported me through her

guidance after all my academic years.

5. All of the lecturers of English Department Program for the valuable knowledge, the

wonderful and massive experiences that they have shared to me. It has been a great

experience of being the student of English Department.

6. My dearest parents, Pak Toha and Bu Yani. Thanks to my super-mom Sumasyani and

my hero-dad Muhammad Toha for always supporting me emotionally and financially in

finishing my thesis, even though you didn’t even know what I was writing about.

vii
 Unexplainable thanks for your endless love, care, pray and support given to me. Thank

you for everything. There is no word that can describe how much I love you two.

7. Furthermore, to all my siblings; Ikhwan Azka Mufid, Isnatul Amanah, Muhammad Rofiq

Ridwani, and Amalia Istiqamah.Thanks for all the support, thanks for always taking care

of me from a far, thanks for being the part of my life, I hope you all are doing great later

in the future. I do love you all.

8. My self, Ifa. Thanks for still keep holding on and decided to still be alive untill now,

thanks for still going this far despite all the hardship we have. Let’s keep fighting in the

future!

9. To KNJ, thank you for existing. Thanks for become my number one inspiration, thanks

for speaking out about mentall illness to the world. Thanks to MYG, KTH, J, HS, JM,

and JK for making my life become less depressing. Thanks for showed me I have reasons

I should love myself and I need to speak myself.

10. To OT12, thanks for used to be the universe of my life. To Kris, thanks for leaving.

Because of your painful decision, I studied hard and got accepted in ED.

11. Thanks for all the groups I used to stan that I cannot mentioned one by one. Thanks for

making my life colorful when I struggling with life and school. Thanks guys for making

my depressed and hopeless life happier and brighter than ever. Hope we all will doing

well in the future

12. Thanks for all of my friends in English Department 2014. Thanks for all the happy, sad,

and struggle we share together through our stressful and exciting campus life. Meeting

you all is the best thing that ever happened in my college life. I’m gonna miss you all. I

viii
 hope the best for all of you. Even if we walk in different path, let’s still keep walking

together on chasing our dreams. Big hit for all of us!

13. Those people who cannot be mentioned one by one but have a big contribution to my

thesis and other process of my life, thank you so much.

Finally, even though this thesis is still far from the perfection, I hope that this thesis

can give benefit to the people out there who are interested in this study, which has correlation

with socio-pragmatics or any other studies. Moreover, I look forward for any suggestions or

any other ideas that can make it more perfect for the one who reads and needs it.

ix
 An Analysis of Swearing Expression in A Scottish Movie Entitled Sweet Sixteen

UzlifatusSa'adah1

Prof. Dr. Djatmika, M.A.2

ABSTRACT

This research aims at finding types of swearing employed by the characters in the movie
Sweet Sixteen, knowing how the context situation affects the use and the meaning of swearing,
and knowing how the sociocultural background of the characters influences the level of
swearing' offensiveness. This research is a descriptive qualitative research under the framework
of Sociopragmatics study. The relationship between social phenomenon and methods becomes
the focus of this research.
The findings reveal that there are six types of swearing expression employed by the
characters in Sweet Sixteen movie, namely Descriptive Swearing, Idiomatic Swearing, Abusive
Swearing, Emphatic Swearing, Cathartic Swearing and Name-calling Swearing. There are
fourteen types of function used by the characters of Sweet Sixteen movie: predicative negative
adjective, adverbial booster, cursing expletive, destinational usage, emphatic adverb, figurative
extension of literal meaning, general expletive, idiomatic set phrase, imagery based on literal
meaning, premodifying intensifying negative adjective, pronominal form with undefined
referent, personalinsult referring to identified entity, reclaimed usage, and religious oath used for
emphasis. It is found that the context situation of the conversation which consists of the
situations, the participants, the ends, the acts sequence, the key, the instrumentalities, the norms
and the genres, affects the use and the meaning of swearing expression in the movie.The results
also show that the sociocultural background of the characters such as the speaker-hearer
relationship, social-physical context, and the particular word used, influences the level of
swearing’ offensiveness in Sweet Sixteen movie.
Keywords: Swearing, Offensiveness Rate, Scottish movie.

1
A student in English Department with the student number C0314048
2
Thesis Supervisor

x
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

TITLE ............................................................................................................. i

APPROVAL OF THESIS CONSULTANT................................................. ii

APPROVAL OF THE BOARD OF EXAMINERS .................................... iii

PRONOUNCEMENT .................................................................................... iv

MOTTO .......................................................................................................... v

DEDICATION................................................................................................ vi

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ............................................................................. vii

ABSTRACT .................................................................................................... x

TABLE OF CONTENTS .............................................................................. xi

LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................... xiv

LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................... xv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ....................................................................... xvi

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

A. Research Background ...................................................................... 1

B. Research Objectives ........................................................................ 4

D. Research Questions ......................................................................... 5

E. Research Significance ..................................................................... 5

F. Research Scope ................................................................................ 6

CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW

A. Sociolinguistics ............................................................................... 7

B. Pragmatics ....................................................................................... 9
xi
C. Sociopragmatics .............................................................................. 10
 D. The Ethnography of Communication (EC) ..................................... 11

1. The Definition of Ethnography of Communication .................... 11

2. The Fundamental Notions in EC................................................. 12

3. The Component of Speech .......................................................... 16

E. Social Dimension............................................................................. 24

1. Social Distance Scale .................................................................. 25

2. Social Status Scale ...................................................................... 26

3. Formality Scale ........................................................................... 27

4. Functional Scale .......................................................................... 27

F. Domain of Language Use ................................................................ 28

G. Swearing Words .............................................................................. 30

1. The Definition of Swearing Words ............................................. 30

2. Function of Swearing .................................................................. 30

3. Typology of Swearing...................................................................... 31

4. The Level of Offensiveness Rate of Swearing ........................... 33

H. Movie Theory.................................................................................. 34

I. Film Synopsis ................................................................................... 35

J. Previous Research ............................................................................ 35

CHAPTER III RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

A. Research Design .............................................................................. 38

B. Data and Source of Data.................................................................. 39

xii
C. Technique of Data Collection ......................................................... 40
 D. Technique of Data Coding .............................................................. 41

E. Procedure of Data Analysis ............................................................. 41

CHAPTER IV FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

A. Findings ........................................................................................... 43

B. Discussions ...................................................................................... 159

CHAPTER V CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

A. Conclusions ..................................................................................... 166

B. Suggestions...................................................................................... 168

BIBLIOGRAPHY .......................................................................................... 169

APPENDICES

xiii
 LIST OF TABLES

Table 2.1 Domain of Language Use .........................................................................29

xiv
 LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1 Social Distance Scale ..............................................................................25

Figure 2.2 Social Status Scale ..................................................................................26

Figure 2.3 Formality Scale .......................................................................................27

Figure 2.4 Functional Scale .....................................................................................28

xv
 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

1. S-P-E-A-K-I-N-G : Situation, Participants, Ends, Act Sequences, Key

Instrumentalities, Norms, Genre

2. PNA : Predicative Negative Adjective

3. AB : Adverbial Booster

4. CE : Cursing Expletive

5. DU : Destinational Usage

6. EA : Emphatic Adverb

7. FE : Figurative Extension of Literal Meaning

8. GE : General Expletive

9. ISP : Idiomatic Set Phrase

10. LUDTR : Literal Usage Denoting Taboo Referent

11. IboLM : Imagery based on Literal Meaning

12. PINA : Premodifying Intensifying Negative Adjective

13. PfwUR : Pronominal Form with Undefined Referent

14. PIRtIE : Personal Insult Referring to Identified Entity

15. RU : Reclaimed Usage

16. RuUfE : Religious Oath Used for Emphasis

xvi
 1

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

This chapter describes the background of the research. It also explains

the research objectives, the research questions, the theoretical and practical

research significance, and the research scope.

A. Research Background

Swearing, also known as cursing is a linguistic activity involving the use

of taboowords (Stapleton, 2010). Swearing and cursing words have been used by

humans since the emergence of language to convey the expression of strong

emotions. Swearing can also be defined as to use words that are rude or offensive

as a way of emphasizing what you mean or as a way of insulting something or

someone. According to Andersson and Trudgill (2007), swearing can also be

defined as language use in which the expression refers to something taboo or

stigmatized in the individual’s culture which is not intended to be interpreted

literally and can be used to express strong emotions or attitudes. Since swearing

typically includes taboo words, these words can be more powerful than non-swear

words and often considered as not appropriateand too vulgar to be used in

linguistic activity.

However, Fagersten (2012) claims that swearing is the expression which

has potential to be deemed offensive, inappropriate, objectionable or unacceptable

in any given social context; as a consequence, only the recipient can decide

whether a given lexeme is derogatory, based on his or her own sensitivity. As

 2

example, nigger and queer could be extremely offensive in an abusive context but

inoffensive in a reclaimed context. Similarly, Jew and gay could be used as an

insult or as a neutral self-destruction (Thelwall, 2008:18). In addition, the

contribution of social surroundings has been also stressed by Limbrick (1991),

who asserts that the existence of swear words is contingent entirely on the varying

social codes.

According to Ljung (2011), the greater the potential of a word to offend,

the likelier the word is to be considered a swear word. Jung also stated that

offensiveness is traditionally determined by evaluative and semantic

differentiation rating techniques. Research shows unequivocal evidence that swear

words are mildly to highly offensive, and aggressive, impolite, profane, upsetting,

etc.) than others (Janschewitz, 2008; Jay, 1992; Mabry, 1974). Swearing that rated

as the most offensive are sexual terms, followed by excretory terms which, in

turn, are typically judged more offensive than sacred terms. Specifically, fuck,

shit, cunt and motherfucker (in varying orders) have been rated as the most

offensive (Baudhuin, 1973; Mabry, 1975).

Jay (2009) stated that the ultimate offensiveness of words is determined

entirely by pragmatic variables such as speaker-hearer relationship and the words

used and tone of voice, as well as social-physical setting that it takes time for

speakers to learn where, when, and with, when swearing is considered appropriate

(Allan and Burridge, 2006; Dewaele, 2010).

Based on the previous research conducted by Janschewitz (2008), it is

stated that women are more prone to feel offended by swearing words than men.
 3

According to the said research, women use offensive language less frequently

than men, but when they do use offensive language, they use less offensive words

and vice versa. The research exclude the sociocultural background on observing

offensiveness rate which made the result seems as if it gender biased. Meanwhile,

it is important to include the sociocultural background in the research such as

context situation, speaker-hearer relationship, social-physical context, and

particular word used.

Sociocultural influences on swearing vary from culture to culture and take

some time and experience within a culture to be fully appreciated (Eckert, 2012).

Swearing is influenced by pragmatic (contextual) variables such as the

conversational topic, the speaker-hearer relationship, including gender,

occupation, and status, and the social-physical setting of the communication with

respect to whether the swearing takes place in a public or private location, one’s

jurisdiction over the location, and the level of formality of the occasion. These

variables allow us to determine when swearing is likely or unlikely, when it is an

affront to appropriateness.

Another powerful influence on the likelihood of swearing is the social and

physical location of the dialogue (Christie, 2013) and people are more likely to

swear in relaxed environments than in formal environments (Johnson, 2012). In

order to get a better sense of how people evaluate swearing as a function of

context, a research were conducted by asking a group of college students to

estimate the likelihood of hearing swearing in various college campus locations

(Jay 1992). Locations populated by students, especially the dorms and pub, were
 4

the most likely places to hear swearing, while academic offices and campus

services locations were rated the least likely to hear swearing. Speaker-hearer

relationship, in terms of status (e. g., education, income, occupation), is another

critical determinant of swearing likelihood and appropriateness (Stone et al.,

2010; Rogerson-Revel, 2007; McEnery, 2006). One simple means of objectifying

status is through job title, for example, a doctor has more status than a nurse, and

a sophomore has more status than a freshman. One’s relationship with the speaker

can have a significant impact on what is considered impolite or rude (Locher and

Watts 2005; Cole, 2010; Snel, 2010; Squires, 2010).

B. Research Objectives

The objectives of making this research are:

1. To find out the types of swearing employed in the conversation by the

characters of Sweet Sixteen movie.

2. To find out how context situation affects the use and the meaning of

swearing employed by the characters in Sweet Sixteen movie.

3. To find out how sociocultural background of the characters such as

speaker-hearer relationship, social-physical context, and particular word

used, influences the level of swearing’ offensiveness in Sweet Sixteen

movie.
 5

C. Research Questions

The research was conducted to answer the following questions:

1. What are the types of swearing employed in the conversation by the

characters of Sweet Sixteen movie?

2. How does the context situation affect the use and the meaning of swearing

employed by the characters in Sweet Sixteen movie?

3. How does the sociocultural background of the characters influence the

level of swearing’ offensiveness in Sweet Sixteen movie?

D. Research Significance

This research discovers the correlation between the offensiveness rate of

swearing words and the sociocultural background of the characters in Sweet

Sixteen (2002) movie. Due to the novelty, this thesis focus on the sociocultural

background of individual which shows that context situation, speaker-hearer

relationship, social-physical context, and particular word used by a particular

person highly affects the offensiveness rate of swearing. Based on the results of

the analysis, theoretically, in this research the researcher studied how someone’s

sociocultural background can affects the level of offensiveness rate of swearing.

Then, practically, the results of this research show that the level of offensiveness

rate of swearing is not only can be examine by gender aspect but also by its

context situation, speaker-hearer relationship, social-physical context, and

particular word used.

 6

E. Research Scope

The study of this research concerns in showing the correlation between the

level of offensiveness rate with the sociocultural background of an individual

which includes context situation, speaker-hearer relationship, social-physical

context, and particular word used. The level of offensiveness rate is influenced not

only by gender but also by many variables such as the conversational topic,

occupation, and status, and the social-physical setting of the communication with

respect to whether the swearing takes place in a public or private location, one’s

jurisdiction over the location, and the level of formality of the occasion. This

research examines about the types of swearing in the movie entitled Sweet Sixteen

and the use and the meaning based on the characters relationship with others, the

characters choice of words, the character’s social-physical context, and in which

context situation the characters employing swearing which affects the level of

offensiveness rate. However, in this research the writer did not analyze the other

aspect outside the sociocultural background.

 7

CHAPTER II

LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter discusses some underlying concepts such as sociolinguistics,

pragmatics, sociopragmatics and the typology of swearing words that guide this

research. After discussing the concepts that support the research process, this will

continue with the short summary of the object of the research: Sweet Sixteen

movie. This chapter ends with the latest findings on the previous studies related to

swearing words.

A. Sociolinguistics

1. Definitions of Sociolinguistics

Language, as an important means of communication, cannot be separated

from society. People in the society use language to interact with one and another.

Since the function of language is to convey messages that need to involve social

interactions between the members of a community, sociolinguistics is essential in

explaining those interactions,where the study of sociolinguistics can show the

relationship of the people who are engaged in a certain conversation.

As a sub discipline of linguistics, sociolinguistics tries to explain how

language functions in a society. It is also concerned about the social function of

language in connection with speech community in a different kind of social

engagement (Spolsky, 1998). Similarly, Wardhaugh stated that sociolinguistics

examines how language deals with the society by showing a better understanding
 8

of the language structure, and by showing how languages play their functions in

communication that involves the diversity of the society. To be more specific, the

study of sociolinguistics concerns about how particular linguistic features serve to

portray certain social arrangements to understand the social structure better

(2006:13). In addition, Trudgill (2000) underlined that the study of

sociolinguistics involves cultural phenomenon which affect the way people speak

or talk, depends the social context that determines it.

The idea proposed by Wardhaugh and Trudgill are also in line with Holmes

(1992) who suggested that sociolinguistics explains why different social contexts

triggers people to speak differently, and its study is also tried to identify how

language perform in social situation and how it is functioned to convey social

meaning. Moreover, Holmes argued that by examining the way people make use

of language in different kind of social context, the way language works as well as

the social relationships in the interaction between the community members of a

society could be explained.

As the summary, sociolinguistics examines the language use related to

social dimension which portrays the social relationships between the members of

social community. Thus, it can be concluded that sociolinguistics is interested in

how language is used by people in interacting with each other, so that its study can

show how language works regarding to the social relationships in diverse social

community, as well as providing information about the language patterns and its

employment in any situation of communication.

 9

2. Scope of Sociolinguistics

Fishman (1972) categorized the field of sociolinguistics into two studies:

micro and macro sociolinguistics. Micro-sociolinguistics explains the study of

language of specified speech communities; meanwhile macro-sociolinguistics

deals with the history and development of language in the scope of society in

general. In other words, macro-sociolinguistics is focused in investigating the use

of languages that involving a larger group of speakers rather than individuals.

Meanwhile, the study of micro-sociolinguistics concerns about direct interaction,

as well as the analysis of discourse and conversation with other areas of

sociolinguistics involving the study of the group speaker that is relatively small

(Trudgill, 1992).

The focus of discussion in this research is swearing word employed by the

characters in Sweet Sixteen movie. Thus, the frame of the study is that of micro-

sociolinguistics and the theories applied in this research are all under the scope of

micro-sociolinguistics.

B. Pragmatics

Pragmatics is the study of linguistic meaning that is related to context. In

Pragmatics study, there is a dynamic process that involves the negotiation of

meaning between the interactants, the linguistic, social, and physical context of

utterance and the potential meaning of an utterance that can be used to understand

the meaning of an utterance (Thomas, 1995). Pragmatics deals a lot with context

because context can explain why different expressions may happen in different
 10

situations. Its study concerns about how different expressions are possible to

occur in different situations, channels, participants, setting and so on.

Yule (1996: 3), who defined pragmatics as the study of contextual meaning,

suggested that pragmatics examines the relationships between the linguistic forms

and the users where the linguistic norms, theory, idea, are studied and analyzed

with some particular principles. It means that in pragmatics, someone may talk

about people’s intended meanings as well as people’s assumptions, people’s

aspirations, and the kinds of action that people do when they are communicating

their needs (Yule, 1996).

In short, pragmatics deals with the contextual meaning. The study of

pragmatics includes the interpretation of people’s intention and the context

influences that contributes in the conversation in a particular context. It requires a

consideration of how speakers organize the goal of communication that they want

to accomplish to be in accordance with who they are talking to, the social setting,

and the circumstances that affects the interaction.

C. Sociopragmatics

As proposed by Leech (1983), pragmatics is subdivided into

pragmalinguistics and sociopragmatics. Pragmalinguistics deals with the resources

that are used to convey communicative acts, as well as relational or interpersonal

meanings. Those resources involve pragmatic strategies which include face to face

interaction, indirectness, routines, and a large range of linguistic forms that can

strengthen or soften the communicative acts. Meanwhile, sociopragmatics

concerns about the social perceptions which underlie participants’ interpretation

 11

and the act of communicative action. Thus, it can be concluded that

sociopragmatics is a study under sociolinguistics and pragmatics. Sociopragmatics

approach combines pragmatics and sociolinguistics and it is no less than the

realization of Ethnography of communication.

D. The Ethnography of Communication

1. The Definition of Ethnography of Communication (EC)

Formerly known as the ethnography of speaking, the concept of

ethnography of communication was proposed in 1974 by Dell Hymes. The

ethnography of communication studies about grammar or language whilst

understanding about how the social relationships of the speakers of a particular

language in a particular community are organized. Its study examines the way

utterances used by the speakers which include showing deference, making

someone act upon something for them, displaying their verbal skill or giving

information that are considered as outside the concerns of linguistic theory to

other individual (Rahayu, 2009).

According to Fasold (1996:39), the ethnography of communication is an

approach to the sociolinguistics of language which shows the relation of social

and cultural values of the speakers with the use of language in general. It can be

pointed out that ethnography of communication study investigates the

organization of speaking as an activity in human society. Moreover, Hymes (in

Fasold, 1996) stated that ethnography of communication concerns the situation

and uses the speaking’ patterns and functions as an activity in its own claim.
 12

Ethnography of communication deals with various ways of speaking in different

speech community that has to be understood by a speaker in order to

communicate properly and to make sense of communicative situation within a

particular speech community. According to Fasold (1996:40), the very basic

concepts of ethnography of communication include the community of speech

along with the speech situation, speech events, and speech acts or usually

identified as units of interaction.

3. The Fundamental Notions in Ethnography of Communication

In relation with the study of the ethnography of speaking, Hymes lists the

very basic concepts of ethnography of communication that involve speech

community which has a relationship with speech act, speech event, and speech

situation.

Gumperz (in Chaika, 1995) defined speech community as a number of

speakers who are connected by shared a set of norms or rules about the use of a

particular language or languages. Meanwhile Hymes (in Fasold, 1996) insisted

that all speech community members share a set of rules and acceptable behavior

of the language use.. Thus, it can be pointed out that a speech community refers to

a group of people who are tied with at least one variety of language along with

rules and patterns of communication for interacting and interpreting.

In order to examine the communicative behavior inside the group of a

speech community, Hymes (in Fasold, 1996) suggested that working with units of

interaction which consist of speech act, speech event, and speech situation, must

be done.
 13

1. Speech Situation

Speech situations refers to a situation where an interaction exists, either

with or without verbal speech. Speech situations are not purely communicative

because it is not only composed by communicative event but also along with the

other kind of non-communicative event.

It can be interpreted that speech situations in the form of nonverbal context is

actually possible. The situation refers to whatever kind of statuses and settings’

configuration, which restrict the interaction, where it may or should happen.

According to Fishman (1972), speech situation is made up of three ingredients:

space (where), time (when), and role (who speaks, what language and to whom).

Speech situations may occurs in a situational events such as in ceremonies, meals,

fights, hunts, etc. A bus ride or a seminar in hall can also be other examples.

2. Speech Events

Speech events, then, are activities governed by rules or norms for speech (Hymes,

1974:52). A speech event has a clear beginning and ending. For example, in a

situational setting such as party, the party is the speech situation, and

theconversation at the party is the speech event. Speech events are not merely

communicative, but also regulated by rules for the act of employing speech.

Hymes (in Fasold, 1996:42) suggested that the term of speech event is limited to

the aspect of activities or activities that are ruled straightway by norms or rules for

the use of speech. Speech events are composed of one speech acts or more and

take place within a speech situation.It is possible for a speech situation to only
 14

have one speech event that occurs in the entire time of one certain period, but it is

also possible to have several speech events that happen simultaneously in the

entire period of aspeech situation. For example, in a party, the interaction between

the emcee with the guests or a small talk between the guest with another guest

might be a speech act that is part of conversation (a speech event), which takes

place in a party (a speech situation).

3. Speech acts

The term speech acts refers to the utterance and the entire situation, in

which the utterance is issued, as a way of ‘doing things with word’ (Austin, 1996:

52). Thus, it conveys that the speakers in fact do the action through the language

with the hope that the listeners can comprehend their communicative intention.In

addition, Austin also provides the distinctions among utterances into locutionary,

illocutionary, and perlocutionary act.

a. Locutionary act

A locutionary act indicates the speaker’s purpose in saying something which

contains verbalized message.

b. Illocutionary act

An illocutionary act deals with the force behind the words that specifies in

what way a speaker is using the locution.

c. Perlocutionary act

A perlocutionary act causes sequential effects on the action, the thoughts, or

the feelings of listeners, which is the effect of illocutionary act.

 15

According to Searle (in Mey, 1993:163), speech acts are classified into five

categories which consist of directives, representatives, commisives, declarations,

and expressives.

1. Directives

Directives speech acts are the act aims to make the addressee perform an

action that the adresser desires. Directives speech acts can be in the form

ofrequesting, asking, inviting, ordering, begging and advising.

2. Representatives

Representatives speech acts are the act that commits the speaker to assert the

hearer’s belief. They are also known as boasting, suggesting, concluding,

swearing, and putting forward.

3. Commisives

Commisives speech acts are the act that commits the speaker to do future

action which shows the intention of the speaker in the near future. Commisives

speech acts are also known as planning, promising, opposing, betting, and

vowing.

4. Declarations

Declarations speech acts are the act that may change the state of something

in an immediate way. For example, when a man and a woman pronounced by a

priest as husband and wife, their status changed from single into married.
 16

5. Expressives

Expressives speech acts are the act that shows the expression of how the

speaker feels about certain situation. Expressivesspeech acts are also known as

apologizing, thanking, deploring, and welcoming.

4. The Component of Speech

Related to the study of the ethnography of communication, Hymes (1974)

has suggested an ethnographic framework which takes account into many

different factors involved in speaking. Hymes (in Wardhaugh, 1998) asserted that

ethnography of a communicative vent is a portrait of the total factors that are

relevant in knowing about how a certain communicative event accomplishes its

goals. He suggests that there are certain components of speech he deems to be

relevant and put them together into eight groups abbreviated as SPEAKING

(1998: 243-254).

a. The Situation (S)

The setting and the scene are the units that construct the situation, and

according to Wardhaugh (1995:243), as participant change the formality level or

as they change the kind of activity they are involved in, they are free to alter

scenes within a particular setting. Setting is about the existent physical

circumstances or time and place of a speech act in which speech takes place.

Scene is about the conceptual psychological setting of an event or the cultural

definition of an occasion. For instance (regarding to the previous example from

Sweet Sixteen movie in the speech act explanation), the setting of place pointed

out that the conversation takes place somewhere out of home, since Stan said that
 17

he will beat Liam’s ass all the way home. The setting of time indicates that the

interaction occurs during daylight because Liam did not say any greetings such as

good night when saying goodbye to his Mom. The conversation shows that Stan is

furious at Liam’s ignorant attitude towards him.

b. The Participants (P)

Participants refer to partaker who is actively participating in the speech

which includes various combinations of sender-receiver, speaker-listener, or

addressor-addressee. Participants in general fill a particular socially define roles,

for specific example, a prayer obviously makes a deity a participant. Another case

is that in a seminar hall, a speaker’s question and an audience’s response involve

the rest of the attendants as audience, not just both of them as speaker and listener.

To understand about the participants better, here are the useful examples

taken from Sweet Sixteen movie:

Stan: Stan speaking. What can I do for you?

Liam: Can I interest you in some double glazing?

Stan: Not today, son.

Liam: What about a fitted kitchen, then?

Stan: No, pal. I don't want fuck-all, you know?

In the conversation above, the participants are Liam and Stan, Liam mom’s

boyfriend. The participants of the interaction can be named as sender and receiver

because the message is delivered through telephone. The sender is Liam and the

receiver is Stan.
 18

c. The Ends (E)

Hymes (in Fasold, 1996:44) proposed, the construction of ends consist of

outcomes and goals. Outcomes is about the objective of the speech based on the

cultural point of view, meanwhile goals refers to the purpose of each participant

during communication. For example, in all kinds of bargaining events, the overall

outcome is to be the orderly trade of something of worth between the interactant.

The goal of the buyer is to minimize the price, while the goal of the seller is, of

course, to maximize it.

Expression of swearing, for instance, may have the aftereffect of simply

joking or expressing annoyance. However, a particular swearing initiated by the

addresser might have its own purposes including expressing strong emotion such

as anger or as an expression to emphasize excitement.

d. The Acts Sequence (A)

Act sequence is made up of message form and message content. Message

form refers to how something is spoken by participants, such as the precise words

used and how they are used, whereas message content is about the topic of

conversation or what the participants talk about.

e. The Key (K)

Key includes manner, tone or spirit in which speech is performed, whether

it is mock or serious, perfunctory or painstaking. Key also relate to feeling,

attitude, and atmosphere. Moreover, certain keys are closely associated with other

aspects of communication such as setting and participant. Tone and atmosphere

 19

are used in relation with the situation, whereas manner, feeling and attitude are

used in relation with the participants.

The aspects of key can be defined as follows:

1. Tone is about the common spirit of the scene, such as afraid, angry, etc.

2. Manner is about the manner of the participants behaved toward others,

such as formal or informal, polite or impolite, serious or mocking, etc.

3. Feeling is about emotions that indicate happiness, anger, excitability,

shock, anxiety, etc.

4. Atmosphere is about the feeling which influences the mind in a certain

condition or place, such as evil, good, etc.

5. Attitude is about the way of the participants think and behaves toward a

certain situation, whether it is pessimistic, optimistic, sympathetic, etc.

The indication of key may be nonverbal, as with a gesture, posture, facial

expression, style of dress, or even musical accompaniment. Even so, according to

Hymes, (1974:58) the key also generally includes conventional units of speech

that often despised in the standard linguistic analysis such as English aspiration,

signal emphasis, even to vowel length. Nonverbal communication is commonly

known as the communication process executed by sending and receiving

messages that are wordless. It can be communicated over the use of haptic

communication such as gesture and touch, by the posture or body language,

followed by through eye contact and facial expression. Nonverbal communication

can be delivered over object communication like clothing and hairstyles, symbols

and infographics or architecture. Speech also made of nonverbal elements which

 20

are generally recognized as paralanguage that includes speaking style, emotion,

and voice quality, as well as the prosodic features that involves intonation, rhythm

and stress (Rahayu, 2009). The following example from Sweet Sixteen may help

to clarify the term key:

Liam: Is Mum up yet?

Chantelle: (Did not answer. Keep washing dishes.)

Liam: What's wrong with you?

Chantelle: She's gone.

Liam: A wee walk will do her good. I think she had one too many last night.

Liam: No, Liam. She's gone.

Chantelle: Gone where she normally goes. The same "usual" as always.

Liam: (Looks so mad. Go without saying anything.)

Chantelle: Liam! Liam, calm down.

Liam: This is your fucking doing. What did you say?

Chantelle: I never said nothing!

Liam: Get out of my fucking way.

Chantelle: Liam, calm down!

Liam: Get out of my way. Where's my fucking other shoe?

Chantelle: Liam, let her go. She'll drive you mad. Let her go, for Christ's

sake!

Liam: (Keep ignoring Chantelle. Trying to find his shoe.)

Chantelle: Liam, listen. It's not that she doesn't care, she can't care!

Chantelle: She's a fucking crazy lost wee soul and she's gonna ruin you too!
 21

Liam: I saw you talking to her last night. What were you saying?

Liam: If you drove her back to Stan, I'll...

Chantelle: Drove her back to Stan?

Chantelle: If it's not Stan, it'll be somebody else and somebody else!

Liam: I've never seen her so happy.

Chantelle: Stop lying to yourself.

Liam: Where's my fucking trainer?!

Liam: Give me my shoe.

Chantelle: Liam, calm down.

Liam: Give me my fucking shoe.

Chantelle: Please, Liam. It's me that cares for you.

Liam: So that's your game? Worming your way in here.

Chantelle: We need you.

Liam: Your lies drive my ma away!

Chantelle: I'm not like that!

Liam: You never gave her a fucking chance!

Chantelle employed her first sentence in a serious manner since she wants

to explain to Liam what has happened, in order to make him understand that their

mom was gone. Liam saw Chantelle talk with his mom with a cold and rude

attitude when they met the night before. In Liam’s perspective, Chantelle was

being apathetic towards her mom when she tried to interact with her grandson,

Calum. Liam accuses Chantelle’s harsh attitude towards their mom as the cause of
 22

her leaving their new flat, so he treats Chantelle with resentful attitude that

involve anger feeling.

f. The Instrumentalities (I)

Instrumentalities include channel and form of speech. According to Hymes

(in Fasold, 1996:45), channel deals with the transmission of a message in which

the message is delivered from one person to another. It involves the choice of not

only oral or written, but also semaphore, telegraphic, or other medium of

transmission of speech, even the most commonly used channels are more likely to

be oral or written transmission of a message. Then, Hymes states that forms of

speech concerns about language and its subdivisions that includes dialects,

varieties, codes, and registers.

These examples from Sweet Sixteen may be useful in helping to understand

instrumentalities:

Liam’s mom: Liam, don't start, eh?

Liam: Mam...

Stan: For fuck's sake, man! (Bump into stranger and spill his coffee.)

Liam’s mom: Liam, give your ma a hug.

Stan: Got a cloth? Sorry about the language.

Stan: I can't believe myself sometimes. I'm like a bull in a china shop.

Stan: I can't believe I just did that. Here. Drink your coffee.

Stan: Rab, go and get us another cup. I'll sit with my wee friend here.

Stan -who has just arrived into the coffee table- burst to Liam and his mom,

as the two of them are in the middle of serious conversation. Then, they
 23

ended up talk directly face to face. Thus, it is clear that they have the

conversation in oral way. Whereas the form of speech employed in one of

Stan’s line of saying “I'm like a bull in a china shop.” is the example of the

employment of a figurative language.

g. The Norms (N)

Norms are the rules of the communication that include norms of

interaction and norms of interpretation. Norms of interaction refer to the

fundamental set of non-linguistics rules that controls how, when, and how often

speech employed in the community. It is commonly have by all communities and

the set of it are regulated by the culture of the community that varies from one

culture to another. Meanwhile, norm of interpretation intertwines the belief system

of a community. The manifestation of this norm involves the understanding about

what is being carried beyond what is used in the actual word. Thus, one needs to

follow the norms of interaction as well as the norms of interpretation in order to

be competent in communicating within a certain culture.

h. The Genres (G)

Genres refer to the group such as poems, proverbs, lectures, myths, tales,

riddles, curses, prayers, orations, etc. In many case, it is often happen that

different genres have characteristics that are completely formal which implies the

likelihood of pinpointing formal characteristics conventionally recognized. Hymes

(1996) claimed that casual speech act is a genre of its own and not about the

absence of any genre. A speech genre can happen not only in one kind of speech

event but could be more, for instance, mass in Catholic Church can consist of
 24

prayers and adorations, preys and sermons. The example from Sweet Sixteen is as

follows:

Stan: Fucking idiot.

Liam’s Granddad: Whoa! That's fucking enough. You fucking idiot, you.

Stan: Come on.

Liam’s Granddad: That's enough. Where's the fucking gear?

Stan: Next time you'll be walking like Charlie Chaplin!

Liam’s Granddad: I'll break your legs, you wee cunt!

Liam’s Granddad: It never went as far as that.

Liam’s Granddad: Fuck, he threw it over the fence there. Ah, you bastard!

Stan: For fuck's sake! A fucking Laurel and Hardy fucking family!

Stan: Get over the fucking fence.

Liam’s Granddad: My fucking balls is caught!

Liam: Fucking feeble, you cunts!

Liam got involved in a huge fight with his mom’s boyfriend, Stan, and his

own Granddad because he is messing over with their drug. They started to attack

and curse to each other. Based on the previously mentioned example, it can be

conclude that the genre of the talk is curses.

E. Social Dimension

Social dimension acts as the indication of situation and reflection of

purpose, manner, topic and mood of language use. Holmes claims that there are
 25

four different reflected dimensions during the communication which consist of

social distance scale, social status scale, formality scale, and functional scale

(1992:376).

1. Social Distance Scale

It deals with the relationship between the participants which something

such as how well they know each other and who is talking to whom is an

important factor i.e., children to parents, husband to wife, students to teachers or

managers to workers. Social distance scale is used to show different group’s

existence or solidarity within the community. The scale of solidarity-social

distance can be shown as follows:

Figure 2.1 Social Distance Scale

Social distance or solidarity is related to language choices during

communication. The use of vernacular forms occurs more frequently when there

is intimate relationship between the participants. Meanwhile, for those who are

socially distant, it considered as inappropriate to use vernacular forms in their

conversation.
 26

2. Social Status Scale

Similar with the previous scale, this dimension is also concerns with the

relationship of the participants which influences the language choices used in a

communication. Social status scale accounts for the diverse of linguistics

difference as a way that indicates speaker’s status in a certain community. The

scale for social status dimension can be shown as follow:

Figure 2.2 Social Status Scale

On social status dimension, the way people talk with each other reflects

their relationship. People on higher social group are more likely to use the

standard form of language. Thus, the word used by the participants in a certain

communication can indicate whether a participant is superior, subordinate, or

equal to the other.

3. Formality Scale

This dimension concerns about the variation of the speech in different

setting or context. Despite the fact that solidarity and status are usually very

forceful in determining the language choice that considered as appropriate, the

formality level of the speech event or the setting can sometimes override them.
 27

Formality and informality of the setting determines the language choices

used during communication. The scale of formality dimension can be shown as

follow:

Figure 2.3 Formality Scale

This scale is capable of being put to use in making a judgment about the

influence of the social setting or the classification of interaction on language

choice used in a conversation.

4. Functional Scale (Referential and Affective)

The function of an interaction on its linguistics form is considered as an

important influence. The functional scale itself comprises referential meaning and

effective social meaning. Referential and affective function in these scale are

particularly persuasive and basic. The linguistics features of a particular

interaction with referential meaning are heavily affected by the information that

it’s need to convey; and it can reflects someone’s feeling.

 28

The scale of referential and affective function can be shown as follow:

Figure 2.4 Functional Scale

F. Domain of Language Use

Joshua Fishman, an American sociolinguistics, popularizes the term

domain and introduces domain analysis. Fishman (in Fasold, 1992) defined

domain analysis as the use of language in several types of institutional contexts in

a society that are multilingual. Fishman also asserts that there are specified

institutional context named domain, in which one language variety seems to be

more suitable than the other. Domains are taken to be the set of factors which

include participants, topic, and location (1992:183).

Similar with Fishman, Holmes (in Fasold, 1992:26) said that domain is

indeed a very basic concept which brings about three essential social factors in

code choice-participants, topic, and setting.

 29

The following table, proposed by Joshua Fishman (in Holmes, 1992)

showed five domains, which can be recognized in various communities.

Table 2.1 Domain of Language Use

The Setting The Topic The Code

The Domain The Addressee /Variety

Family Significant House Hosting a family ---

Other meeting
Friendship Acquaintance Coffee Shop Talking about the ---
daily life
Religion Preacher Mosque Preaching in a ---
Friday prayer
Education Teacher Class Studying topic ---
about literature
Employment Manager Workplace Presentating a ---
plan

In brief, it can be conclude that the norm of domain consists of three aspects

in social communication, which are participant, setting, and topic. Fishman break

down domain into five categories: family, friendship, education, religion and

employment. However, the development of Sociolinguistics exploration brings to

broader and more specific division of kinds of domain such as home, office,

school, neighborhood, church, market, hotel, and transaction.

G. Swearing Words

1. The definition of swearing words

 30

Swearing words is bad language which is considered as vulgar, rude, dirty,

and offensive. Andersson and Trudgill define swearing as a type of language use

in which the expression refers to something that is culturally taboo and/or

stigmatized by the norms of the society. This type of language is commonly used

to express strong attitudes, feelings or emotions and should not be interpreted

literally (1990:53). Moreover, Eckert and Mc Connel (2003:181) defined swearing

as an expression in which could be just simply deep frustration to an expression of

very strong emotion such as anger at specific others and often manifest as rage

subjected to the available target nearby. Swearing is viewed as potent language

and can indeed sometimes achieve impressive effect.

According to Cambridge dictionary, swearing is also widely considered as

using words or language that are offensive or rude as a mean to emphasize what

an individual want to express or as a way of insulting someone or something

(www.dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp). Thus, from the previously mentioned

definitions about swearing words, it can be said that swearing means bad language

which can be uttered to express strong emotions.

2. Function of Swearing

Crystal (1997:61) claimed that the function of swearing as: a means of

release frustration or repressed emotion and as a medium to set free nervous

energy after a sudden shock; as a marker of group solidarity and group identity;

and as an outlet of expressing aggressiveness without resort to violence. Besides,

Asher (1994:1512) described the function of the use of swearing as an emotional

 31

expression by stating that swearing reflects a speaker’s emotional frustration or

wrath towards a person or an object. Based on those definitions, it is can be said

that swearing is not only can be used as a way of expressing emotions such as

anger, disagreement, pleasure and surprise, but also can be used as a mark of

group identity and solidarity.

3. Typology of Swearing

Pinker’s (2007: 350) proposed that people swear in, at least, five different

ways, and they are as follows:

1.) Descriptive swearing, as realized in line ‘Let’s fuck!’

2.) Idiomatic swearing, as realized in line ‘It’s fucked up.’

3.) Abusive swearing, as realized in line ‘Fuck you, motherfucker!’

4.) Emphatic swearing, as realized in line ‘It’s fucking amazing.’

5.) Cathartic swearing, as realized in word ‘Fuck!’

According to Ljung (2011), Pinker’s five-way swearing classification differs

radically from that of McEnery (2006), if it taken at face value. Furthermore,

Ljung adds that if Pinker’s typology of swearing may be faulted for using

classification that are too broad and too few, McEnery’s swearing typology

features 15 different classifications to a great extent based on a detailed study of

the spoken component of the British National Corpus (BNC) (Ljung, 2011: 27).

The following list display the full range of McEnery’s (2006) classification

(exclude his category of ‘Unclassifiable’ swearing):

 32

1. Predicative negative adjective, as expressed in line ‘The film is shit.’

2. Adverbial booster, as expressed in phrase ‘fucking marvellous, fucking

awful’

3. Cursing expletive, as expressed in phrase ‘Fuck you/me/him/it.’

4. Destinational usage, as expressed in phrase ‘Fuck off! He fucked off.’

5. Emphatic adverb, as expressed in line ‘He fucking did it.’

6. Figurative extension of literal meaning, as expressed in phrase ‘to fuck

about,’

7. General expletive, as expressed in word ‘(Oh) Fuck!’

8. Idiomatic set phrase, as expressed in line ‘fuck all, give a fuck,’

9. Literal usage denoting taboo referent, as expressed in phrase ‘We fucked,’

10. Imagery based on literal meaning, as expressed in phrase ‘kick the shit

out of,’

11. Premodifying intensifying negative adjective, as expressed in phrase

‘the fucking idiot,’

12. Pronominal form with undefined referent as expressed in line ‘got shit

to do,’

13. Personal insult referring to identified entity, as expressed in phrase ‘You

fuck/That fuck’,

14. Reclaimed usage – no negative intent, as expressed by African American

rappers in using ‘n’ words such as Niggers/Niggaz,

15. Religious oath used for emphasis, as expressed in phrase ‘by God!’
 33

4. The Level of Offensivenes rate of Swearing

Offensiveness is the quality, character or fact of being offensive;

injuriousness, hurtfulness; unpleasantness, disgustingness (Ljung, 2011), and

while the explored notion restricts itself to the semantic properties of words, one’s

individual reaction to an incentive in a form of a crude phrase is a separate

phenomenon, Jay (1992) claims that it recognised as offendedness.

There are certain words that traditionally seen as more offensive than the

others; as stated by Fagersten (2007), terms which concentrate on one’s sexuality

and excretion are preceived as the most objectionable, as opposed to formerly

forceful religious speech. According to Leigh and Lepine, BBC in 2000 compiled

the list of the worst maledictions which includes words such as: cunt,

motherfucker, fuck, wanker, nigger, bastard, prick, bollocks, arsehole, paki, shag,

whore, twat, piss off, spastic (2005: 29). In addition, McEnery (2006: 30)

advanced an alternative catalogue that groups maledictions in accordance with

their offensiveness, and the categories are as follows: very mild (bloody, bird,

crap, damn, god, hell, hussy, idiot, pig, pillock, sod, son-of-a-bitch, tart), mild

(arse, bitch, balls, christ, bugger, cow, dickhead, git, jew, jesus, moron, pissed off,

shit, screw, slut, slag, sod, tit, tits, tosser), moderate (arsehole, bollocks, bastard,

gay, nigger, piss, paki, poofter, prick, shag, spastic, twat, wanker, whore), strong

(fuck) and very strong (cunt, motherfucker).

H. Movie Theory
 34

Movie is one of the most popular and affective medium of entertainment

which reflects the aspiration, the needs,the fears, and the desire of a society (Allen

and Gomery, 1993:154). Allen and Gomery asserted that as a social

representation, movie derives its image, sounds, stories, themes and

fundamentally from their own social environment (1993:158). Furthermore, they

add that movies are social representations, however indirectly and obliquely they

are. That is, they obtain stories, themes, images, and sounds basically from their

social environment.

As stated by Allen and Gomery, in accordance with the relation of society

and movie, a fictional movie also reflects social phenomena. They states that in

fictional movie, characters are given gesture, attitudes, motivations, sentiment,

and appearance that are, in part at least, based on general notions on how factory

workers, debutante, policeman, husband or mother is supposed to act (1993:153).

According to the definitions above, it is clear that movie is a reflection of

social life, regardless the kind of the movie itself, even the fictional one. A movie,

either fiction or non-fiction, represents the phenomena, values, norm of society. It

is still life – like depiction of places, people, and object. Movie is visible and

conveys everyday reality which reflects the aspects of ideology that occur within a

community in the society.

I. Film Synopsis
 35

The movie Sweet Sixteen is a family drama movie that portrays the daily

teenager life of a drop-out young boy named Liam that come from a troubled-

family background, have a troubled-life himself, and likes to swear a lot to

anyone. His mom is in prison, so he lives with his abusive mom’s boyfriend and

his granddad. But later he got a trouble with them and got kicked out from the

house so he moves in with his sister later on. He is a school dropout who sells

cheap cigarettes and later ended up become a drug dealer who deals with a lot of

people from different backgrounds. The characters in Sweet Sixteen movie uses a

lot of swearing words in their casual daily conversation, but the things such as the

context situations and the sociocultural background of the participants affects the

offensiveness rate of each swearing words differently in one person and another.

J. Previous Research

There are several previous researches with swearing as the topic of study.

The researcher takes two of them as references in undertaking this research.

1. An Analysis of Swearing Words in the Film Entitled Dangerous Mind

(Amalia Windardeni, 2010)

The writer of the this thesis focused on Swearing words which were

employed by the main character in a movie entitled Dangerous Mind. The

researcher chose this movie as the object of investigation because of its inspiring

plot story which told about the importance of a teacher to take care of the students

and encourage them that they can make a difference. The objectives of the
 36

research were to investigate the types of swearing words in Dangerous Mind

movie and to know the way and the reason of characters in employing swearing

words.

The result of the research concludes that there are six types of swearing

words employed by the characters in Dangerous Mind movie which consist of

Religion, Anatomy, Excretory, Stupidity, Animal and General. It is found that the

swearing words in the movie mostly expressed in high-toned voice. There are

several reasons of the characters employed swearing, such as to express anger, to

express annoyance, to create attention, to refer to something bad, to mock to deny,

to show or express pleasure, to insult, to express dislike and to show intimacy.

2. An Analysis on Swearing Words Used by The Main Characters In The

Film Entitled The Penthouse (Inda Rizky Mawati, 2012)

This thesis talked about types and function of swearing words uttered by the

main characters in The Penthouse movie using the theory from Hughes.

According to the researcher of this thesis, swearing word is commonly used to

express negative feeling such as anger or annoyance. Yet, in The Penthouse

movie, the researcher found that swearing word can also be used to express

positive feeling such as intimacy and pleasure.

Both of the previous study focus on swearing words. The researcher of this

thesis find it interesting to investigate swearing by using diffrent theory and

object. By doing so, the research can later present different result on the findings

and discussion section. Unlike the previous studies, this research provides more

detailed explanation on types and offensieness rate of swearing by analyzing the

 37

context situation and the sociocultural background of the characters in Sweet

Sixteen movie.
 38

CHAPTER III

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

A. Research Design

This is a qualitative research with a descriptive method that focuses the

study on swearing words. A qualitative research describes a phenomenon of a

certain context in the form of language by using various methods. This type of

research aims to understand the phenomena experienced by subjects (Moleong,

2007) such as behavior, motivation, perception, action, etc. According to Lincoln

and Guba (1985), qualitative research is a study conducted based on naturalist

paradigm that the reality is multiple, constructed, and holistic. The object

analyzed in a qualitative research is multiple because it tends to be heterogeneous

and still related to the context (Santosa, 2017). This type of research, as Hancock,

Ockleford, & Windridge (2009) stated, tries to show how people or groups of

people that are bounded in the same context of the reality have different ways of

looking at reality.

This study examines the types of swearing words employed by the

characters of a movie entitled Sweet Sixteen (2002), focusing on the influence of

socio-cultural background to the offensiveness rate of swearing words in the

movie.

This research also used descriptive method. According to Bodgan and

Taylor (in Moleong, 2007), the procedure of qualitative research brings about

descriptive data in form of written or spoken of words and behavior that can be
 39

observed. The study was done by observing the type of swearing words and the

socio-cultural background influence, classifying the findings, analyzing the data

and then interpreting. This study adopts the typology of swearing words as

suggested by Pinker’s (2007). To analyze the offensiveness level, this study refers

to McEnery (2006).

B. Data and Source of Data

Paton (1990) defined data as detailed description of situation, participants,

events, settings, and observed behaviors. The data of this research is the

conversations containing swearing words in the movie Sweet Sixteen, directed by

Ken Loach and released in 2002.

From a sociolinguistic perspective, swearing is seen as a type of linguistic

behaviour that society regards as disrespectful, vulgar, and even offensive

(Shakiba, 2014). Fagersten (in Mormol 2016:45) claims that swearing words is

the expression which has a potential to be deemed offensive, inappropiate,

objectionable, or unacceptable in any given social context: as a consequence, only

the recipient can decide whether a given lexeme is derogatory, based on his or her

sesnitivity. In line with Fagersten, McEnery (in Thelwall, 2008) asserted that the

emphasis is on the use of the language rather than the swearing word itself

because the offensive nature of a word is socially constructed and changes

overtime.

The use of swearing words in a conversation is a sociolinguistic

phenomenon worthy of investigation because of its social regulatory function. In

 40

regards to the statements mentioned before, it intrigues the researcher to know

how swearing varies as a function of communication context and how swearing

word’s degree of offensiveness is related to sociocultural background of the

participants by observing the pragmatic variables underlying swearing such as the

relationship of the participants, the context situation, and the particular swearing

word used.

C. Technique of Data Collection

Below are the steps I took when I collected the data for this research:

1. Downloading the movie entitled Sweet Sixteen and the English subtitle from

the internet on www.themoviedb.org and playing it for the first time.

2. Downloading the transcript of the Sweet Sixteen movie from the internet

onwww.script-o-rama.com and comparing it with the dialogues in the movie

to verify its accuracy.

3. Replaying the movie entitled Sweet Sixteen for several times to observe the

use of swearing words in the dialogues between the characters.

4. Re-watching the movie and checking the accuracy of the transcript. For ruther

analysis, the conversations which did not contain swearing were omitted.

5. Classifying and transferring the selected dialogues containing swearing words

into the data sheets.

6. Giving codes on each datum.

 41

D. Technique of Data Coding

In order to make the analysis easier, a code was given to each datum. The

coding was based on the order of datum and the exact time when swearing words

occurred in the movie. The following is the example of coding:

200/01:08:12

This code means that the datum is number 200 and it occurred in the scene

of hour 01, minute 08, second 12 of the movie.

E. Procedure of Data Analysis

The data for this research were analyzed by using content analysis method.

Content analysis is defined as a systematic research method for analyzing textual

information in a standardized way that makes it possible to the evaluators to make

inferences about the information (Weber, 1990: 9-12, and Krippendorff, 1980: 21-

27). Content analysis allows the researcher to classify the key ideas in the written

communication. In this study, the researcher uses socio-pragmatic approach to

analyze the collected data. The techniques used in conducting the data analysis

come into the following steps:

1. Classifying the data based on the typology of swearing words by Pinker

(2007).

2. Observing the swearing words expressed by the characters in the movie, as

well as analyzing the facial expression of the characters, and interpreting the

reason and function of employing it based on the swearing typology by

McEnery (2006) and the S-P-E-A-K-I-N-G formula by Dell Hymes.

 42

3. Analyzing the data by describing the influence of socio-cultural background

such as the social-physical context that includes the relationship between the

characters.

4. Analyzing the offensiveness rate based on McEnery (2006).

5. Drawing the final conclusion and giving further suggestion about the finding

in the range of swearing words.

 43

CHAPTER IV

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

In this chapter, the results of the research are presented in detail on the

findings and discussion section. The results answer the objectives of the research

that are to identify the types of swearing employed in the conversation by the

characters of Sweet Sixteen movie and to describe about how the context situation

and socio-cultural background affects the use, the meaning and the level of

swearing’ offensiveness rate in the movie. In this chapter, the types of swearing

words found in the movie are described. Further analysis of each problem such as

the use of the swearing words, the meaning and the level of offensiveness rate is

also presented in this findings and discussion section.

A. Findings

This section describes the findings of the research on swearing words

employed by the characters in Sweet Sixteen movie.

1. Descriptive Swearing

1.1. Descriptive-Predicative Negative Adjective

Data: shite (140/00:52:50)

Context:

The conversation happens between Liam and Pinball when they are

hanging out together in a bench park. They are in the middle of discussion

about the drug dealing business that they run together. Someone named
 44

Tony, which is a boss in drug dealing industry, is asking Liam to have a

partnership with him in dealing with drugs, but Pinball do not really trust

Tony because he feels that Tony and his friends treat him with disrespect.

Pinball suggests to Liam that they keep doing what they already doing in

getting the supply of their drugs, which is by stealing gear from Stan, but

Liam keep against Pinball idea and bad-talking about Stan’s gear by

calling it ‘shite’.

Liam : We're dealing now.

Pinball : What happens when it runs out?

Liam : Where do we get the gear from?

How do we know it's not shite?

Type: Descriptive Swearing → Predicative Negative Adjective

Data Interpretation:

Liam and Pinball have a different opinion in expanding their drug

dealing business. Liam wants to get a stock from Tony, a trusted drug

dealer, but Pinball wants to keep stealing drug from Stan’s hidden storage

since he does not like Tony personally. Liam disagrees with Pinball’s

suggestion by stating rhetorical question that makes Pinball rethinking

about his own idea.

Shite is another term for shit and is a vulgar slang from UK that is

commonly used as noun and exclamation. The word shite in this case
 45

belongs to descriptive swearing type and it is used as a predicative

negative adjective in its complete oral sentence. The word ‘shite’ here is

used to describe the quality of Stan’s drug which is questionable because it

is stored in a corral. It is also belong to predicative negative adjective

swearing subtype because the word shite in ‘How do we know it's not

shite?’ is a negative adjective that being functioned to express what is said

about the subject, which in this case, Stan’s drug.

The tone that Liam used in employing the word ‘shite’ is impatient

tone and in informal but serious manner. It is used to express disapproval

with showing impatience, since the speaker’s attitude, Liam, is pessimistic

about Pinball’s suggestion. According to the scale of offence of swearing

words provided by British National Corpus, the term shite or shit is

considered as mildly offensive. The use of shite is considered impolite

because according to the UK norms, the use of shite as disapproval is rude

and inappropriate.

Liam and Pinball are friends of the same age who already know

each other very well and are used to hanging out together, so their

relationship is intimate and their social status is equal to each other. While

Liam is employing the term shite in his defense against Pinball’s idea,

Pinball’s head titled to Liam’s side and making a facial expression which

shows that he is repressing his anger emotion. A titled head is a sign that

Pinball is listening keenly to what Liam said and he is trying to be patient

with Liam’s rude attitude towards him. In short, it is clear that Pinball does
 46

not take the word shite from Liam as mildly offensive but rather very

mild, even if they are best friends.

1.2. Descriptive-Adverbial Booster

Data: fucking gear (96/00:43:26)

Context:

The utterance is said by Liam while he has a fight outside his

neighborhood with some junkies who rob his gear when he is dealing

drugs. As a defense, Liam fights them back and asks them to give him

back his gear but they refuse to give up the gear and keep verbally and

physically attacking Liam. Pinball then comes to help Liam the junkies

later on at the junkies’ apartment entrance.

Pinball : Liam!

Fucking...

The Junkies : Hard man, eh? Fucking prick!

Liam : Gi' us my fucking gear!

The Junkies : Fuck off!

Type: Descriptive Swearing → Adverbial Booster

 47

Data Interpretation:

So, Liam offers some random junkies about gear that he sells but

after the transaction is done they do not want to pay for the drug and

directly attack Liam together instead. Liam gets beaten badly by the

junkies but he keeps asking them to give him back the gear aggressively

by adding the word ‘fucking’ before the word gear in ‘Gi' us my fucking

gear!’ and make the junkies get mad at him even more.

Fucking A in UK is a taboo slang that is usually used as an

emphatic exclamation of approval. As in this case, the word fucking gear

is categorized as descriptive swearing type. The word ‘fucking’ in fucking

gear here is used to describe the thing that the speaker wants to get back,

which in this case is a gear. At the same time, it is also classified as

adverbial booster in its whole utterance. It belongs to adverbial booster

swearing subtype because the term fucking in ‘Gi' us my fucking gear!’

gives additional emotional context to the word it modifies, which in this

case is to intensify the word ‘gear’ by making it as not plain gear but

‘fucking gear’.

Liam utters the term ‘fucking gear’ in furious tone with serious

and informal manner. It is used to express anger emotion and Liam attitude

is being optimistic about getting his stolen gear back from the robber

junkies. In their scale of offence of swearing words, British National

Corpus classifies the word fucking as strongly offensive. The use of

 48

fucking in an utterance to emphasize an angry statement is offensive

because in UK, it is commonly used as damnation in a rude way.

Liam and the junkies are strangers who do not know each other

personally, so their relationship is distant and their social status is equal to

each other because they are all working class people in Northern England.

When Liam drops the ‘fucking gear’ term to fight the junkies, they keep

physically beating Liam and telling him to fuck off which shows that they

are furious and provoked by Liam’s rude words against them. An addition

of ‘fucking’ before the word ‘gear’ does not necessarily make the term

‘fucking gear’ become more offensive than it should be in working class

people’s case. But, the way Liam employing it in state of anger to a bunch

of stranger and them being involved in a brawl makes it strongly offensive

to the hearer when Liam aggressively asks them to give his gear back.

1.3. Descriptive-Cursing Expletive

Data: fuck it! (48/00:19:28)

Context:

The dialogue occurs in a car rented by Pinball. Liam is playing

football with his little nephew Calum, when Pinball comes to them and

asking them to join him in driving around the town with his rented car.

Pinball is driving his rented car recklessly and Liam is worried that their

car may crash because they are carrying Calum, which is a toddler, in the

back seat with them. Pinball then says sorry and starts driving safely but
 49

Liam suddenly turns up the music tape that plays seriosa song and jokes

around by mimicking it. Pinball feels annoyed by what Liam’s doing and

starts cursing.

Pinball : What are you fucking turning it up for?

Fuck it!

Liam : Yeah!

You like this Calum wee boy?

Type: Descriptive Swearing → Cursing Expletive

Data Interpretation:

Pinball is trying to concentrate because he is the one who drives

the car, but Liam keeps messing around with him by turning in the music

tape that plays seriosa song. Pinball gets irritated because Liam keeps

teasing him by annoyingly mimicking the seriosa song to distract him.

Pinball then gets impatient and starts cursing by stating “Fuck it!”Fuck is

a strong word but Liam, however, does not feel offended at all by that

because he just laughs it off and keeps jokingly teasing Pinball.

Fuck it is an impolite and extremely offensive phrase used for

expressing annoyance or anger with something or someone. The phrase

‘Fuck it!’ in this context is classified as descriptive swearing type and is

functioned as cursing expletive at the same time. The word ‘fuck’ in

phrase ‘Fuck it!’ here is used to describe the thing that Pinball wants Liam
 50

to do about the ‘it’ that Liam doing (the teasing thing). The word fuck here

means not to do something anymore because Pinball is so fed up with

Liam’s joke. It is also categorized as cursing expletive subtype, since the

phrase ‘Fuck it!’ is a cursing phrase that being functioned to express

strong emotion when they are annoyed, angry or in pain.

Pinball employs the phrase ‘fuck it!’ in annoyed tone, and in

informal but mocking manner. Pinball uses it to express annoyance with

showing irritation because Liam keep distracts him with his silly joke.

Based on BNC’s scale of offence of swearing words, the phrase fuck it as

an expression used when annoyed or angry is considered as strongly

offensive and impolite.

Pinball and Liam’s relationship is intimate and their social status is

equal to each other, since they are best friends, have the same age, and

really know each other. When Pinball utters the phrase ‘fuck it’to Liam as

a way to stop Liam being an annoying person, Liam does not mind about

it, keeps laughing louder and continues teasing Pinball. According to

Liam’s reaction to Pinball’s swearing directed to him, it can be concluded

that Liam does not take Pinball’s expletive cursing as offensive at all.
 51

1.4. Descriptive-General Expletive

Data: Super fuck (06b/00:03:31)

Context:

The conversation happens when a police in the town are messing

up with Liam’s customer by stopping them in the street and interrogating

them after they buy fag from Liam. Liam decides to take revenge to the

police by destroying his motorcycle because the police park his

motorcycle carelessly. Liam does not destroy the police’s motorcycle by

himself, but he makes a truck driver become a black sheep by pretending

to help the truck driver getting out of the narrow street, which is ended up

hitting the police’s motorcycle which being parked behind the truck until it

gets broken.

Police : Oh, fucking brilliant. Super fuck.

Dont you use your fucking mirror?

Truck driver : How am I suppose to see that?

Police : Fucking hell. Look at the state of it!

Type: Descriptive Swearing → General Expletive

Data Interpretation:

The policeman thinks that the truck driver is the one who

intentionally broke his motorcycle before Liam steals his helmet from his

broken motorcycle. He feels very mad about it and blames it to the truck
 52

driver, so he furiously yells ‘super fuck’ at him to express his intense

anger. They keep arguing and blame each other about the incident and then

decide to catch Liam and his friends who try to run away from them with

the police’s helmet.

Super fuck is a vulgar slang, and is a British swearword that used

to express a strong emotion such as annoyance, contempt, impatience and

etc. The phrase super fuck in this utterance is a descriptive swearing type,

and its status in the conversation is a general expletive. ‘Super fuck’ here

belongs to descriptive type because it is used to giving information about

how the speaker feels. It is labeled as general expletive swearing subtype

because the word fuck belongs to the major parts of swearing in general,

and the word ‘super’ which is inserted before the word fuck is used to give

emphasis and to indicate tense.

The tone that the police uses in yelling the phrase ‘super fuck’ is

furious tone and in a formal with serious manner, because the police and

the truck driver, both of them are in the middle of doing their work. The

policeman utters it as a way to express an intense anger with showing

hopeless attitude because his motorcycle that being hit by the truck is

badly broken. According to British National Corpus, the scale of offence

of the word fuck is strong. It is a rude and offensive word to employ.

The relationship of the speaker and the hearer in this context is

total stranger. The police and the truck driver is similar in their age but

their social status is not equal to each other because the police holds a
 53

higher social status in the society compared to the truck driver. This makes

the police status is superior to the truck driver and the truck driver is

subordinate to him. When the police yells the rude phrase ‘super fuck’ out

of anger to the truck driver as a way to confront him, the truck driver’s

gesture shows that he is confused and clueless about what he should do in

dealing with the incident. Even if he keeps arguing with the police to

justify his action, the truck driver also makes a facial expression which

shows that he is trying to control his anger and being reserved in facing the

police’s confrontation, since his status is subordinate compared to the

police. Based on the way of the truck driver is dealing with the

confrontation, it is concluded that the truck driver feels that the phrase

super fuck employed by the police that being directed towards him is

strongly offensive, but he just let it pass and does not fight the police back

because he has lower social status than him.

1.5. Descriptive-Imagery Based on Literal Meaning

Data: Stick it up your arse (176/00:56:16)

Context:

The conversation occurs between Night-Time and his pizza’s

customer. Night-Time is Liam’s friend, and he is a pizza delivery boy.

Liam needs a motorcycle to deliver his gear to the customer, but he does

not have any money yet to buy one. So, he is trying to take an advantage

from Night-Time’s situation by asking free ride to Night-Time when he

 54

delivers pizza. Giving Liam a free ride is such a waste of time because it is

interfered with Night-Time’s work in delivering pizza punctually.

Night-Time : Sorry, mate.

Hope it's the right fucking pizza.

Customer : It's fucking freezing and all. You know what

you can do with it? Stick it up your arse.

Type: Descriptive Swearing → Imagery Based on Literal

Meaning

Data Interpretation:

Because of helping Liam with his gear delivery, Night-Time is very

late on delivering his pizza to the customer. Night-Time is already saying

sorry and making up his excuse, but the customer does not care and does

not want to hear about it. The pizza that the customer order comes one

hour late and already freezing, that’s why the customer gets really mad

about it to Night-Time and tells him angrily to stick the pizza up his arse.

Stick it up your arse is a vulgar swearing expression that primarily

heard in United Kingdom which is used to express anger, disdain, and

contempt about something to someone. The utterance ‘stick it up your

arse’ in this conversation belongs to descriptive swearing type. Besides

that, it is also categorized into imagery based on literal meaning as its

swearing subtype. The expression ‘stick it up your arse’ in this context

 55

situation is used by the customer to describe his feeling to Night-Time that

he is no longer needs or wants the pizza that being offered to him. ‘Stick it

up your arse’ is also belongs to ‘imagery based on literal meaning’

subtype of swearing because this swearing expression uses figurative

language to represent action in such a way that creates visual

representation of the action in the hearer’s mind.

The tone of the customer when utters the swearing expression

‘stick it up your arse’ is angry tone and in formal with serious manner,

since they are in the middle of business transaction. It is used to express

angry emotion with showing irritation, since the customer’s attitude as a

speaker is impatient with Night-Time’s pizza delivery service. According

to the scale of offence of swearing words provided by British National

Corpus, the term arse in ‘stick it up your arse’ is considered as mildly

offensive.

Night-Time and the customer has a wide age gap because Night-

Time is a teenager and the customer is a fully grown adult. They do not

know each other in personal and it makes their relationship status is distant

and low in solidarity. Their social status is not equal to each other, since

the customer is superior to Night-Time, and Night-Time himself being a

pizza delivery boy is subordinate to the customer. While the customer

employs the rude swearing expression ‘stick it up your arse’ out of rage,

Night-Time’s gesture shows that he is spaced-out and does not know how

to fix the pizza problem. In short, it shows that Night-Time does not take
 56

the utterance ‘stick it up your arse’ from the customer as mildly offensive,

but rather casual because he is aware with the mistake that he makes.

1.6. Descriptive-Premodifying Intensifying Negative Adjective

Data: your fucking arse(24/00:10:13)

Context:

The conversation happens between Liam and Stan when they are

visiting Liam’s mom, Jean in jail. Stan is Jean’s boyfriend, but according

to Pinball there is a high chance that he is Liam’s dad because they

resemble each other a lot. In the car on their way in going to jail together

with Liam’s grandfather before, Stan forces Liam to hide a tiny wrapped

drug in his gum. Later in the jail visitation time, Liam has to pretend to

kiss his Ma and gives the drug with his mouth. Stan is planning on

distributing his drug in jail through Liam’s mom, but Liam seems like he

does not want to cooperate with him.

Liam : See ya later, Ma.

Jean : Liam, please don’t.

Stan : Listen, if you don’t kiss your mother goodbye,

you little cunt, I’m going to beat your fucking arse

all the way home.

Stan : Kiss your fucking mother, you little cunt!

 57

Jean : Stan, calm down.

Type: Descriptive Swearing → Premodifying Intensifying

Negative Adjective

Data Interpretation:

When Stan is taking drink for Jean and leaves both of them alone,

Liam and his mom has a conversation about how Jean should stop doing

what Stan asked her to do, since the reason she is in prison is because she

gets caught while dealing Stan’s drug and Liam does not want it to happen

to her again for the second time. At the end of their visitation, Liam is

supposed to give Stan’s gear in his gum to his mom by pretending to kiss

her. But, instead of doing the things that Stan and Liam’s grandpa already

planned in the car before, Liam refuses to do things as they planned and

just rudely leaving from the jail room visitation instead. Stan gets very

annoyed and angry about Liam’s rude behavior and threatens to beat him

up if he keeps not being cooperative with him, but Liam seems like he

does not care about that.

The phrase ‘your fucking arse’ is a vulgar slang and in UK, it is

generally used for emphasis or to express anger or annoyance. The phrase

‘your fucking arse’ in this case belongs to descriptive swearing type, and

it is used as premodifying intensifying negative adjective in its complete

utterance. It belongs to descriptive swearing because it is used to describe

the thing or the person that Stan’s wants to beat up. ‘Your fucking arse’ is
 58

also belongs to ‘premodifying intensifying negative adjective’ swearing

subtype because the word fucking in ‘your fucking arse’ is used to

premodify and intensify the meaning of the word ‘arse’ which is a

negative adjective.

The tone used by Stan in employs the utterance “Listen, if you

don’t kiss your mother goodbye, you little cunt, I’m going to beat your

fucking arse all the way home,” is angry tone and in formal with serious

manner because the conversation takes place in a prison. The phrase ‘your

fucking arse’ is used to express anger with showing annoyance, since the

speaker’s attitude, Stan, is wrathful about Liam’s rebellion. Based on the

scale of offence of swearing words provided by BNC, the term fucking as

in the phrase ‘your fucking arse’ is considered as strongly offensive.

Stan and Liam are practically a family because Stan is Liam’s mom

boyfriend for a long time and he is possibly Liam’s biological dad, since

Liam does not have a dad. Even if they already know each other very well,

their relationship is distant and low in solidarity because Liam hates Stan

very much and they often fight with each other over unnecessary things.

And since Stan is Liam’s mom boyfriend, his social status is superior and

Liam is subordinate to him. At the time Stan employs the utterance ‘I’m

going to beat your fucking arse all the way home,’ because he is very

annoyed and angry with Liam’s rude attitude, Liam’s head titled to Stan’s

side and making a facial expression which shows that he is already so fed

up with Stan in general. He then just casually leaves his family by walking
 59

out of the visitation room with reserved attitude. In short, it is clear that

Liam does not take Stan’s vulgar language as offensive at all.

1.7. Descriptive-Pronominal Form with Undefined Referent

Data: no cunt (50/00:21:27)

Context:

Pinball and Liam is driving around the town, when they find and

empty caravan near a lake with beautiful scenery. Liam is very impressed

by the caravan because it looks cozy and comfortable. Liam wants to buy

it for his mother because she is going to out of the prison very soon. He

wants to start a peaceably new life there with his Mom, his sister, his

nephew, and his friends. Liam and Pinball are imagining about the fun

things that they want to do together if they can buy and own the caravan.

Liam : Aye, man. This is the stuff.

Imagine here at night with a clear sky.

Pinball : Wee fishing rod, couple of cans, couple of hens.

Liam : Suzanne to keep you company!

Pinball : No cunt telling you what to do.

Type: Descriptive Swearing → Pronominal Form with

Undefined Referent

Data Interpretation:
 60

Liam is teasing Pinball about having Suzanne to keep him

company when they own the caravan later because he notices that Pinball

have a crush on her. Pinball, however, is embarrassed about it and being

denial to Liam about his feeling for Suzanne. Pinball does not know how

to deals with his embarrassment about being caught in liking Suzanne.

That is why he tried to make Liam shut up about it by saying “No cunt

telling you what to do,” which means that he will not let other people

dictates his life.

‘Cunt’ is a very offensive vulgar slang that commonly used to

express contempt to someone, or a term refers to any unpleasant or

contemptible person. Cunt is still considered as not acceptable by most

people outside very limited social context. In Northern England, it is not

only limited to as a mean of derogatory, but also can be used as a term of

endearment or a mild rebuke among friends. The phrase ‘no cunt’ in this

context is classified as descriptive swearing type and specified as

pronominal form with undefined referent. It is descriptive swearing

because the phrase ‘no cunt’ here is used to describe the person that

Pinball will not let him to dictates his life, including Liam. ‘No cunt’ is

specified as ‘pronominal form with undefined referent’ because the word

cunt in ‘no cunt’ is functioned as a pronoun and is referred to no

particular person.

The tone that Pinball’s uses in employs the phrase ‘no cunt’ in the

utterance “No cunt telling you what to do,” is standard tone and in
 61

informal with casual manner. The phrase ‘no cunt’ is used to describe a

person other than Pinball himself and could refer to Liam or someone else

close with Pinball, but he means no harm on employing it. Yet, the term is

supposedly a very offensive slang because British National Corpus

classifies the offensiveness level of term cunt as ‘very strong’ in their scale

of offence of swearing words.

Liam and Pinball are best friends since a long time, and already

know each other and get along very well, so their relationship is intimate

and high in solidarity. Their social status is equal to each other, since they

are in the same age and both come from working class background in

Scotland. When Pinball utters “No cunt telling you what to do,” to make

Liam shut up about teasing his feeling for Suzanne, Liam is just casually

moves on to another topic and keeps talking. In short, it can be concluded

that Liam does not take Pinball’s C-word as offensive since they both are

Scottish who close to each other, and Pinball used it as a mild rebuke

among friends.

1.8. Descriptive-Personal Insult Referring to Identified Entity

Data: that bastard (19/00:08:53)

 62

Context:

Stan and Liam’s grandfather is trying to use Jean, Liam’s mother,

as a drug mule in the prison. They try to distribute the drug to Jean through

Liam by forcing him to kiss his mother and delivers the drug using his

mouth. When Stan and Liam’s grandpa is away for making coffee for Jean,

Liam and his mother has a private talk by their own. At first, Liam thinks

that his mom is the one who uses the drug but then Jean explains to Liam

that she has been clean for years and she distributes Stan’s drug for the

other girls in the prison. Liam is so done with Stan’s problematic behavior

and convinces his mom to resist the demands of his boyfriend.

Liam : This isn't going on anymore. It's finished.

Jean : What are you gonna do?

Liam : You took the rap once for that bastard.

Jean : He's gonna be pissed off when I don't do this.

Type: Descriptive Swearing → Personal Insult Referring to

Identified Entity

Data Interpretation:

Because of Stan, Jean is in charge of dealing illegal drugs and

pronounced to be jailed for six month. Her time in jail is nearly over and

she is going to be released from prison very soon, but Stan’s dirty plan

makes Liam anxious about her getting caught again by the police officer
 63

for distributing Stan’s drug to the girls in prison. He is very mad about his

mom’s situation and persuades her to stop doing things that Stan asks her

to do. Yet, Jean does not convinced by Liam’s word and still taking on

Stan’s side as always. It makes Liam go mad and refer to Stan, who is

practically his dad, as ‘that bastard’.

‘Bastard’ is a rude and offensive word that used as a generalized

term of abuse to refer a person as unpleasant or despicable. It is an

insulting word that some people use about a particular person who has

behaved very badly. The phrase ‘that bastard’ in this conversation belongs

to descriptive swearing type. To make it specific, it is also classified as

personal insult referring to identified entity. It belongs to descriptive

swearing because Liam use the word ‘bastard’ here is to describe Stan as a

person, which is problematic and despicable. ‘That bastard’ is specified as

‘personal insult referring to identified entity’ because Liam used it as a

mean of personal insult referring to identified individual, which is in this

case refers to Stan.

Liam uses impatient tone in informal with impolite manner when

employs the phrase ‘that bastard’ in the utterance “You took the rap once

for that bastard.” The phrase ‘that bastard’ is used by Liam as a

derogatory to describe Stan as a horrible person. The use of the term

bastard, according to the scale of offence of swearing words by British

National Corpus, is supposed to be moderately offensive.

 64

Stan’s is Jean’s boyfriend and his status is arguably Liam’s dad.

Even if they already know each other for a long time, Liam and Stan

consider each other as enemy, so their relationship is distant and low in

solidarity. Although they both come from working class background in

Scotland, their social status is not equal to each other since Stan is older

than Liam, is dating his mom, and fill the dad’s position in Liam’s family.

When Liam employs “You took the rap once for that bastard”, to make his

mom realizes that Stan only make use of her for his own profit, Jean seems

to be dumbfounded by Liam’s word but she does not say anything about

that. In short, it can be concluded that Jean takes Liam’s insult word for

Stan as mildly offensive, since Stan is practically Liam’s dad, and it is

really inappropriate thing to do to refer his dad as a bastard.

1.9. Descriptive-Reclaimed Usage

Data: no cunt else (80/00:32:15)

Context:

The conversation happens in Pinball’s flat when Liam and Pinball

are wrapping the drugs that they steal from Stan’s corral into tiny form.

Liam is no longer life in his house because his granddad banishes him

from coming back home. He is now stays with his sister Chantelle, but she

only knows that Liam is selling cheap cigarette and does not know that his

little brother is getting involved in selling illegal drugs. That is why he

chooses to store the drugs in Pinball’s flat.

 65

Liam : Sure it's safe in here?

Pinball : Aye. It's only me and my big brother.

No cunt else comes in here.

Anyhow, he's not into this.

Type: Descriptive Swearing → Reclaimed Usage

Data Interpretation:

Liam wants to make sure that Pinball’s flat is a safe place to store

their stolen drugs. Pinball convinces Liam that his place is safe for storing

the drugs because there are only him and his big brother who lives there,

but his brother is not into drug stuff. Pinball states that there is ‘no cunt

else’ outside him and his big brother who constantly come and stays in the

flat.

‘Cunt’ is an offensive insulting word that some people use about a

particular person to refer them as unpleasant or despicable. In the US,

cunt is commonly used as a derogatory term for woman, but In Northern

England such as in the place where Liam live, Scotland, it can be used to

refer to either man or woman and is not only limited to as a mean of

derogatory. In working class level people from Northern England, some

considered it as casual word and is acceptable by some people inside very

limited social context. Some of them used ‘cunt’ as a term of endearment

or a mild rebuke among friends. The phrase ‘no cunt else’ in this context
 66

is classified as descriptive swearing type and specified as reclaimed usage

subtype. It belongs to descriptive swearing because the phrase ‘no cunt

else’ in this context is used by Pinball to describe the person’s outside

Pinball and his brother who stays in their flat. The word cunt in ‘no cunt

else’ is specified as ‘reclaimed usage’ because there is no negative intent

on it and the use of cunt as ‘reclaimed usage’ is common especially among

male speakers in Northern England with specified social context.

Pinball’s tone when employs the phrase ‘no cunt else’ in the

utterance “No cunt else comes in here,” is normal tone and in informal

with casual manner. The offensiveness rate of term cunt, according to the

scale of offence of swearing words by British National Corpus, is

supposed to be very strong. However, the phrase ‘no cunt else’ which is

used by Pinball to refer anyone excludes him and his brother who comes

to their flat is not a mean of derogatory, but just a casual word used among

friends to refer to a dude or a person based on the norm of working classes

of people from Scotland. In short, it can be concluded that the term cunt in

this context situation is considered as casual and with no mean to offence

at all.

2. Idiomatic Swearing

2.1. Idiomatic-Adverbial Booster

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Data: get your fucking arse (121/00:47:56)

Context:

The utterance is employs by one of Tony’s sidekick to Liam and

Pinball when they are inside a bar. Tony is a boss in drug dealing industry,

and he feels that Liam, together with Pinball, is messing up with his

business. He wants to warn Liam and Pinball to not to messing up with his

business any longer. So, he asks his sidekicks to bring them forcefully to

his bar to have a serious talk. When Tony’s sidekicks are successfully

brought both of them to the bar, Tony is still in the middle of meeting with

his client. They do not really like Liam and Pinball, that is why they get

irritated with their presence in the bar and rudely ask them to behave them

self.

Tony’s sidekicks : Get your fucking arse in there!

You two be on your best fucking behaviour.

We don't even want you to be here.

Type : Idiomatic Swearing → Adverbial Booster

Data Interpretation:
 68

Tony’s sidekicks are not happy about Liam and Pinball’s presence

in Tony’s club, even if they are the one who drag both of them to the place

because Tony orders them to do so. Liam and Pinball are looking around

inside the club and checking out on the hot girls there and it makes Tony’s

sidekicks getting irritated to them. Tony’s sidekicks get angry with their

behavior and scolding both of them for flirting with the hot girls.

Get (one’s) arse (somewhere) is a rude slang, especially British

English, which is usually used as a way of telling somebody to go some

place, and often implying that there will be consequences if one does not.

As in this context situation, the word ‘get your fucking arse’ is

categorized as idiomatic swearing type. The phrase ‘get your arse’ in the

idiom ‘get your fucking arse’ here is an idiomatic swearing employed by

one of Tony’s sidekick as away to tell Liam and Pinball to stay in their

place, rudely, and with great haste. At the same time, it is also classified as

adverbial booster in its whole utterance. It is classified as adverbial booster

swearing subtype because the word fucking in ‘get your fucking arse’ in

this context situation is used to intensify the idiom ‘get your arse’.

The tone of Tony’s sidekick when employs the idiom ‘get your

fucking arse’ is annoyed tone with serious and informal manner. It is used

to express annoyance and the Tony’s sidekick attitude is being irritated

about Liam and Pinball’s presence in the club. In the swearing words’

scale of offence provided by British National Corpus, the word fucking is

considered as strongly offensive, meanwhile the word arse or ass is

 69

considered as mildly offensive. The use of fucking in an utterance to

emphasize an angry statement is generally offensive because in Britain, it

is commonly used as damnation in a hasty manner.

Tony’s sidekicks with Liam and Pinball are total strangers who do

not know each other before, so their relationship status is distant and low

in solidarity. Their social status, however, is not equal to each other

because Tony’s sidekicks are all adult who holds a job and already have

place in the society, meanwhile Liam and Pinball are still teenager and a

school dropout. Tony sidekicks’ status is superior, and Liam with Pinball’s

status is the subordinate one. When one of Tony’s sidekicks drops the

idiom ‘get your fucking arse’ in telling Liam and Pinball to stop checking

out on the girls in the club and behave themselves, they keep verbally

harm them with rude insult words. In dealing with Tony’s sidekicks’

confrontation, Liam and Pinball’s gestures along with their facial

expression shows that they already get impatient, but they try to remain

calm and not getting provoked by them because they know they cannot

win against them. In short, it can be concluded that Liam and Pinball take

the Tony’s sidekick swear words as strongly offensive, but they can do

nothing about it since Tony’s sidekicks are superior, and they are stronger

in so many ways compared to both of them..

2.2. Idiomatic-Cursing Expletive

Data: fuck’s sake! (62/00:25:32)

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Context:

The dialogue occurs between Liam and Pinball in Pinball’s flat.

They are stalking on Stan’s activity in front of his house from Pinball’s

window flat using binoculars. Liam is prank-calling Stan to insults and

says unnecessary things about him to offend him and makes him mad.

Liam then realizes that Stan is in the middle of drug transaction because he

is passing some money to Scullion, a drug dealer. Liam knows about the

place that Stan usually used to stash his drugs, and he gets an idea of

stealing Stan’s drug to buy the caravan he wants.

Liam : He's passing Scullion some dough.

That means they're gonna get a delivery.

Fuck's sake!

Fucking dancer, wee man! This is our score.

I know where they stash the drugs.

We could get it nae bother.

Pinball : What are you talking about?

Liam : The gear. I know where it is.

Pinball : You wanna break into Stan's house?

Liam : Aye. Get the gear.

Pinball : You're nuts. Don't be stupid!

 71

Type: Idiomatic Swearing → Cursing Expletive

Data Interpretation:

Stan is going to get a delivery of illegal drugs. Liam is excited

about it because he is planning on stealing Stan’s gear to gets money for

buying the caravan. He is telling Pinball about his plan on breaking Stan’s

house and steals his gear. Pinball does not understand him and at first, he

thinks that Liam is just joking. Liam then explains the things until Pinball

understands his plan, but Pinball does not seem as excited as him because

it is too risky.

Fuck’s sake is an Irish idiomatic expression derived from ‘for god

sake’ or ‘for the sake of god’ which is commonly used for expressing

anger, contempt, or frustration. The idiom ‘Fuck’s sake!’ in this context

belongs to idiomatic swearing type and is functioned as cursing expletive

at the same time. It is also classified into the subtype of cursing expletive

because the vulgar slang of ‘fuck’s sake’ in the conversation above is in

the form of cursing that being functioned as an exclamation of strong

feeling. According to the scale of offence of swearing words by British

National Corpus, the word fuck as an expression used when annoyed or

angry is considered as strongly offensive and impolite.

Liam utters the idiomatic swearing expression of ‘Fuck’s sake!’ in

excited tone and in informal with delightful manner. Liam uses it to

express excitement with showing excitability because in the middle of

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stalking Stan, he gets an idea that will allow him to gets a lot of money for

buying the caravan.

Pinball and Liam’s social status is equal to each other and in

intimate relationship, since they are best friends of the same age, and

already know each other personally. When Liam employs the idiomatic

swearing expression of ‘Fuck’s sake!’ to Pinball as a way to shows his

excitement on his plan of stealing gear from Stan, Pinball seems confused

and does not know what is in Liam’s mind. In short, it can be concluded

that the idiomatic swearing expression of ‘Fuck’s sake!’ in this context

situation is just an expression of excitement and is not being employed as

a mean to offence someone.

2.3. Idiomatic-Destinational Usage

Data: Fuck off out of my sight! (177/00:56:18)

Context:

The conversation happens between Night-Time, Liam’s friend, and

his pizza’s customer in front of the customer’s house. In running the drug

dealing business, Liam is asking free ride from Night-Time when he is in

the middle of his job of delivering pizza. Giving Liam a free ride is a

mistake because it ruins Night-Time’s own job. It makes him being very

late on delivering the pizza order until the state of the pizza is already cold

and freezing. His pizza’s customer, of course, complains a lot and going

mad about it to him.

 73

Night-Time : Sorry, mate.

Hope it's the right fucking pizza.

Customer : It's fucking freezing and all. You know what

you can do with it? Stick it up your arse.

Fuck off out of my sight!

Type : Idiomatic Swearing → Destinational Usage

Data Interpretation:

Night-Time is very late on delivering his pizza to the customer

because he is helping Liam with his drug dealing business. The pizza that

the customer orders comes one hour late and already freezing. The

customer gets really mad to Night-Time and tells him angrily to stick the

pizza up his arse. Even though, Night-Time is sorry about his mistake and

already making up his own excuse, the customer seems like he does not

care and keep complaining in an aggressive way. He is even tell Night-

Time to go away without paying for the pizza that he ordered.

‘Fuck off out of my sight!’is a vulgar idiomatic swearing

expression used to tell someone to get away immediately or to leave the

said person’s alone. This idiomatic swearing expression is often used as an

imperative which implies that the very sight of someone will make one

angry. The utterance ‘fuck off out of my sight’ in this context situation
 74

belongs to idiomatic swearing type. Along with that, it is also categorized

into destinationl usage as its swearing subtype. The idiomatic swearing

expression ‘fuck off out of my sight’ in the conversation above is used by

the customer to express a command in a forceful and impolite way. ‘Fuck

off out of my sight’ is also belongs to destinational usage swearing

subtype because this idiomatic swearing expression has a specific

destination on to whom something is referred, as in the case the object that

being targeted with the employed swearing.

The customer’s tone in employing the idiomatic swearing

expression ‘fuck off out of my sight’ is furious tone and in formal with

serious manner because they are in the middle of doing business

transaction as a provider and customer. It is used to express angriness with

showing irritation, and the customer’s attitude as a speaker is impatient

with Night-Time’s awful service. Based on the scale of offence of

swearing words by BNC, the term fuck in ‘fuck off out of my sight’ is

considered as strongly offensive.

Night-Time and the customer are strangers who do not know each

other personally, and it makes their relationship status is distant and low in

solidarity. They have a wide age gap, since the customer is a fully grown

adult and Night-Time is a teenager working on his part-time job. The

customer status is superior to Night-Time, and Night-Time being a pizza

delivery boy is subordinate to the customer, and it makes their social status

is not equal to each other. When the customer utters the rude idiomatic
 75

swearing expression ‘fuck off out of my sight’ angrily and in rude way

while refusing to pay for the pizza, Night-Time’s is face-palmed and does

not know what to do to fix the situation. His non-verbal gestures shows

that Night-Time takes the cursing expression of ‘fuck off out of my sight’

from the customer as strongly offensive because he is being rude and

refuses to pay his order. Night-Time, however, can do nothing to defend

him since he is in no position to be able to fights back the customer, since

the customer has the higher status and power over him.

2.4. Idiomatic-Figurative Extension of Literal Meaning

Data: fucking about (147/00:53:04)

Context:

Liam and Pinball are in the middle of heat discussion about the

drug dealing business that they run together. They have clash opinion

about Tony, a drug supplier. Pinball has a personal problem with Tony and

he thinks that Tony is a bad person which cannot be trusted. Liam, on the

other hand, he is taking on Tony’s side because he is trying to look on the

bright side and only thinking about the benefit of working with Tony as a

trusted supplier. Pinball does not like the idea of working with a

problematic man like Tony, but Liam keeps convincing Pinball to execute

his plan by doing partnership with Tony because it will take them place.

Liam : All we need is a couple of months,

no fucking about, we're rolling in it.

 76

Pinball : What happens to me and you?

Liam : We'll do it together.

We're a fucking partnership.

Pinball : I don't trust him.

Type: Idiomatic Swearing → Figurative Extension of Literal

Meaning

Data Interpretation:

Liam is explaining to Pinball about what they should do to make a

lot of profits from their drugs by doing partnership with a trusted supplier

like Tony. Pinball however still not sure about has to work with someone

that he does not like. That is why he asks Liam about what will happens

between them if Liam will end up having a partnership with Tony. Liam

wants to do the partnership with Tony together with Pinball and asks him

to do the business just for couple months with no joking around to makes

some money for buying caravan.

Fuck about is a vulgar swearing expression that basically means to

act in a stupid or aimless manner. The utterance ‘no fucking about’ in this

context situation belongs to idiomatic swearing type. Besides that, it is

also categorized into ‘figurative extension of literal meaning’ as its

swearing subtype. The idiomatic swearing expression of ‘no fucking

about’ in this context situation is used by Liam to express his opinion on

 77

what is the right thing to do to make the drug dealing business with Tony

runs well. ‘No fucking about’ is also belong to ‘figurative extension of

literal meaning’ subtype because this swearing expression gains further

senses figuratively in expressing the act of ‘messing around’, specifically

through vulgar metaphor.

Pinball and Liam are in the middle of important business

discussion. Liam’s tone when he utters the idiomatic swearing expression

of ‘no fucking about’ is in enthusiastic tone and in informal manner. It is

used to express enthusiasm with showing hopefulness, since Liam’s

attitude as a speaker is optimistic with his business plan. According to the

scale of offence of swearing words provided by British National Corpus,

the term fucking in ‘no fucking about’ is considered as strongly offensive.

Liam and Pinball know each other and are best friends with each

other, so their relationship status is intimate and high in solidarity. Their

social status is equal to each other since both of them are teenager from

working class level in Scotland. Liam employs the idiomatic swearing

expression ‘no fucking about’ enthusiastically. Pinball’s gesture shows

that he is pessimistic and indifferent about Liam’s plan. In short, it is clear

that Liam uses the idiomatic swearing expression to place emphasis on his

words and not as a mean to offense Pinball.

2.5. Idiomatic-Idiomatic Set Phrase

Data: Fucking get your arse in line! (128/00:48:44)

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Context:

Liam and Pinball are checking out on the club’s girls when Tony’s

sidekicks are waiting Tony finishing his meeting with the client. They are

hanging out inside Tony’s bar because Tony asks his sidekicks to bring

them forcefully to his bar to have a serious talk about gear business.

Tony’s sidekicks do not like Liam and Pinball and get irritated with their

presence because they keep whispering to each other when checking out

the girls on the bar. That is why they are telling them to behave themselves

rudely and in disrespectful way.

Tony’s sidekicks : Just fucking shut your mouth, son.

Stop fucking ogling them by the pool.

Fucking get your arse in line!

Type: Idiomatic Swearing → Idiomatic Set Phrase

Data Interpretation:

Although Tony’s sidekicks are the people who drag Pinball

and Liam to the bar because Tony order them to do so, they are not happy

about Liam and Pinball’s presence in there. Tony’s sidekicks are getting

irritated to them because Liam and Pinball keep checking out on the hot

girls there. Their impolite attitude makes Tony’s sidekicks get angry with

their behavior and scolding both of them by disrespectfully telling them to

get their ass in the line.

 79

Get (one’s) arse on the line is a rude British English slang, which

is mean to personally assume or expose oneself to some risk or

responsibility. It is also mean to imperil oneself in harmful way. As in this

context situation, the utterance ‘fucking get your arse in line’ is classified

as idiomatic swearing type. At the same time, it is also belongs to

idiomatic set phrase in its whole utterance. The phrase ‘get your arse in

line’ in the utterance is an idiomatic swearing employed by one of Tony’s

sidekick as away to tell Liam and Pinball not to behave impolitely in the

club. It is belong to idiomatic set phrase swearing subtype because it

consists of more than one swearing words in one sentence, and they are

‘fucking’ and ‘get your arse in line’.

Tony’s sidekick’s tone in employs the idiom ‘fuckingget your arse

in the line!’ is impatient tone with annoyed and informal manner. Tony’s

sidekicks’ attitude are being irritated about Liam and Pinball’s presence in

the club, so the idiomatic swearing expression in the conversation above is

used to express annoyance. According to the swearing words’ scale of

offence by BNC, the word arse or ass is considered as mildly offensive,

while the word fuck or fucking is considered as strongly offensive. The

use of fucking in an utterance to emphasize a statement is offensive and

impolite because it is commonly used as damnation.

The relationship status of Tony’s sidekicks with Liam and Pinball

is distant and low in solidarity because they are total strangers who do not

know each other before. And about their social status, it is clear that they
 80

are not equal to each other, since Liam and Pinball are just teenager from

working class level and Tony’s sidekicks are all adult who holds stable job

and status in the society. It makes Tony sidekicks’ status is superior;

meanwhile Liam with Pinball’s is subordinate. One of Tony’s sidekicks

drops the idiomatic set phrase ‘fucking get your arse in the line’, they are

asking for cooperation to Liam and Pinball to not act as they like. Liam

and Pinball’s nonverbal gestures, however, shows that they are offended

by their rude words, but they try not to act upon their feeling because they

are powerless regarding status and power compared to them. In short, it is

clear that both Liam and Pinball take the Tony’s sidekicks disrespectful

command as strongly offensive and rude.

2.6. Idiomatic-Imagery Based on Literal Meaning

Data: Don't talk shite. (119/00:47:23)

Context:

The conversation occurs between Liam and Pinball when they are

hanging out together in their neighborhood. They are joking with each

other and talking about Suzanne, Chantelle’s friend. Pinball is pretending

to call Suzanne with his phone and Liam is being so done with his silly

jokes. Both of them seem like have a crush on Suzanne.

Pinball : All right, Suzanne?

Liam : You fucking prick. My arse!

Liam : She sent me a text.

 81

She wants a date with me.

Pinball : Don't talk shite.

She fucking does, man. She wants me.

Type: Idiomatic Swearing → Imagery Based on Literal

Meaning

Data Interpretation:

Liam and Pinball seem like they adore Suzanne because whenever

she hangs around Chantelle’s house, they always keep an eye on her. In the

middle of joking around with each other, Liam tells Pinball that Suzanne

sent him a text about how she wants to have a date with Liam. Pinball who

also likes Suzanne thinks that Liam is just joking about his statement and

is annoyed by that. He thinks that Liam is not being honest and only talk’s

bullshit.

Don’t talk shite is a vulgar slang in Britain which is used when

someone is saying something that is a lie, nonsense or is exaggerated. The

idiomatic swearing expression ‘don’t talk shite’ in this context situation

belongs to idiomatic swearing type. Besides that, it is also classified into

imagery based on literal meaning as its swearing subtype. The idiomatic

swearing expression ‘don’t talk shite’ in this context situation is used by

Pinball to express his disbelief towards Liam statement about Suzanne

texting Liam and asking him to go on a date. ‘Don’t talk shite’ is also
 82

classified to ‘imagery based on literal meaning’ subtype of swearing

because this idiomatic swearing expression uses figurative language to

represent the ideas in such a way that it appeals to the human’s physical

senses.

The tone of Pinball when utters the idiomatic swearing expression

‘don’t talk shite’ is annoyed tone and in formal with mocking manner. It is

used to express disbelief with showing irritation, since the Pinball’s

attitude as a speaker does not want to believe about what Liam has said

about Suzanne. According to the scale of offence of swearing words

provided by BNC, the term shit in ‘don’t talk shite’ is considered as

mildly offensive.

Liam and Pinball are in the same age gap and are both teenagers

coming from working class level from Scotland. They know each other

personally and it makes their social status is equal to each other and the

relationship status is intimate with high in solidarity. When Pinball

mockingly employs the rude swearing expression ‘don’t talk shite’,

Liam’s gesture shows that he is casual about it and does not feel offended

by it because he still continues to tease Pinball about Suzanne after it. In

short, it is clear that his verbal and non-verbal gestures shows that Liam

does not take the utterance ‘don’t talk shite’ from Pinball as mildly

offensive, but rather casual because they are close to each other and are

just joking with each other.

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2.7. Idiomatic-Pronominal Form with Undefined Referent

Data:Fuck knows (232/01:12:36)

Context:

The conversation happens in a restaurant between Liam and Mr.

Douglas, one of Tony’s sidekicks. They are discussing about the drug

dealing things and about Liam’s plan in the future. Liam’s mother is going

to get out from prison in three weeks but Liam’s plan gets messed up

because someone burned Liam’s caravan. Liam is very desperate about his

situation and does not know what he is supposed to do after the disaster.

Mr. Douglas : When does your ma get out?

Liam : Three weeks.

Mr. Douglas : What are you going to do about it?

Liam : Fuck knows.

Type: Idiomatic Swearing → Pronominal Form with Undefined

Referent

Data Interpretation:

Liam’s caravan for his mother is being burned by someone, and he

is feeling so down about it. In fact, the caravan is being burned by Pinball,

but Liam assumes that Stan is the one who does him dirty. Mr. Douglas

asks him about what is his plan after he loses his caravan, but he is
 84

pessimistically says ‘fuck knows’ as an expression to show that he is very

sad and upset because of having little or no hope about the plan for his

mother.

‘Fuck’ is an offensive exclamation which iscommonly used when

expressing extreme anger to someone or something or as a mean to add

force to what is being said. The swearing expression of ‘fuck knows’ in

this context situation belongs to idiomatic swearing type and specified as

pronominal form with undefined referent. In the conversation, this

idiomatic swearing expression is used by Liam as a way in showing the

feeling of despair. ‘Fuck knows’ is specified as ‘pronominal form with as

‘undefined referent’ because the terms fuck in ‘fuck knows’ is functioned

as a pronoun and is not referred to any particular thing.

The tone that Liam uses in employs the phrase ‘fuck knows’ in the

conversation above is sad tone and in informal with serious manner. The

idiomatic swearing expression of ‘fuck knows’ is being used by Liam to

describes his despair feeling about his messed up plan to Mr. Douglas, but

he means no harm on employing it to Mr. Douglas. However, the term is

supposed to be strongly offensive because British National Corpus

classifies the offensiveness level of term fuck as ‘strong’ in the scale of

offence of swearing words.

Liam and Mr. Douglas, one of Tony’s sidekicks, is a business

partner since Liam decides to work with Tony in running his business.
 85

They already know each other and get along quite well, so their

relationship is intimate and high in solidarity. Their social status, however,

is not equal to each other since they have a wide age gap and Mr. Douglas

has a better position than Liam in drug dealing industry. So, Liam is in the

subordinate position and Mr. Douglas is in the superior one. At the time

when Liam utters the swearing expression “Fuck knows,” to shows that he

is in despair, Mr. Douglas reaction is just indifferent and move on to

different topic. In short, it can be concluded that Liam does not employ the

F-word as a way to offence, and Mr. Douglas does not take it as offensive

since they both are quite close to each other and Mr. Douglas understands

about Liam’s current unfortunate situation.

2.8. Idiomatic-Personal Insult Referring to Identified Entity

Data: cock jockey (59/00:25:10)

Context:

The conversation occurs between Liam and Stan in Pinball’s flat. It

is not a direct conversation because they are talking to each other through

phone. Stan’s house is quite close from Pinball’s apartment. They can stalk

on Stan’s activity in front of his house using binoculars from the window

of Pinball’s flat. Stan is in the middle of doing drugs transaction with

Scullion. To disturb him, Liam calls him using a private number and

pretends to be a salesman of sex product and watches him going mad.

Liam : Can I interest you in some double glazing?

 86

Stan : Not today, son.

Liam : What about a fitted kitchen, then?

Stan : No, pal. I don't want fuck-all, you know?

Liam : How about a top of the range dildo?

You sound like a cock jockey.

Stan : Fuck you, you little... cunt

Liam : He's fucking raging.

Liam : Look at his face.

Type: Idiomatic Swearing → Personal Insult Referring to

Identified Entity

Data Interpretation:

Liam is prank calling Stan by pretends to be a salesman who is

trying to sell something from basic daily necessity to sex toys for Stan.

Stan does not know that Liam is the one who talks on the phone and really

thinks that it is just a salesman who is calling. At first, he is trying to be

patient in rejecting the caller’s offer, but the caller ends up being overly

rude by insulting him as a cock jockey which is a derogatory term to insult

homosexual. No wonder that it makes Stan become furious to the caller,

insulting him back and hanging up the telephone.

 87

‘Jockey’ in the idiomatic expression ‘cock jockey’ is a slang term

in the north-west of England which offers a wide of variety in terms of

usage and meaning, and one of it is mean as a derogatory term that refer to

a homosexual person. Cock jockey is a very offensive swearing expression

that used as a generalized term of abuse to refer to a person who knows

how to ride a penis properly. It can also refer to an insulting word that used

to describe someone as an annoying prick who gets on the speaker’s

nerves. The phrase ‘cock jockey’ in this conversation belongs to idiomatic

swearing type. To make it specifics, it is also classified into ‘personal

insult referring to identified entity’ category. The idiomatic swearing

expression of ‘cock jockey’ in the utterance “You sound like a cock

jockey,” is specified as ‘personal insult referring to identified entity’

because Liam uses it as a mean of personal insult referring to identified

entity, and in this case it refers to Stan.

Liam uses annoyed tone in formal with mocking manner when

employs the phrase ‘cock jockey’in the utterance “You sound like a cock

jockey.” The phrase ‘cock jockey’ is used by Liam as a derogatory term to

refer Stan as an annoying homosexual man who knows how to ride a dick

properly. The use of the term cock, according to the scale of offence of

swearing words by British National Corpus, is supposed to be mildly

offensive.

In real life, Liam and Stan actually know each other very well. But

in this context situation, Liam is pretending to be a salesman in the

 88

telephone, and Stan does not know that the caller, in fact, is Liam. So, in

this case, Stan thinks that they are complete strangers and their

relationship is distant and low in solidarity. Their social status is not equal

to each other since Stan is positioned as a buyer and is superior, and the

caller position is a seller and subordinate. When the caller employs “You

sound like a cock jockey”, to Stan as a mean to insult him, Stan’s verbal

and non-verbal reaction are what Liam expects because he is very raging

and offended by Liam’s doing. In short, it can be concluded that Stan takes

the caller’s insult word for him as strongly offensive since Stan thinks that

the caller is a total stranger, and he is in the middle of important business

transaction.

2.9. Idiomatic-Reclaimed Usage

Data: Lazy arse! (180/00:57:21)

Context:

The conversation happens in the pizza bar when Liam and Pinball

are quarreling with each other about handling the gear. Liam is just arrived

at the pizza bar when he is asking Pinball about his job in cutting the gear.

Pinball is still kind of lazy to get up from the couch, so he says that he is

going to do it later. Liam does not want to hear Pinball’s excuse, and keeps

scolding him to go and cuts the gear as soon as possible.

Liam : You cut that gear yet?

Pinball : No. I'll do it later.

 89

Liam : No? Lazy arse! Go get the gear cut.

Pinball : I've been here before fucking you.

Liam : Exactly! Go get the fucking gear cut.

Pinball : I'll cut it later.

Type: Idiomatic Swearing → Reclaimed Usage

Data Interpretation:

Liam is trying to make Pinball gets the gear cut because he is in

hurry about selling it to make a lot of money. He is casually insulting

Pinball as ‘lazy arse’ but in a mocking way because they are friends with

each other. Yet, Pinball does not take it as joke at all and feels offended

because it seems like Liam acts that he is superior to Pinball and can

orders Pinball around as he likes. Since Liam is working with Tony, his

relationship with Pinball is getting distant. It is because Tony always

excludes Pinball in their meeting, every time Liam comes with Pinball to

talking about the business with Tony. Pinball feels offended by the way

Tony and his sidekicks treating him. They are all nice with Liam but they

treat Pinball with disrespect because they think Pinball is useless in this

business industry. Yet, Liam is never taking on Pinball side and takes

Pinball’s pain as a joke. Pinball often complains about it to Liam a lot, but

Liam does not take Pinball’s problem seriously. That makes Pinball starts

being angry with Liam and distances himself from him.

 90

‘Lazy arse’, an alternative form of lazy ass, is a vulgar slang which

refers to a person who is doing unnecessary things instead of doing

something productive that he or she supposed to do. In the UK, It is often

used as an insult or derogatory meaning. The phrase ‘lazy arse’ in this

context belongs to idiomatic swearing type and specified into reclaimed

usage subtype. The idiomatic swearing expression of ‘lazy arse’ in the

utterance, “no? Lazy arse! Go get the gear cut,” is specified into

‘reclaimed usage’ because Liam intended to use it as a rebuke between

friend, and he means no negative intent on employing it.

Liam’s tone when he employs the phrase ‘lazy arse’ in the

utterance “No? Lazy arse! Go get the gear cut,” is imperative tone and in

informal with mocking manner. The offensiveness rate of the term arse,

according to the scale of offence of swearing words provided by BNC, is

supposed to be mild. However, Pinball takes the idiomatic swearing

expression of ‘lazy arse’ which is employed by Liam as strongly

offensive. It is because Pinball thinks that their relationship is already

distant. Liam’s intention in employing it to Pinball is just a casual way

used among friends to refer to his friend as a lazy person. Yet, Pinball

thinks Liam calling him as a lazy arse to insults him and as a mean of

derogatory. In short, it can be concluded that the term lazy arse in this

context situation is considered as very strong because Pinball is feeling

offended by it and it hurts his feeling.

 91

2.10. Idiomatic-Religious Oath used for Emphasis

Data: for Christ’s sake! (271/00:43:26)

Context:

Liam and Chantelle are in the middle of heat conversation in

Liam’s new flat. They are quarreling with each other because of Jean.

Jean, Liam’s mom is nowhere to be found and Liam is accusing Chantelle

as being the one who makes their mom gone from the flat and leaves him

without saying anything. It is because Liam is witnessing Chantelle being

harsh on Jean in the night of Jean’s welcoming party last night when Jean

is trying to talk to Calum, Chantelle’s son and Jean’s grandchild.

Chantelle : I never said nothing!

Liam : Get out of my fucking way.

Chantelle : Liam, calm down!

Liam : Get out of my way.

Chantelle : Where's my fucking other shoe?

Chantelle : Liam, let her go. She'll drive you mad.

Let her go, for Christ's sake!

Type : Idiomatic Swearing → Religious Oath used for

Emphasis

Data Interpretation:
 92

Liam is very raging because he thinks that Chantelle’s horrible

treatment towards their mother becomes Jean’s reason in deciding to leave

their new flat. Chantelle is denying Liam’s accusation about her but she

keeps talking bad about Jean in front of Liam, which drives Liam mad

even more. Liam is trying to go out and finds his mother, but Chantelle is

trying to stop him by blocking his way and hides his trainer with his shoe.

Chantelle is trying to persuade Liam to lets their mother go because she is

an abusive person but Liam does not want to hear about that. Chantelle is

barely employs swearing utterance towards anyone but this time, she is

losing her temper and patience in convincing Liam to lets their mom go

and aggressively says, “Let her go, for Christ's sake!”

For Christ’s sake is a mild oath of exasperation, frustration, anger,

annoyance or surprise. As in this case, phrase ‘for Christ’s sake’ is

categorized as idiomatic swearing type. At the same time, it is also

classified into ‘religious oath used for emphasis’ categorization. It belongs

to ‘idiomatic-religious oath used for emphasis’ swearing subtype because

the term Christ of “for Christ’s sake” in the conversation above is a

religious oath used as an interjection of exasperation.

Chantelle utters the idiomatic swearing expression of “for Christ’s

sake” in impatient tone with serious and informal manner. It is used to

express exasperation and Chantelle’s attitude is being frustrated about

making Liam believes in everything she said about their mother. In the
 93

scale of offence of swearing words, British National Corpus classifies the

word Christ as mildly offensive.

Chantelle and Liam are siblings who do know each other very well,

so their relationship is intimate. Their social status, however, is not equal

to each other because even if they are both coming from working classses

of people in Northern England, Chantelle is older than Liam, holds a stable

job and is attending school. Meanwhile, Liam, he is a teenager, school

dropout, and younger than Chantelle. It makes Chantelle status is superior

and Liam status is subordinate. When Chantelle drops the ‘for Christ’s

sake’ to shows her frustration towards Liam’s behavior, Liam does not

shut up and keeps verbally harassing Chantelle which shows that he is

furious and provoked by Chantelle’s rude words against him. In short, it is

clear that Liam takes Chantelle’s rude words as strongly offensive because

they are in the middle of quarreling and are being overly emotional

towards each other.

3. Abusive Swearing

3.1. Abusive-Adverbial Booster

Data: fucking feeble, you cunts! (37/00:11:47)

Context:

The conversation occurs among Liam, Stan, and Liam’s

grandfather in a bush beside random street with lush grass. They are

coming back home from visiting Liam’s mom in prison. Stan is physically
 94

beating Liam because Liam refuses to gives back Stan’s gear. Liam’s

grandfather is on Stan side, but he is still has a soft spot for his grandchild

because he is subtly protecting Liam from being beaten more badly by

Stan. Liam then throws away the gear to the bush and makes Stan and his

grandfather suffer even more in trying to gets the gear back.

Stan : Get over the fucking fence.

Liam’s grandpa : My fucking balls is caught, you cunt!

Liam : Fucking feeble, you cunts!

Liam’s grandpa : Just you wait!

Type : Abusive Swearing → Adverbial Booster

Data Interpretation:

Liam’s grandfather is trying to find the gear that Liam throws to

the bush. But, the area of the bush is being surrounded by a fence and

Liam’s grandfather balls are being caught in the fence when he is trying to

trespass it. Stan then come near him and tells him to gets over the fence

and trying to search the gear by himself. Liam, being badly beaten by Stan

with his grandpa, tried to run away from them and express his anger

towards swearing while escaping.

Cunt is a highly offensive vulgar slang, and is a term refers to any

unpleasant or contemptible person. It is also can be used to express

 95

contempt to something or someone. Cunt is considered as unacceptable by

most people outside very limited social context. Even so, In Scotland, the

use of cunt is not only limited into a form of derogatory word but also can

be used as a term of endearment or a just mild rebuke among close friends.

The utterance ‘fucking feeble, you cunts!’ according to the context

situation is classified as abusive swearing type and specified as adverbial

booster. It is abusive swearing because the utterance ‘fucking feeble, you

cunts’ here is used by the speaker as a mean to verbally abuse the

hearer(s). At the same time, it is also classified as adverbial booster in its

whole utterance. It belongs to adverbial booster swearing subtype because

the term fucking in ‘fucking feeble, you cunts!’ is used to intensify the

word ‘feeble’ as an insult and give additional emotional context to the

word ‘feeble’ that it modifies.

Liam utters the abusive swearing expression of ‘fucking feeble,

you cunts!’ in angry tone with mocking and informal manner. It is used to

express anger emotion and Liam attitude is holding grudge to Stan and his

grandfather because they beat him off without mercy. In its scale of

offence of swearing words, British National Corpus categorized the word

fucking as strongly offensive, while the offensiveness rate for word cunt is

considered as very strong.

Liam with Stan and Liam’s grandfather is family who know each

other very well, but they do not get along with each other, so their

relationship is distant to each other. They are all working classpeople in

 96

Northern England but their social status is not equal to each other because

Stan is practically Liam’s dad, so he is superior to him. Liam’s grandfather

is also in the superior status because he is the granddad of Liam’s family.

When Liam drops the insulting phrase ‘fucking feeble, you cunts!’ to

verbally abuse Stan and Liam’s grandfather, Liam’s granddad telling him

to wait for his revenge which shows that he is furious and offended by

Liam’s insult. In short, according to Liam’s grandfather verbal and non-

verbal reaction, it can be concluded that Liam’s grandfather takes Liam’s

insult as very offensive and disrespectful.

3.2. Abusive-Cursing Expletive

Data: piss you! (135/00:51:33)

Context:

The conversation happens between Pinball and Tony’s sidekick in

front of the warehouse of Tony’s bar. Pinball is employing a joke to Tony

and his sidekicks, in the hope of making the situation they are in to not as

intense as it is. But, Tony and his sidekicks take it the wrong way and get

offended by Pinball joke, Tony asks his sidekicks to punish Pinball by

giving him a cold shower. After finished torturing Pinball, they are

releasing Pinball with harsh treatment, and even take his trainers from

him.

Tony’s sidekick : Fucking go!

Pinball : Give me my fucking trainers!

 97

Tony’s sidekick : Next time we see you, it'll be two broken

legs and you won't need trainers!

Piss you!

Type: Abusive Swearing → Cursing Expletive

Data Interpretation:

Because Pinball is stating a joke that makes Tony and his fellow

sidekicks offended, he is being separated by Liam to be punished with a

cold shower. Tony’s sidekick dragging Pinball forcefully to the bar’s

warehouse and tortures him there. After Pinball gets the cold shower

punishment that Tony’s sidekikcs think he deserves and take his trainers

from him, they are releasing Pinball and infuriatingly threaten him to not

messing up with them again.

Piss you, derived from piss you off, is a rude slang which is often

used as an angry command to tell someone to depart from somewhere

abruptly or quickly. The phrase ‘piss you’ in this context is classified as

abusive swearing type and being functioned as cursing expletive. It is

abusive swearing because one of Tony’s sidekicks used it as a verbal abuse

directed towards Pinball. It is classified into cursing expletive subtype

because the phrase ‘Piss you!’ is a cursing expression that being

functioned as an exclamatory to express the speaker’s strong emotion.

 98

One of Tony’s sidekicks utters the abusive swearing expression of

‘piss you!’ in annoyed tone and in informal with enraged manner. The

Tony’s sidekick uses it to express anger with showing irritation because he

and his partners are greatly offended with Pinball’s joke. Based on British

National Corpus’ scale of offence of swearing words, the phrase piss as an

expression used when annoyed or angry is considered as moderately

offensive.

The relationship of Pinball with Tony’s sidekicks is distant with

low solidarity because they are total stranger with each other. Their social

status is not equal to each other, since they have a huge wide age gap.

Tony’s sidekicks are superior to Pinball who is just a teenager selling

drugs, because they are adults with a stable job. When the Tony’s sidekick

employs the abusive swearing expression of ‘piss you!’ to Pinball as a way

to verbally abuses him, Pinball is very pissed off about it and tried to fight

them, but he is powerless. In short, it can be concluded that Pinball does

not take Tony’s sidekick expletive cursing directed to him as moderately

offensive, but rather as strongly offensive.

3.3. Abusive-Idiomatic Set Phrase

Data: Fuck you, you little... cunt! (60/00:25:13)

Context:

Liam and Pinball are stalking on Stan’s activity using binoculars

from the window of Pinball’s flat. Stan is with Liam grandfather, and they

are in the middle of doing drugs transaction with Slobodan McTavish or

 99

Scullion in front of Stan’s house. Liam has an idea to interrupt Stan’s

important business. He prank-calling Stan and pretends to be a salesman

who offers products to him. In the end of the call, Liam is insulting him

and Stan is very raging and damned Liam with some offensive swearing

expression.

Stan : Fuck you, you little... cunt!

Liam : He's fucking raging.

Pinball : Look at his face.

Liam : Think he knew it was me?

Pinball : No.

Type: Abusive Swearing → Idiomatic Set Phrase

Data Interpretation:

This conversation between Liam and Stan is not a direct face to

face conversation. Stan does not know that the caller is Liam who is

planning on making him mad. Stan is being patient in answering the

caller’s nonsense but the more they talk, the caller turns to be overly rude

and disrespectful by insulting Stan with a derogatory term that generally

used to insult homosexual. Stan, of course being infuriated by the caller

and insulting him back with inappropriate swearing words by saying ‘fuck

you, you little... cunt!’ before hanging up the telephone. Liam, however,
 100

take Stan angers as an entertainment and feels very proud of himself for

making Stan enraged by his doing.

‘Fuck you’ is a vulgar and offensive curse means go to hell. It is a

swearing expression that is commonly used to show discontent with the

other party, or to show contempt. Meanwhile, cunt is a vulgar word used

as a term of disparagement for a woman that is overly disparaging and

offensive. In English-speaking countries, it is regarded as unsuitable for

public discourse. Yet, in Northern England such as in Scotland, cunt can be

used to refer either man or woman and is not only limited as a mean of

derogatory but as a term of endearment or a mild rebuke among friends

inside very limited social context. As in this context situation, the

utterance “fuck you, you little... cunt!’’ is belongs to abusive swearing

type. At the same time, it is also belongs to idiomatic set phrase in its

whole utterance. The utterance “fuck you, you little... cunt!” in the

previously mentioned conversation belongs to abusive swearing because

Stan employs it as a mean abuse the other party verbally. It is classified

into idiomatic set phrase swearing subtype because it consists of more than

one idiomatic swearing expression in one sentence, and they are ‘fuck

you’ and ‘little cunt’.

Stan’s tone in employs the abusive-idiomatic set phrase swearing

expression of “fuck you, you little... cunt!” is in annoyed tone with

informal and furious manner. Stan’s attitude is being angry and provoked

by Liam’s rude insults, so the abusive swearing expression in the

 101

conversation above is used to express his overwhelming anger emotion.

According to the swearing words’ scale of offence by British National

Corpus, the word fuck is considered as strongly offensive, while the

offensiveness rate of the word fuck is very strong.

The relationship status of Liam and Stan is distant and low in

solidarity because even if they are practically dad and son who know one

and the other but do not really get along with each other. And about their

social status, it is clear that they are not equal to each other, since Liam is a

son to Stan and Stan is a boyfriend of Liam’s mother. It makes Stan’s

status is superior, meanwhile Liam is subordinate. When Stan insults Liam

with ‘fuck you, you little... cunt!’, Liam’s verbal and nonverbal gestures,

however, shows that he does not offended by his insult, but rather feeling

glad and satisfied because his prank drives Stan mad.

3.4. Abusive-Premodifying Intensifying Negative Adjective

Data: fucking shitebag (88/00:41:42)

Context:

The dialogue occurs in Pinball’s flat when Liam and Pinball

discussing about how to get more customers that they can sell their gear to.

There is a guy in their neighborhood named Jay who also sells drugs and

Liam is planning to offers his gear to Jay’s customers. Pinball is against

Liam’s idea because he is afraid of taking risks. Pinball is afraid that Jay

will found out about it and end their existences. Liam does not want to
 102

hear Pinball’s point of view, and they are quarreling with each other

because of their polar opposite opinion.

Liam : I could lose the fucking caravan, man!

Pinball : Fuck your caravan.

Liam : You know what? Fuck you. I'll do it myself.

Fucking shitebag.

Pinball : Don't come back to me greeting.

Liam : Fucking shitebag.

Pinball : You'll never do it. Fucking nutcase.

Type: Abusive Swearing → Premodifying Intensifying Negative

Adjective

Data Interpretation:

Liam is angry with Pinball because he opposes Liam’s idea on

trying to converts Jay’s drug customers into their customer. Pinball is

being overly worried about the things that might happen, to the point that

he can not see the opportunity that they can take to expand their business.

Meanwhile, Liam, he is overly worrying about not getting enough money

to buys the caravan. So, he gets to do anything, including shady thing, to

saves the caravan from being bought by another person. Pinball refuses to

cooperate with Liam in cutting off Jay’s customer and makes Liam very
 103

angry and insults him with vulgar swearing expression. Pinball is also mad

at Liam, which is why he also insults Liam back with rude words.

The phrase ‘fucking shitebag’ is an Irish rude insult expression

which is used when someone or something is being or act very gross or

shitty. The phrase ‘fucking shitebag’ in this case belongs to abusive

swearing type and is functioned as premodifying intensifying negative

adjective in its complete utterance. It belongs to abusive swearing because

the speaker used it to verbally abuse the hearer’s personal image.

‘Fucking shitebag’ is also belongs to ‘premodifying intensifying negative

adjective’ swearing subtype because the word fucking in ‘fucking

shitebag’ is used to premodify and intensify the meaning of the word

‘shitebag’ which is a negative adjective.

The tone used by Liam in employs the abusive swearing expression

‘fucking shitebag’ to Pinball is angry tone and in formal with serious

manner because they are in the middle of heat argument with each other.

The phrase ‘fucking shitebag’ is used to express anger with showing

irritation, since Liam’s attitude is being disappointed about Pinball’s

opposition towards him. According to the scale of offence of swearing

words provided by BNC, the term fucking as in the phrase ‘your fucking

arse’ is considered as strongly offensive, meanwhile the term shit or shite

as in shitebag is classified as mildly offensive.

 104

Liam and Pinball are best friends with each other, and get along

well with each other. It makes their relationship status is intimate and high

in solidarity. Their social status is equal with each other because both of

them are teenager from working class level and are school dropout. At the

time Liam employs the phrase ‘fucking arse’ because he is angry and so

done with Pinball’s pessimistic attitude, Pinball is angrily replying Liam’s

insult by calling Liam a fucking nutcase to fights Liam back. Liam then

leaves Pinball’s flat by walking out of the room with enraged attitude.

Based on the context situation, it is clear that Pinball takes Liam’s insult as

strongly offensive.

3.5. Abusive-Personal Insult Referring to Identified Entity

Data: Fuck you. (88/00:41:38)

Context:

Liam and Pinball are quarreling with each other in Pinball’s flat

because they have clash opinion on how to expand their drug dealing

business. Liam is telling Pinball about his idea of how to gets more

customers that will buy their drugs. Liam is planning to cut off Jay’s

customers, a fellow drug dealer who lives near there, so that his customer

will buy from Liam and Pinball. Being afraid to get hurt or to take risk in

general, Pinball is against Liam’s idea and wants both of them to be safe.

Jay is a powerful person and can do harm on them if he found out that they
 105

do him dirty. Liam gets so mad because Pinball refuses to cooperate with

him, so he is planning to execute his plan by himself.

Pinball : Where? One of your daft planets?

They'll find us there.

Liam : I could lose the fucking caravan, man!

Pinball : Fuck your caravan.

Liam : You know what? Fuck you. I'll do it myself.

Fucking shitebag.

Type: Abusive Swearing → Personal Insult Referring to

Identified Entity

Data Interpretation:

Liam is being overly worried about the caravan being bought by

another person if he does not get enough money to buys it as soon as

possible. So, he gets to make him and Pinball work hard for it. Yet, Pinball

just adds more fuels to Liam’s pain by acting like he does not care about

the caravan, since he is more afraid of being caught by Jay. Liam is losing

his patience to Pinball the moment Pinball says ‘fuck your caravan’ to him

because the caravan means everything to him. Liam employs ‘fuck you’ to

Pinball, but this time he means it as an insult, not as a mild rebuke

between friends.
 106

‘Fuck you’ is a vulgar and offensive swearing expression used to

show contempt or discontent with the other party. As in this context

situation, the phrase ‘fuck you’ belongs to abusive swearing type. To make

it specific, it is functioned as personal insult referring to identified entity. It

belongs to abusive swearing because Liam employs the phrase ‘fuck you’

to Pinball as a mean to insult him verbally. ‘Fuck you’ is classified into

personal insult referring to identified entity because Liam used it as a

mean of personal insult referring to identified individual, which is being

targeted to Pinball.

Liam use angry tone voice in informal with rude manner when

employs the abusive swearing expression ‘fuck you’ in the utterance “You

know what? Fuck you. I'll do it myself.” The phrase ‘fuck you’ is used by

Liam as an expression to show anger. The use of the term fuck, according

to the scale of offence of swearing words by British National Corpus, is

supposed to be strongly offensive.

Liam and Pinball are friends with each other since childhood, so

their relationship is intimate and high in solidarity. Both of them come

from working class background in Scotland and it makes their social status

equal to each other. When Liam employs the utterance, “You know what?

Fuck you. I'll do it myself,” to express his anger towards Pinball by

verbally insults him, Pinball seems enraged with Liam’s doing. Pinball is

even insults Liam back with offensive reference. In short, it can be

 107

concluded that Pinball takes Liam’s insult directed to him as strongly

offensive because they are not in a good term when the acts happens.

4. Emphatic Swearing

4.1. Emphatic-Adverbial Booster

Data: fucking buzzing (3/00:02:46)

Context:

The dialogue occurs among Liam, Pinball and Side-Kick. They are

walking around the town, selling cheap cigarette or commonly called as

fag. At first, Liam and Pinball are selling the fags in a restaurant, but they

are being caught by the owner and runaway. Side-Kick, however, sells the

fags on the street alone. When all of them meet again in a random street,

Side-Kick’s bag is still full of fags meanwhile Liam’s and Pinball’s are

empty because their fags sold out.

Side-Kick : How you going?

Liam : Fucking buzzing, man.

Pinball : Magic. Empty bag.Empty bag.

Side-Kick : Do you want this load?

Type: Emphatic Swearing → Adverbial Booster

Data Interpretation:
 108

Liam and Pinball are feeling happy because their fags are all sold.

Side-Kick sees them on the street being happy and all and asks them about

how the business is going. Liam excitedly answers his question by

swearing that says ‘Fucking buzzing, man.’ Liam says it happily and

cheerfully because he is in a good mood.

Fucking A is a vulgar slang which is commonly used as an

emphatic exclamation of anger, surprise, annoyance, or contempt.

Meanwhile, buzzing is a predominantly British term used to express by

someone when feeling really happy about something. As in this context

situation, the phrase fucking buzzing is categorized as emphatic swearing

type. Fucking buzzing belongs to emphatic swearing because it is

underline and emphasizes point. At the same time, it also belongs to

adverbial booster in its whole utterance. It belongs to adverbial booster

swearing subtype because the term fucking in ‘fucking buzzing’ gives

additional emotional context to the word it modifies, which in this case is

to intensify the meaning of the word ‘buzzing’.

Liam employs the emphatic swearing expression of ‘fucking

buzzing’ in delightful tone with cheerful and informal manner. It is used to

express happy emotion and Liam attitude is being grateful because his fags

are sold out. In their scale of offence of swearing words, British National

Corpus classifies the word fucking as strongly offensive, if the use of it is

to emphasize an angry statement or as damnation.

 109

Liam and Side-Kick are friends who are close with each other, so

their relationship is intimate and their social status is equal to each other

because they both are teenager who comes from working class people in

Northern England. When Liam drops the ‘fucking buzzing’ emphatic

swearing expression to express his happiness, Side-Kick is all fine with

that because Liam employs it not as a mean to be rude, but just to express

his strong feeling. And also, they are close friends in the first place. In

short, it can be concluded that Side-Kick does not take Liam’s directed

swearing of ‘fucking buzzing’ towards him as a rude or offensive but

rather be casual about it.

4.2. Emphatic-Emphatic Adverb

Data: fucking do it. (15/00:05:19)

Context:

The utterance is said by Stan to Liam when they are together in a

car. They are also with Liam’s grandfather because they are on the way to

visit Jean in prison. Stan and Liam’s grandpa is planning to smuggle gear

in prison through Jean. They plan to use Liam as a mediator in distributing

the gear to his mom when they are in the middle of visiting Jean later.

Stan : Put that in your mouth.

Top of your teeth.

Liam : Tell him to fucking do it.

 110

Stan : Do as you're fucking told! I've had enough

of you today. Stick it up in your gums.

Type: Emphatic Swearing → Emphatic Adverb

Data Interpretation:

Stan is asking Liam to put the tiny wrapped drug up in his mouth.

It is because the police will not check the details such as the visitor’s

mouth, so that by doing it they will not get caught of smuggling drug by

the police. Liam, however, does not want to do it and asks Stan to order his

grandpa to do it instead. Liam yells ‘tell him (his grandfather) to fucking

do it’ because he is very annoyed with Stan who keeps forcing him to hide

the drug in the top of his teeth.

Fucking A is a taboo slang term which is commonly used for

emphasis or to express anger, contempt, annoyance, or surprise. As in this

case, the phrase ‘fucking do it’ is categorized as emphatic swearing type.

The swearing expression of ‘fucking do it’ belongs to emphatic swearing

type because Liam employs it to express his idea forcibly and clearly. At

the same time, it is also classified as emphatic adverb in its whole

utterance. It is functioned as emphatic adverb because the term fucking

gives added force or a greater degree of certainty to another word in an

utterance or to the utterance as a whole.

 111

Liam utters the emphatic swearing expression of ‘fucking do it’ in

annoyed tone with serious and informal manner. It is used to express

disagreement and Liam attitude is being annoyed about being forced by

Stan to hide a gear in his gum. In the scale of offence of swearing words,

provided by British National Corpus, the word fucking is classified as

strongly offensive.

Liam and Stan’s relationship is distant and low in solidarity

because even if they are family, Liam and Stan consider each other as

enemy. Their social status is not equal to each other because Stan’s

position in the family is a dad and Liam is a son. It makes Stan’s status is

superior to Liam and Liam being the subordinate one. When Liam

employs the utterance ‘tell him to fucking do it,’ as a way to refuse Stan’s

order, Stan is angry with his answer and scolding him hard by saying, “do

as you're fucking told! I've had enough of you today.”Stan’s verbal and

non-verbal gestures show that he is mad and feeling so done by Liam’s

rude behavior againsts him. In short, it is clear that Stan takes the swearing

expression employed by Liam as strongly offensive. An addition of

‘fucking’ before the word ‘do it’ to express disagreement makes the whole

utterance become more offensive than it should.

4.3. Emphatic-Idiomatic Set Phrase

Data: Thank fucking heaven (73/00:28:09)

Context:
 112

The conversation happens between Liam and Pinball in the Stan’s

corral. Stan hides his drug supply there, and they both tried to stole it from

Stan. The drug is being stored inside the corral, and it is protected by

Stan’s dogs. To be able to sneak inside, one of them must disturb the dogs’

attention to keep them from barking out loud. Liam is the one who sneaks

inside and takes the drugs; meanwhile Pinball is taking care of the dogs by

feeding them to keep them silent.

Pinball : Come on.

Liam : Found it.

Pinball : Thank fucking heaven for that!

Type: Emphatic Swearing → Idiomatic Set Phrase

Data Interpretation:

Pinball is managing to be brave in feeding the dogs, when Liam is

sneaking inside the corral and takes the gear from the hidden storage.

When Liam finally yells at him that he founds the gear, Pinball employs

the utterance “Thank fucking heaven for that!” as an expression to show

that he is feeling very happy and relieved.

Thank fucking heaven is a rude slang which is said to express

happiness that something bad has been avoided or has finished. As in this

context situation, the utterance ‘Thank fucking heaven for that!’ is

classified as emphatic swearing type. At the same time, it is also

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categorized into idiomatic set phrase in its whole utterance. The phrase

‘thank fucking heaven’ in the utterance belongs to an emphatic swearing

because it is uttered with or marked by emphasis. ‘Thank fucking

heaven’ is also belongs to idiomatic set phrase swearing subtype because

its part are fixed in a certain order, even if the phrase could be changed

with no harm occurs in its literal meaning.

Pinball’s tone in employs the emphatic-idiomatic set phrase

swearing expression of ‘thank fucking heaven’ is excited tone with

delightful and informal manner. Pinball’s attitude is being grateful about

Liam founds the gear quicker than he expects, so the emphatic swearing

expression in the conversation above is used to express gratitude.

According to the swearing words’ scale of offence by BNC, the word fuck

or fucking is supposed to be strongly offensive if being employed in a

particular context situation.

The relationship status of Pinball and Liam is intimate and high in

solidarity because they are best friends who personally know each other

since a long time. And about their social status, it is clear that they are

equal to each other, since both of them are teenager from working class

level in Northern England. When Pinball employs the swearing expression

of ‘thank fucking heaven’ directed to Liam, he does not react to it and

keeps continue doing his thing. In short, it can be concluded that Liam

does not take Pinball’s impolite swearing expression as disrespectful or

offensive because Pinball employs it as a way to express gratitude.

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4.4. Emphatic-Personal Insult Referring to Identified Entity

Data: fucking crazy lost wee soul (272/00:32:20)

Context:

Chantelle and Liam are arguing with each other in Liam’s new flat.

They are arguing over the reason of why Jean is gone from the flat. She is

supposed to stay with Liam and Chantelle in the new flat, but Liam cannot

found her anywhere in the entire room. Liam, then found Chantelle

washing dishes in the kitchen and asks her where their mom is. Chantelle

says that she is gone. Chantelle explains to Liam that Jean left the flat and

going to Stan’s place as usual because she does not know better than that.

Chantelle asks Liam to let their mom go because if she stays with them,

she can ruin Liam’s life as the way she used to do to Chantelle.

Chantelle : Liam, listen. It's not that

shedoesnae care, she cannae care!

She's a fucking crazy lost wee soul

and she's gonnae ruin you too!

Liam : I saw you talking to her last night.

What were you saying?

If you drove her back to Stan, I'll...

 115

Chantelle : Drove her back to Stan?

If it's not Stan, it'll be somebody else

and somebody else!

Type: Emphatic Swearing → Personal Insult Referring to

Identified Entity

Data Interpretation:

Chantelle is trying to make Liam realize that their mother is not as

good as Liam think. Jean is an abusive person because she used to ruin

Chantelle’s life in the past. Liam does not believe and does not want to

believe Chantelle because he thinks that Chantelle just does not like their

mom in general. Chantelle is getting impatient in trying to convince Liam

that he cannot change Jean to be a good person by aggressively yelling to

Liam and utters, “She's a fucking crazy lost wee soul and she's gonnae

ruin you too!” Yet, it does not make Liam being convinced by her words,

it just drives him mad even more to her because Liam thinks that she is

just bad-talking about their mom to him.

Fucking A is an extremely offensive swearing expression used for

emphasizing the thing that someone is saying, especially to show anger.

Meanwhile, crazy lost wee soul, derived from the term ‘lost soul’, is a

term referred to someone who has no direction in his or her life and unable

to cope with everyday life. The phrase ‘fucking crazy lost wee soul’ in this
 116

conversation belongs to emphatic swearing type. To make it specifics, it is

also functioned as personal insult referring to identified entity. ‘Fucking

crazy lost wee soul’ belongs to emphatic swearing because it is underline

and emphasizes the point that the speaker wants it to convey. It is

functioned as ‘personal insult referring to identified entity’ because

Chantelle used it as a mean of personal insult referring to Jean as the

identified individual.

Chantelle uses angry tone in informal with serious manner when

employs the swearing phrase ‘fucking crazy lost wee soul’. The phrase is

used by Chantelle as a mean of derogatory to describe Jean as forlorn

person. The use of the term fucking, according to the scale of offence of

swearing words by British National Corpus, is supposed to be strongly

offensive.

Chantelle is Liam’s older sister and they are family. They know

each other very well and are close with each other, so their relationship is

intimate and high in solidarity. Although Chantelle and Liam come from

working class background in United Kingdom, their social status is not

equal to each other since Chantelle is older than the school dropout Liam,

is attending school, and have a stable job. When Chantelle employs the

utterance, “She's a fucking crazy lost wee soul and she's gonnae ruin you

too!” to make Liam realize that Jean is not a good mom to be with, Liam

seems to be enraged by Chantelle’s rude insult about their mom and

accusing Chantelle as being the one who drives Jean back to Stan. In short,
 117

it can be concluded that Liam takes Chantelle’s insults about Jean as very

offensive since they are in the middle of quarreling with each other. The

fact that Jean is their mom also makes it really inappropriate thing to do by

Chantelle to refer their mom dad as ‘fucking crazy lost wee soul’.

4.5. Emphatic-Reclaimed Usage

Data: no fucking junkies (143/00:52:43)

Context:

Liam and Pinball are hanging out together in the town after out of

Tony’s bar. They are sitting together in a bench park, and talking about

expanding the gear business that they run together. Liam and Tony have a

discussion in the bar before, and Tony asks Liam to have a partnership

with them in dealing drugs. Liam is explaining to Pinball about the

situation they are in.

Liam : The more we sell, the bigger our cut -

like a business.

They want reliable dealers. No fucking

junkies that are using and not selling.

We're dealing now.

Pinball : What happens when it runs out?

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Type: Emphatic Swearing → Reclaimed Usage

Data Interpretation:

Liam is explaining to Pinball that Tony wants to work with them

because they seem like reliable dealers. Liam believes that they are

capable of being Tony’s business partner since they are not junkies that are

only using and not selling. He puts an emphasis in the term ‘junkies’ with

a ‘fucking’ because he wants Pinball to give his utterance the attention

that will make Pinball takes his words seriously.

Fucking A is a rude swearing expression which is commonly used

for emphasis or to express anger, annoyance, contempt or surprise.

Meanwhile, a junkie is a term to refer a person who cannot stop taking

illegal drugs. The phrase ‘no fucking junkies’ in this context situation is

classified as emphatic swearing type and functioned as reclaimed usage. It

belongs to emphatic swearing because the phrase ‘no fucking junkies’ in

this context is employed by Liam in a forceful or definite way. The word

fucking in ‘no fucking junkies’ is specified as ‘reclaimed usage’ because

the speaker means no negative intent in employing it to the hearer.

Liam’s tone when employs the emphatic swearing phrase ‘no

fucking junkies’ in the utterance,‘No fucking junkies that are using and

not selling,’ is normal tone and in informal with casual manner. The

offensiveness rate of the term fucking, according to the scale of offence of

swearing words provided by British National Corpus, is supposed to be

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strongly offensive. Yet, the swearing expression of ‘fucking’ in ‘no

fucking junkies’ which is used by Liam to refer a person addicted to drugs

is not a mean of derogatory, but rather a casual word used to emphasize his

statement. In short, it can be concluded that the term fucking in this

context situation is considered as casual and with no mean to offence at

all.

4.6. Emphatic-Religious Oath used for Emphasis

Data: I fucking swear to God! (280/01:33:43)

Context:

Liam is very mad with Chantelle because he assumes that her sister

is the one who makes his mother leaves the flat. Liam tried to go after his

mom but Chantelle keeps blocking his way, and she even hides Liam’s

shoe and trainer so that Liam cannot go from the flat. Liam is very angry

about Chantelle’s behavior to the point that he physically abuses Chantelle

by strangling her down to the floor.

Liam : Fucking shut up.

Chantelle : Liam! Liam, don't!

Liam : You fucking poisoned wee cow, Chantelle!

I fucking swear to God! I fucking swear!

Look at me.
 120

By the time I get back, you better

be out of here. Do you hear me?!

Type: Emphatic Swearing → Religious Oath used for

Emphasis

Data Interpretation:

Chantelle is involved in an intense argument with her little brother

Liam about their mom. At first Liam is being patient with Chantelle but

she keeps refusing to let Liam go when he tried to go out and gets his mom

back. Liam finally reaches his limit when Chantelle refuses to give up the

shoe that Liam needs to wear to be able to go out. Liam loses his temper

and furiously choking Chantelle down to the floor and verbally abuses her

by saying, “You fucking poisoned wee cow, Chantelle! I fucking swear to

God! I fucking swear!” Being treated horribly by her little brother makes

Chantelle feels very sad and heartbroken. Chantelle keeps crying

miserably while she lies down the floor.

Fucking A is an offensive swearing expression used to express

anger, annoyance, exasperation, frustration, or surprise. Meanwhile,

‘swear to God’ as in the utterance, ‘I fucking swear to God’ means that the

speaker wants to make a sincere oath to God regarding a certain situation.

As in this case, phrase ‘I fucking swear to God’ is classified as emphatic

swearing type. At the same time, it is also specified into ‘religious oath

used for emphasis’ category. It belongs to emphatic swearing because the

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word ‘fucking’ in the utterance ‘I fucking swear to God’ is used to

emphasize the utterance in a whole. It also belongs to ‘religious oath used

for emphasis’ subtype because the term ‘swear to God’ employed in the

conversation is a religious oath used as an interjection of exasperation.

Liam utters the emphatic swearing expression of ‘I fucking swear

to God’ in furious tone with serious and informal manner. It is used to

express exasperation and Liam’s attitude is being very mad about

Chantelle’s disrespectful behavior towards his mom. In the scale of

offence of swearing words, British National Corpus classifies the word

fucking as strongly offensive. Meanwhile, the offensiveness rate for the

word God is very mild.

Chantelle and Liam are siblings who do know each other very well

and their relationship is intimate with high in solidarity. However, their

social status is not equal to each other because Chantelle is the elder in the

family and is superior to Liam, the youngest one in the family. When Liam

drops the ‘I fucking swear to God’ to show his exasperation about

Chantelle’s annoying behavior, Chantelle does not shut up and keeps

arguing with Liam’s word while crying and being physically harassed by

Liam. It is shows that she is very sad and feeling offended by Liam’s

horrible words directed to her. In short, it can be concluded that the level

of offensiveness rate of Liam’s furious swearing expression that he

employs directed to Chantelle as a mean to abuse her is very strong. It is

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because the conversation between them happens when they are in intense

argument and not in a good term with each other.

5. Cathartic Swearing

5.1. Cathartic-Adverbial Booster

Data: fucking hell. (8/00:03:39)

Context:

The utterance is said by the policeman when he is arguing with the

truck driver who broke his motorcycle. He blames the truck driver for not

using the mirror of the truck properly while driving his truck. Yet, the

truck driver does not want to take the blame because the policeman parked

his motorcycle in a gateway, and he cannot see it from the mirror’s truck.

Policeman : Don't you use your fucking mirrors?

Truck Driver : How am I suppose to see that?

Policeman : Fucking hell. Look at the state of it!

Truck Driver : It's a fucking gateway!

Type: Cathartic Swearing → Adverbial Booster

Data Interpretation:
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The policeman angrily yells ‘fucking hell’ because he is very

surprised when he sees his broken motorcycle. He complains to the truck

driver for ruining his motorcycle because the truck driver is not being

careful in driving his truck. The truck driver, however, keeps trying to

defend himself because the policeman is also deserves to be blamed in this

situation since he does not park his motorcycle in the right place.

Fucking hell is a vulgar slang which is commonly used as an

exclamation of great surprise or as an exclamation of anger. As in this

case, the word fucking hell is categorized as cathartic swearing type. It

belongs to cathartic swearing type because the speaker place emphasis on

the utterance and engage in catharsis. At the same time, it is also classified

as adverbial booster in its whole utterance. It functioned as adverbial

booster because the term fucking in ‘fucking hell’ gives additional

emotional context to the word it modifies.

The policeman utters the term ‘fucking hell’ in furious tone in

formal and serious manner, since he is in the middle of doing his job. It is

used to express surprise and anger, while the policeman’s attitude is being

pessimistic about the condition of his motorcycle. In their scale of offence

of swearing words, BNC classifies the word fucking as strongly offensive.

The use of fucking in an utterance to emphasize an angry statement is

impolite and offensive because it is generally used as damnation.

The policeman and the truck driver are strangers who do not know

each other in person, so their relationship is distant and low in solidarity.

 124

Their social status is not equal to each other because the policeman holds a

better job than the truck driver. It makes the policeman is superior to the

truck driver. When the policeman drops the ‘fucking hell’ swearing

expression directed to the truck driver as an expression of anger and

surprise, the truck driver keeps answering the policeman and does not

want to be the only one who deserves to be blamed. In short, it can be

concluded that the truck driver takes the swearing expression of ‘fucking

hell’ by the policemen which is directed to him as an offensive because he

keeps defending himself and does not want to be the one who is in charge

of the mess that happens.

5.2. Cathartic-Cursing Expletive

Data: Fuck your caravan. (87b/00:41:37)

Context:

The dialogue occurs between Liam and Pinball in front of the

windows of Pinball’s flat. Liam is telling Pinball about how they should

cut off Jay’s customers and turning them as their gear customer. He is

afraid of losing his dream caravan to other person, so he needs to make a

lot of money as soon as possible. Yet, Pinball seems like he does not care

about the caravan at all because he is more afraid of getting caught by Jay

for messing up with his drug customers.

Liam : I could lose the fucking caravan, man!

Pinball : Fuck your caravan.

 125

Liam : You know what? Fuck you. I'll do it myself.

Type: Cathartic Swearing → Cursing Expletive

Data Interpretation:

Liam is trying to convince Pinball to help him in cutting off Jay’s

customers so that he can save the caravan from being bought by others.

Pinball however, does not care that much about the caravan and gets

annoyed with Liam’s over-enthusiasm in buying the caravan, so he

employs the swearing expression, “fuck your caravan” directed to Liam.

As a response, Liam reacted emotionally, and seems disappointed by

Pinball’s harsh words because he swears back to Pinball by employs ‘fuck

you’ and says that he can do his plan without Pinball.

Fuck is an extremely offensive swearing expression used to

express anger or annoyance with someone or about something. The phrase

‘fuck your caravan’ in this context situation is classified as cathartic

swearing type and is functioned as cursing expletive at the same time.

‘Fuck your caravan’ belongs to cathartic swearing type because the

speaker used it in the utterance to place emphasis and to engage in

catharsis. The word fuck here means to not being care about the caravan

because Pinball is so fed up with Liam’s ambition in owning it. It is also

categorized as cursing expletive, since the phrase ‘fuck your caravan’ is a

cursing expression that being functioned to express strong emotion when

the speaker is angry, annoyed, or in pain.

 126

Pinball employs the phrase ‘fuck your caravan’ in annoyed tone

and in informal but serious manner. Pinball used it to express annoyance

with showing anger because Liam being overly ambitious in trying to

reach his goal. According to BNC’s scale of offence of swearing words,

the use of the phrase ‘fuck your caravan’ as an expression used when

angry or annoyed is considered as strongly offensive.

Pinball and Liam are best friends, are in the same age, and know

each other since a long time, so their relationship is intimate and their

social status is equal to each other. When Pinball employs the swearing

expression ‘fuck your caravan’ to Liam as a way to tell Liam to stop

being so overly ambitious about his goal, Liam’s reaction is being enraged

by Pinball’s harsh word. It is because the caravan means everything to

him, but Pinball acts as if he does not care about the thing that very

important for him at all. According to Liam’s reaction about Pinball’s

swearing expression directed to him, it can be concluded that Liam takes

Pinball’s expletive cursing as strongly offensive.

5.3. Cathartic-Emphatic Adverb

Data: fucking shut up! (35/00:24:25)

Context:

The conversation occurs between Liam and Pinball in Pinball’s

flat. They are standing near the window and playing with Pinball’s
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binoculars. Pinball is looking through his flat’s surrounding using his

binoculars, when he suddenly sees Stan and Liam’s grandfather walking

out from Stan’s house. He says to Liam, who is standing beside him in

front of the window, that he sees Liam’s dad and grandpa.

Pinball : There's your da and your grandpa.

Liam : He's not my fucking dad!

Pinball : Stan. Sorry, mate. He could be your dad.

Liam : Fucking shut up!

Pinball : Fucking arsehole.

Type: Cathartic Swearing → Emphatic Adverb

Data Interpretation:

Pinball is teasing Liam by referring Stan as Liam’s dad. Stan is

Liam’s mom boyfriend and Liam hates him so much because he makes

Liam’s mom ended up being in prison. Pinball is just joking with Liam but

Liam takes it too seriously. That is why he yells to Pinball and telling him

to ‘fucking shut up’ as a way to express his annoyance.

Fucking A is a rude swearing expression which generally used to

express anger, contempt, annoyance, and surprise or used for emphasis. As

in this context situation, the phrase ‘fucking shut up’ is categorized as

cathartic swearing type. The swearing expression of ‘fucking shut up’ is

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classified into cathartic swearing type because Liam employs it to express

his emotion or feelings clearly and forcibly. At the same time, it also

belongs to emphatic adverb in its whole utterance. It is functioned as

emphatic adverb because the term ‘fucking’ in‘fucking shut up’ gives

added force to the word ‘shut up’ and to the utterance as a whole.

Liam utters the cathartic swearing expression of ‘fucking shut up’

in annoyed tone with serious and informal manner. It is used to express

annoyance, and Liam’s attitude is irritated about being teased by Pinball.

In the scale of offence of swearing words provided by BNC, the word

fucking is classified as strongly offensive.

Liam and Pinball’s relationship is intimate and high in solidarity

because they are best friend for a long time. Their social status is equal to

each other, since both of them are school dropout and running illegal

business together. When Liam employs the swearing expression of

‘fucking shut up’ as a way to express his annoyance, Pinball is just

casually laughing without feeling sorry because he makes Liam offended

by his joke. Pinball then just casually moves on with another topic to be

talked with Liam. Pinball’s verbal and non-verbal gestures show that he is

not offended by Liam’s swearing expression directed to him. In short, it is

clear that Pinball does not take the word ‘fucking’ in this context situation

as offensive at all.
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5.4. Cathartic-General Expletive

Data: Fuck (34a/00:11:31)

Context:

Stan is stopping his car in a random street, and forcess Liam to go

out of the car and gives Stan the gear in him. Liam’s grandfather is also

helping Stan in trying to make Liam giving up the gear to them. Yet, Liam

decided to throws away the gear to the bush which is surrounded by high

fence. It makes Stan and his grandpa gets very angry to him and harasses

him verbally and physically.

Stan : I'll break your legs, you wee cunt!

It never went as far as that.

Liam’s grandpa : Fuck, he threw it over the fence there.

Ah, you bastard!

Stan : For fuck's sake!

A fucking Laurel and Hardy fucking family!

Type: Cathartic Swearing → General Expletive

Data Interpretation:

Liam’s grandfather is trying to climb over the high fence and

searches the gear that being thrown away by Liam. Stan thinks that the
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gear will not being thrown as far as the place that Liam’s grandfather tried

to reach, but Liam’s grandpa sees it by his own two eye that Liam throws

the gear over the fence and it possibly landed inside the bush. When he

explained it to Stan, Liam’s grandfather employs ‘Fuck’ as an exclamation

and as an expression to show anger.

Fuck is a vulgar swearword means to express a strong emotion

such as annoyance, contempt, impatience and etc. The word fuck in this

utterance is cathartic swearing type, and its function in the conversation is

as a general expletive. ‘Fuck’ in this context situation belongs to cathartic

type because it is used by the speaker to engage in catharsis and to place

emphasis on the words he says. This ‘fuck’ is classified as general

expletive swearing subtype because it belongs to the major parts of

swearing in general, and is used to give emphasis or to indicate tense.

The tone that Liam’s granddad uses in yelling the phrase ‘fuck’ is

furious tone, and in informal with serious manner. Liam’s granddad utters

it as a way to express anger with showing annoyed attitude because Liam

is throwing the gear over the fence. According to British National Corpus,

the scale of offence of the word fuck is strong. It is considered as rude and

offensive word to employ.

The relationship of the speaker and the hearer in this context is

family but distant and low in solidarity because they hate each other. Their

social status is not equal to each other because Liam’s granddad holds a

higher social status in the family compared to Liam. This makes Liam’s
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granddad status as superior to Liam. When Liam’s granddad yells the

cathartic swearing expression of ‘fuck’ out of anger to Liam as a way to

blame him, Liam’s gesture shows that he is mad with both Stan and his

grandfather. Even if the status of Liam’s granddad is superior to Liam,

Liam does not have a respect for him and he insults his grandfather back

with rude words. Based on the way of Liam deals with the confrontation, it

can be concluded that Liam take the swearing fuck employed by his

grandfather that being directed to him as strongly offensive.

5.5. Cathartic-Imagery Based on Literal Meaning

Data: My arse! (118/00:47:20)

Context:

The conversation happens between Pinball and Liam. They were

hanging out near their neighborhood and talking about a girl named

Suzanne. Pinball is having a crush on her. Suzanne is a college friend of

Chantelle, Liam’s older sister. Pinball does not have any guts to ask

Suzanne out, and he is just pretending to call Suzanne with his phone in

front of Liam.

Liam : You fucking prick. My arse!

She sent me a text.

She wants a date with me.

 132

Type: Cathartic Swearing → Imagery Based on Literal

Meaning

Data Interpretation:

Liam is getting impatient with Pinball’s cowardice. What he can do

is just acting of calling Suzanne on the phone but never really calls her.

Liam is feeling so done with him and mocks him by saying, “You fucking

prick. My arse!” Liam’s mockery is being ignored completely by Pinball

because he keeps playing with his phone.

My arse is a British vulgar slang which is commonly used to

convey that one does not believe in thing that has just been said. The

utterance ‘My arse!’ in this context situation belongs to cathartic swearing

type. Besides that, it also belongs to imagery based on literal meaning as

its swearing subtype. The swearing expression of ‘my arse’ in the

conversation belongs to cathartic swearing because it is employed by Liam

to place emphasis in his words and to engage in catharsis. ‘My arse’ is

also classified into ‘imagery based on literal meaning’ because this

swearing expression uses figurative language to represent action that

creates visual representation of the action in the hearer’s mind.

The tone of Liam when he utters the swearing expression ‘my

arse’ is impatient tone and in formal with mocking manner. It is used to

express disbelief with showing irritation, since Liam’s attitude is being so

done with Pinball’s cowardice. According to the scale of offence of

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swearing words provided by British National Corpus, the term arse in ‘my

arse’ is considered as mildly offensive.

Liam and Pinball are in the same age and are friends with each

other. They do know each other in personal and it makes their relationship

status is intimate and high in solidarity. Their social status is also equal to

each other, since they are school drop-out teenager who sells illegal things.

While Liam employs the rude swearing expression ‘my arse’, Pinball’s

gesture shows that he is ignoring Liam and does not take his words

personally. His non-verbal gesture shows that Pinball does not take the

utterance ‘you fucking prick. My arse!’ from Liam as mildly offensive,

but rather casual because they are close and usually take it casual about

things like that.

5.6. Cathartic-Premodifying Intensifying Negative Adjective

Data: Fucking idiot (30/00:11:10)

Context:

Stan is asking Liam to hand him back the gear but instead of giving

it back to the Stan, Liam throws it away over the fence. It drives Stan

furious and beat Liam’s body mercilessly. He is asking Liam to get the

gear back while continues verbally and physically harassing him without

mercy. Liam’s grandpa, however, is in a confusing situation about who he

needs to take side in because he is Stan’s partner, but he is also Liam’s

grandfather.
 134

Stan : You little fucker!

Liam’s grandpa : Don't hit him in the face. His fucking ma

will see it. You fucking idiot!

Fucking idiot.

Type: Cathartic Swearing → Premodifying Intensifying

Negative Adjective

Data Interpretation:

Liam’s grandfather seems like he does not like Liam that much

because he is helping Stan in beating Liam physically. Yet, he still has a

soft spot for him because he tried to save him from being badly beaten by

Stan. He asked Stan not to beat Liam’s face because Jean will complain

about it if she sees Liam’s face. He employs the utterance ‘fucking idiot’

directed to Liam as a way to blame Liam for being the cause of his own

misfortune.

The phrase ‘fucking idiot’ is a rude slang which refer to someone

who has no sufficiently assessed a situation and takes actions with the

effect of putting people at significant risk. The phrase ‘fucking idiot’ in

this context situation belongs to cathartic swearing type. It is functioned as

premodifying intensifying negative adjective in the utterance as a whole. It

belongs to cathartic swearing because it is used by Liam’s grandfather to

put an emphasis in his words. ‘Fucking idiot’ also belong to

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‘premodifying intensifying negative adjective’ swearing categorization

because the word fucking in ‘fucking idiot’ is used to premodify and

intensify the meaning of the word ‘idiot’ which is a negative adjective.

The tone used by Liam’s grandfather in employs the utterance

‘fucking idiot’ is angry tone and in informal with serious manner. The

phrase ‘fucking idiot’ is used to express blame with showing anger, since

the speaker’s attitude, Liam’s grandfather, is enraged about Liam’s

rebellion. According to the scale of offence of swearing words provided by

British National Corpus, the term fucking as in the phrase ‘fucking idiot’

is considered as strongly offensive. Meanwhile, the level of offensiveness

rate for the term ‘idiot’ is very mild.

Liam and Liam’s grandfather are family. They already know each

other very well, but they are not close with each other, and it makes their

relationship status distant and low in solidarity. And since Liam is his

grandson, Liam’s social status is subordinate, and his status is superior to

Liam. At the time Liam’s granddad employs the cathartic swearing

expression ‘fucking idiot’ to blame Liam for the wrong things that happen

between them and Stan, Liam’s is running away from the place with

insulting them as he walks. Based on Liam’s gestures, it is clear that Liam

takes his grandfather’s rude swearing expression as offensive for him.

5.7. Cathartic-Pronominal Form with Undefined Referent

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Data: what the fuck (259/01:17:11)

Context:

Pinball and Liam are getting distant since Liam decided to do

partnership with Tony in dealing drugs. Pinball is distancing himself from

Liam because he hates Tony so much but Liam is on Tony’s side. Pinball

also feels that Liam likes to make fun of him when he is getting in trouble

with Tony and his sidekicks. He decided to cut his relationship off with

Liam and takes revenge to Tony. Tony is enraged by the mess that Pinball

made as revenge to him, and he asks Liam to do Pinball in. Liam then tried

to search Pinball’s new apartment with the intention to have a talk with

him, but things goes wrong.

Pinball : A bit of this, eh?

Liam : What the fuck are you doing?

Pinball : And another one!

Do you see what you've done?

Liam : What the fuck you doing, man?

Give me the knife. Give me the knife.

Type: Cathartic Swearing → Pronominal Form with Undefined

Referent

Data Interpretation:
 137

Liam founds Pinball in his new apartment when he is playing with

his new friends. Liam asks Pinball’s new friend to leave both of them

alone because he wants to have serious talk with Pinball. He just wants to

have a talk with Pinball but Pinball thinks that Liam comes over to his new

flat just to hurt him because he burned Liam’s caravan. Pinball hand over a

knife to Liam because he thinks Liam needs it to hurt him but Liam does

not want to take it. Pinball uses it to hurt himself in front of Liam because

he thinks that is what Liam is going to do to him. Yet, Liam has no

intention of hurting Pinball, which is why he yells, “What the fuck are

you doing,” because he has no idea about what Pinball is doing by hurting

his own face.

‘What the fuck’ is an interrogative vulgar slang and an intensive

form of what which used to express astonishment, disbelief, incredulity, or

shock. The phrase ‘what the fuck’ in this context situation is classified as

cathartic swearing type and specified as pronominal form with undefined

referent. It is cathartic swearing because the phrase ‘what the fuck’ here is

used by the speaker to make his utterance engage in catharsis. ‘What the

fuck’ in this context is specified as ‘pronominal form with undefined

referent’ because the phrase ‘the fuck’ in ‘what the fuck’ is functioned as

a pronoun and is referred to no particular thing.

The tone that Liam’s use in employs the cathartic swearing

expression ‘what the fuck’ in the utterance “What the fuck are you

doing?” is shocked tone and in informal with serious manner. The

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swearing expression of ‘what the fuck’ in the previously mentioned

conversation is used by Liam to express disbelief about thing that Pinball

do to himself. The term is supposedly to be an offensive slang because

British National Corpus classifies the offensiveness level of term fuck as

‘strong’ in their scale of offence of swearing words.

Liam and Pinball’s relationship status in this context situation is

distant and low in solidarity because they are no longer being friends with

each other. Their social status is still equal to each other because they are

in the same age and both of them come from working class background in

Scotland. When Liam utters “What the fuck are you doing?” to scold

Pinball and stopping him from hurting his own face with a knife, Pinball is

being angry and emotional about it because he thinks this is what Liam

going to do to him when he is coming over to his new flat. In short, it can

be concluded that Pinball take Liam’s F-word as offensive since there are

miscommunication between them who drives them apart and makes them

hate each other.

5.8. Cathartic-Personal Insult Referring to Identified Entity

Data: Fuck, you stupid bastard (262/01:17:43)

Context:

The conversation occurs between Pinball and Liam in Pinball’s

new flat. Pinball is moving out from his old flat since he gets into trouble

with Tony and no longer stays friend with Liam. Liam founds Pinball’s
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new flat and founds him when he is playing with his peers. Pinball thinks

that Liam is coming over to his new flat just to ruin him. Pinball is ruining

his own face with a knife because Liam refuses to take the knife and do

Pinball in by using it. Liam gets very shocked by Pinball extreme action

and tried to stop him and gets him some help.

Liam : Fuck, you stupid bastard.

Let me see your face, you stupid...

Pinball : You were gonna do it.

Liam : I wasnaegonna do anything.

Stupid bastard.

Type: Cathartic Swearing → Personal Insult Referring to

Identified Entity

Data Interpretation:

Pinball is ruining his own face and Liam feels so sorry about it. He

is so upset about the situation they are in, and blames Pinball for his

reckless action by saying ‘Fuck, you stupid bastard.’ Liam feels sad and

sorry about what happens to Pinball because of the misunderstanding that

happens between them. He explains to Pinball that he just comes over

because he wants to have a talk with him and not to hurt him.
 140

Fuck is a vulgar word which is commonly used to denote disdain

or as an intensifier to express annoyance, contempt or impatience.

Meanwhile, bastard is an offensive term which used as a generalized term

of abuse to refer a person as despicable or unpleasant. It is a vulgar word

that some people use as an insult to a particular person who has behaved

very badly. The utterance “Fuck, you stupid bastard.” in this conversation

belongs to cathartic swearing type. Moreover, it is functioned as personal

insult referring to identified entity. It belongs to cathartic swearing because

Liam use the word ‘fuck’ here to make his words engage in catharsis.

‘Fuck, you stupid bastard’ is specified as ‘personal insult referring to

identified entity’ because in the conversation, Liam employs it as a mean

of personal insult referring to Pinball as the identified individual.

Liam uses angry tone in informal with upset manner when employs

the cathartic swearing expression of ‘fuck, you stupid bastard’ in the

previously mentioned conversation. This swearing expression is used by

Liam as an expression of the feeling of sad and sorry about the situation

that Pinball is in. The use of the term fuck, according to the scale of

offence of swearing words by British National Corpus, is supposed to be

strongly offensive; meanwhile the level of offensiveness rate for the term

bastard is moderately offensive.

Pinball and Liam used to be close friend in the past. Even if they

used to know each other very well, their friendship is over so their

relationship turns into distant and low in solidarity. Even so, their social
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status is equal to each other because they both come from working class

background in Scotland. When Liam employs, ‘fuck, you stupid bastard’

to express his sad and sorry feeling and to scold Pinball for doing stupid

thing to himself, Pinball does not say anything to respond Liam. Pinball is

currently in physical pain, but he still thinks that his relationship with

Liam is over, and they hate each other. In short, it can be concluded that in

this context situation, Pinball does not feel offended by Liam’s insult word

that being directed to him, even if they are no longer as close as they used

to. It is because Pinball is more focused on the current physical pain that

he is in rather than focused on to react to the situation.

5.9. Cathartic-Reclaimed Usage

Data: Bastards (4b/00:02:55)

Context:

Liam and Pinball are walking around the town for selling cheap

cigarettes. They meet Side-Kick when they are walking down the street

together. Side-Kick is one of their friends who also sell cigarettes around

the town. Every one of them brings a big bag full of cigarettes. Liam and

Pinball’s bag are empty because their cigarettes sell well. On the other

hand, Side-Kick’s bag is still full, and he offers Liam and Pinball to take

some of it. When they are walking together along the street, they see a

policeman across the street and feeling threatened by his presence because

they are doing illegal things.

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Pinball : Magic. Empty bag.Empty bag.

Side-Kick : Do you want this load?

Shit. It's the coppers.

Liam : Bastards.

Type: Cathartic Swearing → Reclaimed Usage

Data Interpretation:

Side-kicks see a policeman across the road they are walking in and

telling Liam and Pinball about it. At the moment, the policeman is

stopping some of Liam and Pinball’s fag customer and has a talk to them.

Being anxious that the police will find them and arrests them, Liam

employs ‘Bastards’ to refer the bad situation they are in.

Bastards, as in the British context such in the previously

mentioned conversation, is an offensive swearing expression which can be

used to refer to a difficult or awkward undertaking or situation. ‘Bastards’

in this context situation is classified as cathartic swearing type and

functioned as reclaimed usage in the utterance as a whole. It belongs to

cathartic swearing because the term ‘bastards’ in this context helps Liam

as the speaker to express and get rid of strong emotion, and use it to

engage in catharsis. The utterance ‘Bastards’ is specified as ‘reclaimed

usage’ because Liam as the speaker means no negative intent in employing

it to Pinball and Side-Kick as the hearers.

 143

Liam’s tone when employs the cathartic swearing expression

‘bastards’ is normal tone and in informal with serious manner. The

offensiveness rate of term bastard, according to the scale of offence of

swearing words provided by British National Corpus, is supposed to be

moderately offensive. Yet, the swearing expression of ‘bastard’ in the

conversation which is used by Liam to refer to the difficult situation they

are in, is not a mean of derogatory but rather a casual word used to

emphasize his statement. In short, it can be concluded that the term

bastards in this context situation is considered as casual and with no mean

to offence anyone at all.

5.10. Cathartic-Religious Oath used for Emphasis

Data: Christ (12/00:04:26)

Context:

Stan, Liam, and Liam’s grandfather are in their way to visit Jean,

Liam’s mom, in prison. Stan is scolding Liam because he comes home late

when they supposed to go to the prison punctually at a particular time.

Stan is very mad at Liam because they ended up going to the prison late

and will have a little time to talk with Jean in the visitation room later on.

Stan : Christ, look at the time.

Do you know what time it is, eh?

Do you know what time it is?

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Type : Cathartic Swearing → Religious Oath used for

Emphasis

Data Interpretation:

Stan employs the utterance, ‘Christ, look at the time.’ to Liam as a

way to express his impatience and anger towards Liam’s rude and impolite

behavior to Stan and Liam’s grandpa. He keeps asking rhetorical question

to Liam by saying, ‘Do you know what time it is, eh? Do you know what

time it is? We're late! That's what the time is, you little prick.’ He says that

to Liam to scold him and with the hope that Liam will acknowledge his

mistake and says sorry.

Christ is a mild oath in the form of exclamation which is used to

express irritation, dismay, or surprise. As in this context situation, the word

‘Christ’ is classified as cathartic swearing type. At the same time, it is also

categorized into ‘religious oath used for emphasis’ swearing subtype. It

belongs to ‘cathartic-religious oath used for emphasis’ swearing

expression because the term Christ in the conversation above is a religious

oath used as an interjection of exasperation.

Stan utters the idiomatic swearing expression of ‘Christ’ in

impatient tone with serious and informal manner. It is used to express

annoyance and impatience, with Stan’s attitude is being angry about Liam

being the cause of them coming late to the prison visitation session. In the
 145

scale of offence of swearing words, British National Corpus classifies the

word Christ as mildly offensive.

Stan and Liam are practically related with each other and know

each other very well, but do not get along with each other, so their

relationship is distant with low in solidarity. Their social status is not equal

to each other because even if they are both coming from working class

people in Northern England, Stan is Liam’s mom boyfriend and holds the

position as a dad in Liam’s family. Meanwhile Liam, he is a teenager,

school dropout, and is the youngest son in the family. It makes Liam status

is subordinate and Stan status is superior to Liam. When Stan drops the

swearing expression of ‘Christ’ to show his anger and annoyance towards

Liam’s bad behavior, Liam just keep silent and making a facial expression

which shows that he is repressing his anger towards Stan. In short, it is

clear that Liam takes Stan’s rude words as mildly offensive, but he chooses

to not showing it and just let it pass.

6. Name-calling Swearing

6.1. Name-calling-Adverbial Booster

Data: you stupid wee fucking arsehole! (215/01:08:03)

Context:

Liam’s caravan for Jean is burned by someone and Liam assumed

that it is being burned by Stan. Liam is trying to find Stan in Liam’s

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grandfather house because Stan used to live there with the grandpa and

with Jean. Liam is trying to barge through the door with knocking it

furiously, but his grandpa refuses to open the door for him. His grandpa

says that Stan does not live in there anymore. Because Liam’s grandpa

does not allow Liam to go search Stan inside the house, they end up

involved in intense argument between the door and insulting each other.

Liam’s granddad : See you, you monkey wee cunt!

You wait till I get hold of you!

You stupid wee fucking arsehole!

You just wait till I get hold of you!

You skinny wee cunt you!

A fucking mess you've made here!

Type: Name-calling Swearing → Adverbial Booster

Data Interpretation:

Liam finally gives up in trying to get into his grandfather’s house

to search Stan. He leaves his granddad’s apartment and tried to go find

Stan somewhere else. On the way leaving the apartment complex, Liam’s

grandfather keep insults Liam by calling him with rude and vulgar names.

Liam’s grandfather is very angry and yells ‘you stupid wee fucking
 147

arsehole!’ from his apartment room because Liam throws a rock to his

window and broke its glass into pieces.

Stupid is a term refers to a person who have or show a great lack of

intelligence or common sense. Fucking is a very rude word which is used

by some people as a way to emphasize a word or phrase in an utterance,

especially when they are feeling angry or annoyed. Arsehole or asshole is a

British offensive and impolite word to refer someone as an annoying or

stupid person. The utterance, ‘you stupid wee fucking arsehole!’

according to the context situation is classified as name-calling swearing

type and functioned as adverbial booster. The utterance, ‘you stupid wee

fucking arsehole!’ belongs to name-calling swearing because the speaker

using abusive names such as stupid and arsehole to belittle or humiliate

the hearer in an argument. At the same time, it is also classified as

adverbial booster in the utterance as a whole. It belongs to adverbial

booster swearing subtype because the term fucking in ‘you stupid wee

fucking arsehole!’ is used to intensify the word ‘arsehole’ as an insult and

to give additional emotional context to the word ‘arsehole’ that it

modifies.

Liam’s grandfather utters the name-calling swearing expression of

‘you stupid wee fucking arsehole!’ in angry tone with serious and

informal manner. It is used to express anger emotion and the grandpa’s

attitude is holding grudge to Liam because he breaks his window glass and

leave a mess in his apartment room. In its scale of offence of swearing

 148

words, British National Corpus categorized the word fucking as strongly

offensive, while the offensiveness rate for word arsehole is considered as

moderate.

Liam and Liam’s grandfather are family who personally know each

other but do not get along that well, and it makes their relationship status

become distant and low in solidarity. Both of them are working class

people from Scotland, but their social status is not equal to each other

because Liam’s grandfather is older and the granddad of the family so his

status is superior to Liam. When Liam’s granddad drop the name-calling

swearing expression of ‘you stupid wee fucking arsehole!’ as a personal

insult and to verbally abuse Liam, Liam’s reaction is just casually running

away from the place with laughing and mocking his granddad using body

language. Liam even using non-verbal gesture by showing middle finger

to his granddad that screams ‘fuck you’ to insult him back. In short,

according to Liam’s non-verbal reaction, it can be concluded that Liam’s

does not take his grandfather’s insult as an offensive because he enjoys his

grandpa being mad at him and being entertained by it.

6.2. Name-calling-Imagery Based on Literal Meaning

Data: you cunt (2/00:02:34)

Context:

The conversation happens between Pinball, Liam, and a pub owner.

Liam and Pinball are flogging stuff to the pub they are in, and makes the
 149

owners angry. They are selling cheap cigarettes without asking permission

from the owners, and it is not their first time of doing it there. Liam and

Pinball’s illegal acts in the pub are getting caught by the owners and they

are forced to leave the pub as soon as possible.

Pub’s owner : Out the door, Simon and Garfunkel,

outyouse go!

Liam : Don't get in a strop, you cunt.

Pinball : You want some, eh?

Here's to you, Mrs Robinson.

Type: Name-calling Swearing → Imagery Based on Literal Meaning

Data Interpretation:

Liam and Pinball are offended by Tom and Mrs. Robinson, the

owner of the pub because they disrespectfully force them to leave the pub.

Liam tells the owner not to get in a bad mood because of them and rudely

calling Tom names by employs ‘you cunt’. Pinball is also expressing his

anger towards Mrs. Robinson by showing her his middle finger as ways to

say fuck you.

Cunt is a very offensive vulgar slang used to express contempt to

someone or something. It is also a term that can be used to refer to any

unpleasant or contemptible person. The use of Cunt is still considered as

 150

unacceptable by the majority of people outside very limited social context.

In Northern England, the use of cunt is not only limited to as a mean of

derogatory. Cunt can also be used as a term of endearment or just a mild

rebuke among friends in a specified context. The phrase ‘you cunt’ in this

context situation belongs to name-calling swearing type. Besides that, it is

also classified into ‘imagery based on literal meaning’ as its function in the

utterance as a whole. The swearing expression of ‘you cunt’ in the

conversation belongs to name-calling swearing because Liam as the

speaker using abusive name such as cunt to belittle or humiliate the hearer

in an argument. ‘You cunt’ is also classified into ‘imagery based on literal

meaning’ because this name-calling swearing expression uses figurative

language to represent idea to cause visual representation of the idea in the

hearer’s mind.

Liam’s tone when utters the name-calling swearing expression

‘you cunt’ is annoyed tone and in formal with mocking manner. It is used

to express annoyance with showing anger, since Liam’s attitude is being

angry with the pub owners’ disrespectful treatment to him and Pinball.

According to the scale of offence of swearing words provided by British

National Corpus, the level of offensiveness rate of the term cunt is

considered as very strong.

Liam and Pinball with the pub owners are strangers and do not

personally know each other, so their relationship status is distant and low

in solidarity. Their social status is not equal to each other, since Tom and
 151

Mrs. Robinson are the pub’s owners; meanwhile Liam and Pinball are

school drop-out teenager who sells illegal things. While Liam employs the

rude swearing expression ‘you cunt’, the pub owner’s gesture shows that

he is angry and asks Liam and Pinball to come over to him. His verbal and

non-verbal gesture shows that Tom the pub’s owner take the rude insult

‘you cunt’ from Liam as strongly offensive because they are stranger with

each other, and it is rude and impolite to refer a stranger with a vulgar

insult.

6.3. Name-calling-Premodifying Intensifying Negative Adjective

Data: youfucking dickhead (55/00:24:34)

Context:

The dialogue occurs in Pinball’s flat when Liam and Pinball are

stalking on Stan’s activity using Pinball’s binoculars. Stan is in the middle

of transaction with a drug dealer named Slobodan. Pinball has no idea

about who the man is and asks Liam about him. Liam tells Pinball that the

person who is doing transaction with Stan is a guy named Slobodan.

Pinball still does not know who Slobodan is even after Liam tells him that

his full name is Slobodan McTavish.

Pinball : Who's that?

Liam : That's Slobodan.

Pinball : Who?
 152

Liam : Slobodan McTavish.

Pinball : Who's that?

Liam : Scullion, you fucking dickhead.

Type: Name-calling Swearing → Premodifying Intensifying Negative

Adjective

Data Interpretation:

Liam is getting impatient and annoyed with Pinball by saying,

‘Scullion, you fucking dickhead,’ to him because he keeps asking about

who Slobodan is. It is possibly because Pinball only knows the nickname

of the guy but not his actual full name. When Pinball’s being told by Liam

that the man with Stan is Scullion, he stops asking, and then they move on

to another topic.

Fucking is an offensive swearing expression which is commonly

used for emphasizing what a person is saying, especially to show anger.

Meanwhile, dickhead is a derogatory vulgar slang to particularly refer a

man as a stupid, irritating or ridiculous person. The utterance ‘you fucking

dickhead’ in the conversation belongs to name-calling swearing type and

is functioned as premodifying intensifying negative adjective in the

utterance as a whole. It belongs to name-calling swearing because Liam as

the speaker using abusive name such as dickhead which commonly used

to belittle or humiliate someone’s personal image. ‘You fucking dickhead’

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is also belongs to ‘premodifying intensifying negative adjective’ swearing

subtype because the word fucking in ‘you fucking dickhead’ is used to

premodify and intensify the meaning of the word ‘dickhead’ which is a

negative adjective.

The tone used by Liam in employing the name-calling swearing

expression ‘you fucking dickhead’ to Pinballis impatient tone and in

formal with mocking manner. The swearing expression of ‘you fucking

dickhead’ is used to express annoyance with showing impatience, since

Liam’s attitude is being irritated about Pinball’s silly questions. According

to the scale of offence of swearing words provided by BNC, the term

fucking as in the phrase ‘you fucking dickhead’ is considered as strongly

offensive, meanwhile the term dickhead is classified as mildly offensive.

Liam and Pinball is friend to each other, and they also get along

very well with each other, so their relationship status is intimate and high

in solidarity. And about their social status, it is equal to each other because

both of them are teenager from working class level in Scotland and are

school dropout who sells fags. At the time Liam employs the phrase ‘you

fucking dickhead’ because he is being impatient and annoyed with

Pinball’s annoying question, Pinball does not respond to it and just take it

as a casual thing happens between friend. They then casually moving on

from the previous topic and continue doing their own thing. Based on the

context situation, it can be concluded that Pinball does not take Liam’s

insult as offensive at all.

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6.4. Name-calling-Personal Insult Referring to Identified Entity

Data: you little prick (13/00:04:34)

Context:

Stan is scolding Liam hard on the way they are going to visit Jean

in prison. Stan is scolding Liam because they supposed to go there on time

but Liam come home late. Liam comes home late because he spends his

time out of the home selling cheap cigarettes. Stan and Liam’s grandfather

need Liam to come with them because they already have their own plan in

the prison visitation time later, but Liam messed it up by coming home

late.

Stan : Do you know what time it is, eh?

Do you know what time it is?

We're late! That's what the time is,

you little prick.

Liam’s grandfather : What did I tell you? Do you never listen?

Where were you?

Liam : Out.

Type: Name-calling Swearing → Personal Insult Referring to

Identified Entity
 155

Data Interpretation:

Stan is so mad with the fact that Liam is out there ruining his

important plan in the prison visitation time later. Stan is trying to keep

angrily talking to him, but it seems like Liam does not listen to Stan

complaining about him being late. That what makes Stan getting angrier

and says, “We're late! That's what the time is, you little prick,” to Liam to

make him reflects on the mistake he made. Liam’s grandfather is also

helping Stan in scolding Liam, but Liam just keep acts like he is too lazy

to listen and does not care about what they are saying to him.

Prick, a vulgar term for penis, is a pejorative word used to refer to

a contemptible or despicable individual. It also means to offensively refer

someone as worthless asshole. As in this context situation, the phrase ‘you

little prick’ belongs to name-calling swearing type. To make it more

specific, it is also functioned as personal insult referring to identified

entity. ‘You little prick’ belongs to name-calling swearing because Stan as

the speaker using abusive name in an argument such as prick to Liam as a

way to belittle or humiliate Liam’s personal image as the hearer. ‘You little

prick’ belongs to ‘personal insult referring to identified entity’

categorization because Stan used it as a mean of personal insult referring

to identified individual, which is being targeted to Liam.

Stan uses angry tone in informal with annoyed manner when

employs the name-calling swearing expression ‘you little prick’ in the

 156

utterance, “We're late! That's what the time is, you little prick.” The phrase

‘you little prick’ is used by Stan as an expression to show anger emotion.

The use of the term prick, according to the scale of offence of swearing

words provided by British National Corpus, is supposed to be moderately

offensive.

Stan and Liam are practically dad and son because Stan is dating

Liam’s mom. Even so, their relationship is distant and low in solidarity

because they hate each other and consider each other as enemy. Both of

them come from working class background in Scotland, but their social

status is not equal to each other because Stan is older than Liam and holds

the higher position in the family than Liam’s position as the youngest son.

When Stan employs the utterance, “We're late! That's what the time is, you

little prick,” to express his anger towards Liam by calling him name, Liam

seems enraged with Stan’s doing because his facial expression shows that

he is repressing his anger. Yet, Liam chooses to be silent about it and not

getting provoked by Stan’s aggressiveness. In short, it can be concluded

that Liam takes Stan’s verbal abuse directed to him as strongly offensive,

but he chooses to ignore it and not act upon his feeling.

6.5. Name-calling-Reclaimed Usage

Data: you fucking idiot! (141/00:52:00)

Context:
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The conversation between Liam and Pinball happens in front of

Tony’s bar. When Liam is having a serious business discussion with Tony,

Pinball is being tortured by Tony’s sidekicks in a warehouse beside the

pub. It is because Pinball saying unfunny jokes that offends Tony. Liam

meets Pinball again in front of the bar, and they are seeing Tony going out

with a girl by driving his red car. Pinball is holding a grudge to Tony

because of his wrongdoing to him and planning on taking revenge to him.

Pinball : There's your fucking pal.

I'm gonna fucking get him back.

Liam : It looks like it too, you fucking idiot!

Type: Name-calling Swearing → Reclaimed Usage

Data Interpretation:

Pinball hates the facts that Liam is being friend with someone he

really hates, Tony. He even angrily says to Liam about Tony being his pal

but not him. He says that someday he is going to get him back and take a

revenge to Tony, but instead of encouraging Pinball to let it go and taking

on his side, he just jokingly saying to Pinball, “It looks like it too, you

fucking idiot!” as a mean to tease him. However, Pinball feels belittled by

Liam’s joke and thinks that Liam is diminishing him by stating it. It is as if

Liam is saying that there is no way someone like Pinball can take revenge

to a high positioned person in the society as Tony.

 158

Fucking is an offensive term which usually used by someone when

angry to emphasize a statement. Meanwhile, idiot is a term of insult refers

to someone who is behaving in a stupid way or to refer someone as stupid.

The phrase ‘fucking idiot’ is a rude swearing expression used to refer to

someone who has no sufficiently assessed a situation and takes actions

with the effect of putting people at significant risk or harmful situation.

The phrase ‘You fucking idiot’ in this context situation is classified as

name-calling swearing type and functioned as reclaimed usage in the

conversation as a whole. It belongs to name-calling swearing because

Liam as the speaker using abusive name such as idiot which commonly

used to belittle or humiliate someone in an argument. The utterance ‘you

fucking idiot’ in the previously mentioned conversation is specified as

‘reclaimed usage’ because Liam as the speaker has no negative intent in

employing it to Pinball as the hearers, but just as a mild rebuke between

close friend.

Liam’s tone when employs the name-calling swearing expression

‘you fucking idiot’ is joking tone and in informal with mocking manner.

The offensiveness rate of term idiot, according to the scale of offence of

swearing words provided by British National Corpus, is supposed to be

very mild, and the term fucking is supposed to be strongly offensive. Yet,

Liam’s intention in employing the swearing expression of ‘you fucking

idiot’ in the conversation to mock Pinball is not a mean of derogatory, but

he is just want to joke around with him. Even so, Pinball is in the situation
 159

of being angry with Liam, and thinks that Liam is belittling his power in

taking a revenge on Tony. Pinball’s angry facial expression and his non-

verbal gesture by refuses to talk to Liam and angrily splashing him with

water on his pants shows that he is offended by Liam’s name-calling

swearing expression. In short, it can be concluded that the phrase ‘you

fucking idiot’ in this context situation is considered as strongly offensive

for Pinball as the hearer, even though Liam as the speaker intended to do it

as a mild rebuke between friend and with no mean to offence him at all.

B. Discussions

This section discusses the findings of the research on swearing words

employed by the characters in Sweet Sixteen movie. From the analysis

process, the total data collected in this research are 322 data out of 300

utterances.

There are five types of swearing based on Steven Pinker’s (2007)

typology, i.e. Descriptive Swearing, Idiomatic Swearing, Abusive Swearing,

Emphatic Swearing and Cathartic Swearing. There is an additional type of

swearing typology classified as Name-calling Swearing which is found in the

data of the movie. All of the six types appear in the conversations spoken by

the characters in the Sweet Sixteen movie. Based on the data interpretation of

findings section, it can be concluded that the most dominant type of Pinker’s

swearing typology employed by the characters is Emphatic Swearing, which is

employed 166 times in the entire Sweet Sixteen movie. Then, the second

highest occurrence is Idiomatic Swearing which is employed 47 times,

 160

followed by Cathartic Swearing which is employed 40 times. The next type is

Name-calling Swearing which is employed 36 times, meanwhile Descriptive

Swearing only employed 20 times. Finally, the least Pinker’s swearing

typology to occur is Abusive Swearing which is only employed 7 times in the

entire Sweet Sixteen movie.

In term of swearing type based on Pinker’s typology in Sweet Sixteen

movie, Emphatic Swearing is employed 166 times, and this number is hugely

different from the rest of the types. Emphatic Swearing becomes the most

employed type used by the characters because it is considered to be the most

effective way to express aggressiveness and to place emphasis on something

that is needed to be said. In Sweet Sixteen movie, which is basically a movie

with family drama as its genre that portrays the hard life of a dropout teenager

with his broken family and his friends, the effect of adding Emphatic

Swearing such as adding fucking in ‘fucking buzzing’ to the speaker’s message

is to make it bold, assertive, and aggressive.

The characters in Sweet Sixteen movie frequently utter Emphatic

Swearing type when they want to put an emphasize on the things in a forceful

way to the addressee so that the attention of the addressee will be given to

their words. Moreover, they also utter Emphatic Swearing to engage in

catharsis and to make it emotive or emotional. Meanwhile, Abusive Swearing

becomes the least to occur in Sweet Sixteen movie because the characters

rarely use swearing as a way to hurt other people’s feeling in a harmful way.
 161

The data interpretation of the finding sections also shows that 14 out of

15 specific types of function of swearing based on McEnery’s typology are

found in the movie. However, each of them has different number of repetitions

in the entire Sweet Sixteen movie. According to McEnery (2006) there are

fifteen specified types of the function of swearing, namely:

a. Predicative negative adjective, which is employed 3 times

b. Adverbial booster, which is employed 119 times

c. Cursing expletive, which is employed 14 times

d. Destinational usage, which is employed 13 times

e. Emphatic adverb, which is employed 62 times

f. Figurative extension of literal meaning, which is employed 3 times

g. General expletive, which is employed 13 times

h. Idiomatic set phrase, which is employed 20 times

i. Literal usage denoting taboo referent, which is employed 0 time

j. Imagery based on literal meaning, which is employed 26 times

k. Premodifying intensifying negative adjective, which is employed 23 times

l. Pronominal form with undefined referent, which is employed 19 times

m. Personal insult referring to identified entity, which is employed 67 times

n. Reclaimed usage, which is employed 12 times

o. Religious oath used for emphasis, which is employed 5 times

From those fifteen specified types of function of swearing expression,

the highest occurrence of McEnery’s specified swearing type found in Sweet

Sixteen movie is Adverbial Booster which is employed 119 times. The use of
 162

swearing expression as an adverbial booster becomes the most employed type

of function used by the characters in the Sweet Sixteen movie because the

main reasons of the characters in employing swearing expression is to express

strong feelings and to strengthen the meaning of other expression and

intensify what is said. Both of the use of swearing expression as ‘Predicative

negative adjective’ and ‘figurative extension of literal meaning’ employed

only for 3 times in the entire movie, which positioned them in the lowest

frequency of occurrence among all of the McEnery’s typology. It is because

the characters in the movie rarely using vulgar metaphor that being functioned

to describe the subject of an utterance to gain figurative senses.

Meanwhile, ‘literal usage denoting taboo referent’ is not being

employed at all by the characters in the entire movie. It is because the

characters in the Sweet Sixteen movie never employs swearing expression

which representing the exact words of the original form in the most basic

sense without metaphor or allegory.

Based on the explanation in findings section, the context situation of

the conversation do affects the use and the meaning of swearing employed by

the characters in Sweet Sixteen movie. As an example, the use of name-calling

swearing expression of ‘you stupid wee fucking arsehole!’ with the adverbial

booster as its type of function which found in the data number 215 from the

scene 01:08:03 of the Sweet Sixteen movie.

Liam’s grandfather employs the swearing expression ‘you stupid wee

fucking arsehole!’ to express anger emotion and his attitude is holding grudge
 163

to Liam. It is because Liam teasing him by throwing a rock to break his

window glass and leave a mess in his apartment room. In the utterance, “you

stupid wee fucking arsehole,” Liam’s grandfather uses abusive names such as

stupid and arsehole in an argument as a mean to belittle or humiliate Liam’s

personal image as the hearer. He utters it using angry tone in serious and

informal manner. Liam’s grandfather’s intention in employs the name-calling

swearing expression of ‘you stupid wee fucking arsehole!’ is to use it as a

mean of personal insult and to verbally abuse Liam. However, Liam’s does not

take his grandfather’s insult and verbal abuse as offensive because he enjoys

teasing his grandpa. He likes seeing his grandfather being mad at him and

even entertained by it. He is just casually running away from his grandfather’s

apartment complex with laughing and continues mocking his granddad using

body language.

According to the data interpretation of findings section, the

sociocultural background of the characters, such as the speaker-hearer

relationship, social-physical context, and the particular word used, influences

the level of swearing’ offensiveness in Sweet Sixteen movie. For example, the

use of the highly offensive swearing term ‘cunt’ found in the data number 50

from the scene 00:21:27 of Sweet Sixteen movie.

The term ‘cunt’ in the data number 50 is classified as descriptive

swearing type and specified as pronominal form with undefined referent as its

type of function. Cunt is a highly offensive swearing term which commonly

used to express contempt to someone. Cunt is also a term that refers to any
 164

unpleasant or contemptible person, specifically women. In the United States,

the term cunt is commonly used as a derogatory term for woman, yet in

Scotland it can be used to refer either man or woman. This vulgar term is still

considered as not acceptable by majority of people outside very limited social

context. In English-speaking countries, it is regarded as unsuitable for general

public discourse. However, In Northern England as in Scotland, the place

where the movie of Sweet Sixteen take place, the use of term cunt is not only

limited to as a mean of derogatory. In the Northern England, specifically

working class level people from Scotland, it is quite common to use cunt as a

term of endearment or a mild rebuke among close friends.

The relationship status of Liam and Pinball is intimate and high in

solidarity because they are best friend since a long time and get along with

each other very well. They are in the same age and both of them are school

dropout teenager who comes from working class background in Scotland, so

their social status is equal to each other. Pinball’s tone when employs the term

cunt in the utterance, “No cunt telling you what to do,” is standard tone and

in informal with casual manner. The word cunt is supposed to be a very

offensive slang to employs because British National Corpus classifies the

offensiveness level of term cunt as ‘very strong’ in its scale of offence of

swearing words. Yet, the term ‘no cunt’ in this context situation is

interchangeable with the term dude or person as in ‘no dude’ or ‘no person’. It

is used as a mean to describe a person other than Pinball himself, which could

refer to Liam or someone else close with Pinball, but he mean no harm in
 165

employing it. Because the close person who is with Pinball at the moment

Pinball utters it happened to be Liam, the cunt person that Pinball mean is

undeniably referred to Liam.

When Pinball as the speaker employs the swearing term ‘cunt’ which

is directed to Liam, the reaction of Liam as the hearer is just casually move on

to another topic and keeps talking about other things. In short, it can be

concluded that Liam does not feel offended by Pinball’s C-word which

directed to him; since they both are Scottish who close to each other and Liam

know that Pinball just used it as a mild rebuke between close friends.
 166

CHAPTER V

CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

A. Conclusions

This section describes the conclusion as the result of analysis which

are concerning with chapter IV. Based on the data analysis, the conclusion of

the swearing expression employed by the characters in Sweet Sixteen movie

are as follows:

1.1. According to the analysis, there are six types of swearing expression

employed by the characters in Sweet Sixteen movie. There are five types of

swearing based on Steven Pinker’s (2007) typology, i.e. Descriptive

Swearing, Idiomatic Swearing, Abusive Swearing, Emphatic Swearing and

Cathartic Swearing. There is an additional type of swearing typology

classified as Name-calling Swearing which is found in the data of the

movie. All the six types of swearing expression appear in the conversations

spoken by the characters in the Sweet Sixteen movie.

1.2. There are fifteen types of function of swearing expression based on

McEnery’s (2006) typology. According to the analysis, there are fourteen

types of function that appear in the entire Sweet Sixteen movie:

predicative negative adjective, adverbial booster, cursing expletive,

destinational usage, emphatic adverb, figurative extension of literal

meaning, general expletive, idiomatic set phrase, imagery based on literal

meaning, premodifying intensifying negative adjective, pronominal form

 167

with undefined referent, personal insult referring to identified entity,

reclaimed usage, and religious oath used for emphasis.

2. According to the data interpretation section, the context situation of the

conversation affects the use and the meaning of swearing employed by the

characters in Sweet Sixteen movie. There are eight factors that are relevant

in knowing about how a conversation in a certain context situation

accomplishes its goals which consist of: the situations, the participants, the

ends, the acts sequence, the key, the instrumentalities, the norms and the

genres. Those eight factors affects the use and the meaning of the swearing

expression, such as in a communication event when the characters use

swearing expression which is intended as a mean to offense but ended up

being conveyed as casual and not offensive or vice versa.

3. Based on the analysis in finding and discussion section, the sociocultural

background of the characters influences the level of swearing’

offensiveness in Sweet Sixteen movie. The sociocultural background of

the characters consist of several factors which are: the speaker-hearer

relationship, social-physical context, and the particular word used. ‘The

speaker-hearer relationship’ aspect shows that the characters’ relationship

is either intimate and high in solidarity or distant and low in solidarity.

‘The social-physical context’ aspect shows that the character status is

either superior and high in status or subordinate and low in status. This

aspect also shows about how the speaker and the hearer interact with each

other, either direct or indirect and verbal or nonverbal. ‘The particular

 168

word used’ aspect shows that a certain swearing word such as fucking,

bastard, or cunt is used as an adverbial booster or the rest of the other

types. Those sociocultural background of the characters affects the scale of

offense of swearing words such as from very strong level to strong,

moderate, mild, very mild, and vice versa.

B. SUGGESTIONS

Based on the conclusions from the analysis of swearing expression above,

some suggestions can be stated as follows:

1. The researcher suggests to other English Department students who are

interested in studying bad language such as swearing to do research in

another source of data. Most of the previous research about swearing

words used movie or TV series to be their source of data. The linguistics

students may attempt to analyze it in other resources, such as novel, social

media platforms, magazines, news, etc.

2. The research of the use of swearing in another situation such as in a

workplace or in a formal institution is also suggested for other researchers.

It will be more interesting if there is a new insight related to swearing in

various situations with diverse issues. The finding of this research are

needed to be enhanced because there are other problems such as

psychological and emotional issue which are not analyzed in this research.

Similar researches that will be conducted in the future are better to discuss

those problems.
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Online sources:
(http://www.dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp)
(http://www.imdb.com/moviescripts/s/sweet-sixteen.html)
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APPENDICES
Descript McEnery’s Typology of Swearing
ive PN A C D E F G IS LUD IBoL PIN PFw PIRt R RuU
Swearin A B E U A E E P TR M A UR IE U fE
g
1. √
Super
fuck.
(data6b
)
2. √ √
There's
the wee
bastard
with
your
helmet.
(data10
)
3. You √ √
took
the rap
once
for
that
bastard
.
(data19
)
4. I'm √
going
to beat
your
fucking
arse
all the
way
home.
(data24
)
5. Fuck √
it!
(data48
)
6. No √ √ √
cunt
telling
you
what to
do.
(data50
)
7. I'm √ √
gonna
wind
this
cunt
up.
(data56
)
8. Keep √ √
them
fuckers
there.
(data72
)
9. No √ √
cunt
else
comes
in
here.
(data80
)
10. √ √
These
cunts
will
have a
go.
(data81
)
11. √ √
Better
than
that
cunt
Ellis's
anyway.
(data91
)
12. √
Give us
my
fucking
gear!
(data96
)
13. I'm √ √
gonna
kill
this
bastard
!
(data11
0)
14. How √ √
do we
know
it's
not
shite?
(data14
4)
15. √ √
He's a
cunt.
(data14
5)
16. √ √
He's
still a
cunt.
(data15
2)
17. A √ √
rich
cunt.
(data15
3)
18. √ √
This
cunt's
taking
his
time.
(data16
0)
19. You √
know
what
you can
do with
it?
Stick
it up
your
arse.
(data17
6)
20. You √ √
want to
dump
that
wee
prick.
(data19
1)
21. You √ √
can
have
these
as soon
as you
take
care of
that
wee
prick
Pinball
.
(data23
3)
22. √ √
It's a
bit of
shite.
(data23
8)
23. √
What
the
fuck
you
doing,
man?
Give me
the
knife.
(data26
0)
24. √ √
You're
scum
and
I'll be
doing
somethi
ng
about
it!
(data26
5)
25. Are √ √
you
sure
this
cunt's
not
gonna
turn
up?
(266)
26. √ √
I'll
kill
the
cunt.
(data29
7)

PNA 3
AB 1
CE 1
DU 0
EA 0
FE 0
GE 1
ISP 0
LUDTR 0
IboLM 21
PINA 1
PfwUR 2
PIRtIE 13
RU 4
RuUfE 0
 McEnery’s Typology of Swearing
Idiomatic
PN A C D E F G IS LUD IBo PI PFw PIR R RuU
Swearing
A B E U A E E P TR LM NA UR tIE U fE
1. Fuck- √
all time
up in
Saturn.
(data1)
2. What √
the
fuck...?
(data5a)
3. - For √ √
fuck's
sake.
(data9b)
4. For √ √
fuck's
sake,
man!
(data11)
5. She's √
gonna be
wondering
where the
fuck we
are.
(data14)
6. What √
the fuck
is this
all
about,
then?
(data18)
7. For √ √
fuck's
sake,
man!
(data20)
8. - You √
little
fucker!
(data28b)
9. For √ √
fuck's
sake!
(data35a)
10. Get √
it, get
to fuck,
and don't
came back
near this
door
again!
(data38)
11. Fuck √
off!
(data43)
12. How √
the fuck
would he
have a
phone?
(data57)
13. I √
don't
want
fuck-all,
you know?
(data58)
14. You √ √
sound
like a
cock
jockey.
(data59)
15. √
Fuck's
sake!
(data62)
16. and √
fuck-all
else.
(data79b)
17. For √
goodness'
sake,
sign.
(data84)
18. Fuck √
off!
(data97)
19. What √
the
fuck...?!
(data99)
20. Fuck √
off!
(data111)
21. You √
fuck off!
(data113)
22. Don't √
talk
shite.
(data119)
23. Get √ √
your
fucking
arse in
there!
(data121)
24. √ √
Fucking
get your
arse in
line!
(data128)
25. Fuck √
off.
(data137)
26. All √
we need
is a
couple of
months,
no
fucking
about,
we're
rolling
in it.
(data147)
27. Learn √
to arse
lick?
(data149)
28. Fuck √
off, man.
(data151)
29. For √ √
fuck's
sake,
man.
(data157)
30. For √ √
fuck's
sake,
man!
(data162)
31. - For √ √
fuck's
sake!
(data165)
32. For √ √
fuck's
sake!
(data169)
33. Fuck √
off out
of my
sight!
(data177)
34. - No? √
Lazy
arse! Go
get the
gear cut.
(data180)
35. √
Fuck's
sake,
man!
Liam!
(data187)
36. Hey, √
you, fuck
off, go
on.
(data205)
37. Fuck √
off!
(data210)
38. What √
the fuck
are you
about?!
(data219)
39. Fuck √
off,
(data222a
)
40. Fuck √
off. I'm
out of
here.
(data228)
41. Fuck √
knows.
(data232)
42. In √
case
somebody
steals
it, for
goodness'
sake.
(data237)
43. Fuck √
off.
(data241)
44. Fuck √
off!
(data244)
45. But √
you
fucked me
about.
(data253)
46. Let √
her go,
for
Christ's
sake!
(data271)
47. For √ √
fuck's
sake.
(data283)

PNA 0
AB 2
CE 1
DU 13
EA 0
FE 3
GE 0
ISP 17
LUDTR 0
IBoLM 1
PINA 0
PFwUR 16
PIRtIE 2
RU 1
RuUfE 3
Abusive McEnery’s Typology of Swearing
Swearin PN A C D E F G IS LUD IBoL PIN PFw PIR R RuU
g A B E U A E E P TR M A UR pIE U fE
1. √ √ √
Fucking
feeble,
you
cunt!
(data37
)
2. Fuck √ √ √
you,
you
little.
..
cunt!
(data60
)
3. You √ √ √
know
what?
Fuck
you.
I'll do
it
myself.
Fucking
shiteba
g.
(data88
)
4. Fuck √
him.
Sit
down.
(data13
0)
5. Piss √
you!
(data13
5)
6. Fuck √
you!
(data13
8)
7. Fuck √
me.
(data21
8)

PNA 0
AB 1
CE 6
DU 0
EA 0
FE 0
GE 0
ISP 2
LUDTR 0
IBoLM 0
PINA 1
PFwUR 0
PIRtIE 3
RU 0
RuUfE 0
 McEnery’s Typology of Swearing
Emphatic
PN A C D E F G IS LUD IBo PI PFw PIR R RuU
Swearing
A B E U A E E P TR LM NA UR tIE U fE
1. √
Fucking
buzzing,
man.
(data3)
2. Oh, √
fucking
brilliant
!
(data6a)
3. Don't √
you use
your
fucking
mirrors?
(data7)
4. It's a
fucking
gateway!
(data9a)
5. Tell √
him to
fucking
do it.
(data15)
6. Do as √
you're
fucking
told!
(data16)
7. I said √
fucking
smile!
(data17)
8. √
Fucking
tell him.
(data21)
9. Kiss √
your
fucking
mother.
(data22)
10. Kiss √
your
fucking
mother,
(data25a)
11. Do √
you know
how much
that's
fucking
cost me?
(data26)
12. You √
want the
fucking
gear?
(data27)
13. √
Fucking
get the
gear!
(data28a)
14. His √
fucking
ma will
see it.
(data29a)
15. √
That's
fucking
enough.
(data31a)
16. √
Where's
the
fucking
gear?
(data32)
17. A √
fucking
Laurel
and Hardy
fucking
family!
(data35b)
18. Get √
over the
fucking
fence.
(data36a)
19. My √
fucking
balls is
caught,
(data36b)
20. My √
fucking
caring
grandfath
er, eh?
(data39)
21. My √
own
fucking
flesh and
blood.
(data40a)
22. I √
love your
fucking
grandpa.
(data41)
23. √
Fucking
get hold
of it!
(data44b)
24. What √
are you
fucking
turning
it up
for?
(data47)
25. √
Fucking
brilliant
, man!
(data49)
26. Mam √
would
love this
after
being
cooped up
in that
fucking
cell.
(data51)
27. He's √
not my
fucking
dad!
(data52)
28. He's √
fucking
raging.
(data61)
29. √
Fucking
dancer,
wee man!
(data63)
30. We're √
getting
nowhere
with
fucking
fags!
(data64)
31. The √
fucking
money
we're
gonna
get.
(data65)
32. Look, √
mate,
this is
big
fucking
bucks.
(data66)
33. The √
fucking
dogs are
there.
(data68)
34. Hurry √
up!
Fucking
move!
(data69b)
35. Give √
us the
fucking
sweeties.
(data71)
36. Thank √ √
fucking
heaven
for that!
(data73)
37. √
They're
taking
this
fucking
seriously
.
(data75)
38. He's √
fucking
going
nuts
because
he thinks
they've
taken his
smack.
(data76)
39. My √
teacher
used to
wonder
how I was
so good
at
fucking
maths
(data
79a)
40. I'm √
fucking
serious.
(data82)
41. I'm √
fucking
serious,
man.
(data83)
42. Big √
Jay
fucking
Ellis, a
serious
coconut.
(data86)
43. I √
could
lose the
fucking
caravan,
man!
(data87a)
44. Give √
me my
fucking
gear.
(data92)
45. Give √
me my
fucking
gear!
(data98)
46. I'm √
telling
you, you
fucking
stay down
this
time!
(data101)
47. I'm √
fucking
gonna
kill you,
(data102a
)
48. now √
fucking
stay
down!
(data102b
)
49. √
Fucking
done my
nose.
(data105)
50. Don't √
fucking
worry
about it.
(data106)
51. Whoa! √
Give me
my
fucking
gear!
(data107)
52. He's √ √
a fucking
nutter!
(data108)
53. Give √
us my
gear or
you'll
have a
fucking
war!
(data109)
54. Give √
us the
fucking
gear!
(data112)
55. I'll √
fucking
have him!
(data114)
56. I'll √
fucking
have him!
(data115)
57. √
Fucking
nuts,
mate.
(data116)
58. She √
fucking
does,
man.
(data120)
59. You √
two be on
your best
fucking
behaviour
.
(data122)
60. √
Fucking
stand
there.
(data123)
61. Don't √
fucking
break
anything.
(data124)
62. Just √
fucking
stand in
peace,
wee man.
(data125)
63. Just √
fucking
shut your
mouth,
son.
(data126)
64. Stop √
fucking
ogling
them by
the pool.
(data127)
65. Stay √
away from
our
fucking
shops.
(data131)
66. You √
may be a
breath of
fresh
air,
kid,but
there's a
lot of
fucking
wasters
out
there.
(data132)
67. √
Fucking
go!
(data133)
68. Give √
me my
fucking
trainers!
(data134)

69.I'm √
fucking
freezing!
(data136)

70. √
There's
your
fucking
pal.
(data139)
71. I'm √
gonna
fucking
get him
back.
(data140)
72. If we √
prove we
can do
this -
that's a
big
fucking
if - he's
going to
get us a
regular
supply.
(data142)
73. No √ √
fucking
junkies
that are
using and
not
selling.
(data143)
74. He's √
a fucking
different
class.
(data146)
75. We're √
a fucking
partnersh
ip.
(data148)
76. √
That's
fucking
nice,
isn't it?
(data150)

77. I can √
get a
fucking
motor.
(data154)
78. I've √
fucking
got it.
(data155)
79. √
Fucking
tell me.
(data156)
80. I'm √
not
fucking
doing it.
(data158)
81. This √
is
fucking
ridiculou
s, by the
way.
(data159)
82. √
Fucking
move!
(data161)
83. Aye, √
you've
had
fucking
five.
(data163)
84. √
Fucking
hurry up,
man!
Move!
(data164)
85. This √
is
fucking
bad for
business.
(data167)
86. I've √
got
pizzas
here
fucking
freezing!
(data168)
87. An √
hour and
a half
ago I
fucking
phoned
for that!
(data171)
88. For a √
fucking
pizza.
(data172)
89. Are √
you
fucking
Dick
Turpin?
(data173)
90. Hope √
it's the
right
fucking
pizza.
(data174)
91. It's √
fucking
freezing
and all.
(data175)
92. √
That's
fucking
pish.
(data178)
93. He's √
fucking
shut up
now.
(data179)
94. I've √
been here
before
fucking
you.
(data181)
95. √
Exactly!
Go get
the
fucking
gear cut.
(data182)
96. √
Fucking
look at
that.
It's not
funny!
(data183)
97. But √
did they
sound
fucking
nervous
or angry?
(data184)
98. √
What're
you
fucking
doing?!
(data185)
99. √
Nearly
had my
fucking
knackers
off!
(data192)
100. I √
thought
you were
after my
fucking
tadger!
(data194)
101. You √
can
fucking
keep
that,
pal.
(data195)
102. You √
done
fucking
brilliant
!
(data196)
103. Get √
this boy
a fucking
drink.
(data197)
104. I'll √
fucking
kill him!
(data198)
105. Open √
the
fucking
door,
Stan!
(data199)
106. √
You're
fucking
dead,
d'youhear
?
(data200)
107. Open √
the
fucking
door!
(data201)
108. He's √
not
fucking
here!
(data204)
109. You √
tell him
when I
get hold
of him
he's
fucking
dead!
(data206)
110. You √
try that!
You
fucking
try that,
boy, and
I'll come
down
there!
(data209)
111. You √
fucking
dare! You
dare!
(data211)
112. A √
fucking
mess
you've
made
here!
(data217)
113. - √
Fucking
magic!
(data220)
114. Are √ √
you
fucking
stupid?
(data221)
115. you √ √
fucking
brown-
nose!
(data222b
)
116. You √
know what
you've
fucking
done?
(data223)
117. √
We're
fucking
dead if
you don't
take this
back!
(data224)
118. We? √
Fucking
you and
me are no
more.
(data225)
119. You √ √
daft
fucking
boy.
(data227)
120. √
Fucking
hold on.
(data229)
121. You √ √
fucking
knob.
(data231)
122. Get √
fucking
out.
(data234)
123. Get √
fucking
out, all
of you!
(data235)
124. I'm √
not in
the
fucking
mood,
mate!
(data236)
125. √
Fucking
do me in.
Go.
(data240)
126. Put √
your
hands up!
Put them
fucking
up!
(data242)
127. Will √
you
fucking
listen?
(data243)
128. Are √ √
you
fucking
man or
mouse?
(data245)
129. √
Fucking
take it!
(data246)
130. √ √
Fucking
Pinball
burnt it.
(data247)
131. √
Don't
fucking
move.
(data248)
132. √
Fucking
shame, so
it was.
(data249)
133. √
Don't
fucking
move.
(data250)
134. You √
fucking
hurt me.
(data251)
135. √
Fucking
anything.
(data252)
136. You √
don't
believe
me?
Fucking
get back!
(data254)
137. You √
want the
chance
now?
Fucking
do it.
(data255)
138. I'll √
fucking
do it,
then, eh?
(data257)
139. √
'Cause
you
fucking
put me
through
pain.
(data258)
140. √ √
Fucking
clown.
(data261)
141. My √
head's
fucking
pounding.
(data267)
142. This √
is your
fucking
doing.
(data268)
143. Get √
out of my
fucking
way.
(data269)
144. √
Where's
my
fucking
other
shoe?
(data270)
145. √ √
She's a
fucking
crazy
lost wee
soul and
she's
gonna
ruin you
too!
(data272)
146. √
Where's
my
fucking
trainer?!
(data273)
147. Give √
me my
fucking
shoe.
(data274)
148. You √
never
gave her
a fucking
chance!
(data275)
149. "We √
don't
call him
that."
Fucking
rubbing
her face
in it!
(data276)
150. Just √
give me
the
fucking
trainer.
(data277)
151. √
Fucking
shut up.
(data278)
152. I √ √
fucking
swear to
God!
(data280)
153. I √
fucking
swear!
(data281)
154. What √
do you
fucking
want?
Your ma?
(data282)
155. You √
make her
fucking
stomach
turn.
(data285)
156. √
Fucking
sit down!
(data286)
157. "In √
the
fucking
middle of
nowhere.
Great!"
(data287)
158. Tell √
him what
you
fucking
mean.
(data288)
159. Tell √
him the
fucking
truth.
(data289)
160. And √
your
silly wee
fucking
house,
eh?
(data290)
161. √
Think
you're
going up
in the
world in
fucking
Gourock?
(data291)
162. Get √
that
through
your
fucking
thick
head.
Now,
leave.
(data292)
163. √
Fucking
leave,
son.
(data293)
164. √
Fucking
look at
me!
(data296)
165. Get √
a fucking
ambulance
.
(data298)
166. He √
fucking
stabbed
me!
(data300)

PNA 0
AB 104
CE 0
DU 0
EA 61
FE 0
GE 0
ISP 1
LUDTR 0
IBoLM 0
PINA 0
PFwUR 0
PIRtIE 8
RU 2
RuUfE 1
Catharti McEnery’s Typology of Swearing
c PN A C D E F G IS LUD IBoL PIN PFw PIRt R RuU
Swearin A B E U A E E P TR M A UR IE U fE
g
1. Shit. √
It's the
coppers.
(data4a)
2. √ √
Bastards
.
(data4b)
3. √
Fucking
hell.
(data8)
4. √
Christ,
look at
the
time.
(data12)
5. √
Fucking
idiot.
(data30)
6. Fuck, √
he threw
it over
the
fence
there.
(data34a
)
7. √
Bastard.
(data40b
)
8. √
Fucking
idiot!
(data46)
9. √
Fucking
shut up!
(data53)
10. √ √
Fucking
arsehole
.
(data54)
11. √
Fucking
50- 50 !
(data67)
12. √
Fucking
sh! Come
here.
(data70)
13. √
Fucking
idiot.
(data74)
14. √
Fucking
dancer!
(data76)
15. √
Fucking
hell,
Liam!
(data77)
16. √
Fucking
hell.
(data85)
17. Fuck √
your
caravan.
(data87b
)
18. √ √
Fucking
shitebag
.
(data89)
19. √ √
Fucking
nutcase.
(data90)
20. √ √
Fuck!

Liam!

Liam!

Fucking.

..

(data93)
21. √
Fucking.

..

(data94)
22. √
Arsehole
!
(data100
)
23. √
Arsehole
!
(data104
)
24. My √
arse!
(data118
)
25. √ √
Fucking
arsehole
.
(data166
)
26. √
Fuck,
fuck!
(data170
)
27. √
Liam!
Fuck!
(data186
)
28. Come √
on.
Fuck!
(data188
)
29. √
Liam!
Fucking
hell!
(data189
)
30. √
Fuck!
(data190
)
31. √ √
Fucking
bastards
!
(data193
)
32. - √
Fucking.
..
(data207
)
33. √
Fuck!
(data230
)
34. Shut √
the fuck
up.
(data239
)
35. √ √
Fucking
bastard.
(data256
)
36. What √
the fuck
are you
doing?
(data259
)
37. √ √
Fuck,
you
stupid
bastard.
(data262
)
38. Oh, √
fucking
hell...
(data284
)

39. √ √
Fucking
little
bastard.
(data294
)
40. √ √
Bastard!
(data295
)

PNA 0
AB 8
CE 6
DU 0
EA 1
FE 0
GE 12
ISP 0
LUDTR 0
IBoLM 2
PINA 10
PFwUR 1
PIRtIE 9
RU 1
RuUfE 1
 Name- McEnery’s Typology of Swearing
calling PN A C D E F G IS LUD IBo PI PFw PIR R Ru
Swearing A B E U A E E P TR LM NA UR tIE U UfE
1. Don't √ √
get in a
strop, you
cunt.
(data2)
2. You √
little
bastard!
(data5b)
3. You wee √
bastard!
(data5c)
4. We're √
late!
That's
what the
time is,
you little
prick.
(data13)
5. you √
little
cunt,
(data23)
6. you √
little
cunt!
(data25b)
7. You √ √
fucking
idiot!
(data29b)
8. You √ √
fucking
idiot,
you.
(data31b)
9. I'll √ √
break your
legs, you
wee cunt!
(data33)
10. Ah, √
you
bastard!
(data34b)
11. you √
cunt!
(data36c)
12. Here, √
you old
bastard.
(data42a)
13. How's √
your
balls, you
cunt?
(data42b)
14. You √
prick!
(data44a)
15. You √ √
fucking
idiot!
(data45)
16. √ √
Scullion,
you
fucking
dickhead.
(data55)
17. You're √ √
a fucking
shitbag.
(data69a)
18. Have a √
look at
mine, you
cunt!
(data78)
19. Hard √ √
man, eh?
Fucking
prick!
(data95)
20. √ √
Fucking
dickhead!
(data103)
21. You √ √
fucking
prick.
(data117)
22. Cheeky √
wee cunt.
(data129)
23. It √ √
looks like
it too,
you
fucking
idiot!
(data141)
24. - Get √
him out
here, you
old
bastard!
(data202)
25. - Shut √
up, you
stupid wee
cunt!
(data203)
26. What? √
Put your
teeth in,
you
fucker.
(data208)
27. See √
you, you
cunt!
(data212)
28. You √ √
stupid wee
fucking
boy!
(data213)
29. See √
you, you
monkey wee
cunt!
(data214)
30. You √ √
stupid wee
fucking
arsehole!
(data215)
31. You √
skinny wee
cunt you!
(data216)
32. You √ √
fucking
idiot!
(data226)
33. Let me √
see your
face, you
stupid...
(data263)
34. Stupid √
bastard.
(data264)
35. You √ √
fucking
poisoned
wee cow,
Chantelle!
(data279)
36. The √ √
fucking
bastard
stabbed
me.
(data299)

PNA 0
AB 3
CE 0
DU 0
EA 0
FE 0
GE 0
ISP 0
LUDTR 0
IBoLM 2
PINA 11
PFwUR 0
PIRtIE 32
RU 4
RuUfE 0