Despite the increased scholarly attention towards swearing, there is no consensus on the matter of gendered swearing (Dewaele, 2016, 2017; Hughes, 2006; Jay, 2000; Jay & Jay, 2013; McEnery,...Show moreDespite the increased scholarly attention towards swearing, there is no consensus on the matter of gendered swearing (Dewaele, 2016, 2017; Hughes, 2006; Jay, 2000; Jay & Jay, 2013; McEnery, 2004). Moreover, perceptions of profanity related to adolescence and other than English languages, like Dutch, have received relatively little scholarly attention. Hence, the present research aimed to advance the understanding of gendered perceptions of use and offensiveness of profane language of Dutch adolescents. A mixed-method was employed utilizing questionnaires (n = 352) and interviews (n = 12) amongst Dutch youth to gauge perceptions of swearing in different domains, the offensiveness of swear words and differences in attitudes towards native Dutch or borrowed English swear words. While adolescents are believed to be most prone to swearing, this was not reflected in the findings of the current study, since adolescents did not rate their utterances as frequent. “Kanker” was perceived as most offensive and “kut” as most frequently uttered. Participants also shared opinions on perceived appropriateness of swearing in different domains. Moreover, Dutch profanities were perceived as more offensive than borrowed English swear words. This was mirrored in the perceptions of religious-related words: Dutch religion-related profanities were considered possibly blasphemous depending on the religious beliefs of the hearer, while English religion-related profanities were never perceived offensive. Note that “O my God” was perceived as feminine. Differences in perceptions on profanities between young men and women were found as well. Young men were perceived to swear more frequently, employing stronger swear words and perceived profanities referring to sexual orientation less offensive. Young women perceived swear words as more offensive and felt restrained by society in their swearing behaviour. These results are in line with McEnery (2004), who concluded that men are still on the lead in terms of frequency and offensiveness of swearing.Show less
This paper investigates the effects of various forms of trolling. This investigation was conducted by means of a multiple case study, contrasting a real-life trolling campaign that spread the...Show moreThis paper investigates the effects of various forms of trolling. This investigation was conducted by means of a multiple case study, contrasting a real-life trolling campaign that spread the phrase “It’s Okay To Be White” across several university campuses against an instance of online flaming against an individual. Both the campaign and the flaming had originated from the website 4chan. These two cases will be contrasted in term of effectiveness by means of the responses to the trolling and flaming respectively. These responses were hierarchically classified by applying Baker’s (2001) six forms of responding to flaming in terms of progressively increasing aggression towards the person or message they were directed towards. From the comparison of these cases, it appeared that while the It’s Okay To Be White-campaign (henceforth abbreviated as the IOTBW-campaign) did manage to garner more attention through the traditional media, the responses to the case of online flaming had been far more explicit as well as aggressive and thereby more effective. The implication this has for trolling is that while a large number of views and responses are certainly a requirement for the success of trolling, it does not signify effective trolling. Rather, the quality of the responses (aggressive and emotionally loaded language) is a more adequate determiner for effectiveness in trolling. Future research might look into quantitative analyses of aggressive responses to trolling and flaming alike.Show less
The analysis of translation poses a number of challenges, ranging from establishing what constitutes ‘good’ translation to assessing how felicitous a particular phrase is in a given context. When...Show moreThe analysis of translation poses a number of challenges, ranging from establishing what constitutes ‘good’ translation to assessing how felicitous a particular phrase is in a given context. When this context is politics, and the translations analysed are political speeches, there are even more factors to be considered. This paper analyses political speeches made in English or Polish as well as their written translations in the other language. The data gathered for the purpose of this paper is a set of six texts, three speeches and their translations. This paper uses a multi-layered model of discourse analysis to investigate a number of specific categories related to the layers of knowledge, agents and the text itself. The paper finds that one of the speeches was created with the explicit aim to be translated into English, while the other two are mainly focused on the audience that speaks the language of the source text. Overall, the results of this paper suggest that comparing the linguistic aspects of a speech and its translation can reveal potentially useful characteristic such as the intended target audience, culturally-significant items or names whose full meaning is particularly difficult to render in another language. The implications of this paper indicate that a similar analysis performed on a much larger scale could provide findings that are more generalisable.Show less
