Expletives: Men only?

Abstract

In this paper it is suggested that there might be a relationship between social power and expletive usage. After a general discussion of the linguistic correlates of social power, and of expletives and their functions, the question of whether there is any relationship between the sex of the speaker and the use of expletives is addressed. A review of literature on the topic reveals a decidedly and rocentric bias in the use of these terms (which are seen to enjoy a covert prestige value in many communities), despite a noticeable lack of any reliable supportive data. The second half of the paper reports on an investigation carried out on 160 adolescents in which an attempt was made to measure the respective effects of the following variables on the use of expletives: sex, age, and type of school. Stereotyped expectations of coy, non‐swearing females are not upheld (although sex differences are significant), and a measure of support is found in favor of the hypothesis that there might be a relationship between social power and expletive usage.