<i>¿Puras Groserías?</i>: Rethinking the Role of Profanity and Graphic Humor in <scp>L</scp>atin@ Students' Bilingual Wordplay

Abstract

This article explores the role of profanity and graphic humor in the bilingual wordplay of L atin@ middle school students. We highlight the creativity, skill, and communicative competence embedded in this transgressive wordplay, revealing how these youth employed profanity and graphic humor to index ethnic solidarity and construct bilingual identities. We argue that further exploration of such wordplay might well reveal other functions and meanings that are obscured when it is simply dismissed as inappropriate.