Taboo language across the globe: A multi-lab study - Laboratoire de Psychologie Sociale : contextes et régulation Access content directly
Journal Articles Behavior Research Methods Year : 2024

Taboo language across the globe: A multi-lab study

Marc Brysbaert
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Giuseppe Samo

Abstract

The use of taboo words represents one of the most common and arguably universal linguistic behaviors, fulfilling a wide range of psychological and social functions. However, in the scientific literature, taboo language is poorly characterized, and how it is realized in different languages and populations remains largely unexplored. Here we provide a database of taboo words, collected from different linguistic communities (Study 1, N = 1046), along with their speaker-centered semantic characterization (Study 2, N = 455 for each of six rating dimensions), covering 13 languages and 17 countries from all five permanently inhabited continents. Our results show that, in all languages, taboo words are mainly characterized by extremely low valence and high arousal, and very low written frequency. However, a significant amount of cross-country variability in words’ tabooness and offensiveness proves the importance of community-specific sociocultural knowledge in the study of taboo language.

Domains

Psychology
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Origin Publication funded by an institution

Dates and versions

hal-04572180 , version 1 (10-05-2024)

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Simone Sulpizio, Fritz Günther, Linda Badan, Benjamin Basclain, Marc Brysbaert, et al.. Taboo language across the globe: A multi-lab study. Behavior Research Methods, 2024, 56, pp.3794-3813. ⟨10.3758/s13428-024-02376-6⟩. ⟨hal-04572180⟩
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