[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.g., fat ass) to those that rely more on social awareness (e.g.,commie).The semantic references underlying insulting names provide a windowinto a child s perceptions of others.Young children are quick to label somenoticeable differences between themselves and deviants as bad.The child 94 Chapter 11says, That lady is fat, or That man looks like a monkey, and is told by aparent that such language is rude and should not be uttered in public.The childlearns that rude language is hurtful to victims and that it must be inhibited.Thechild thereby knows that the speech can be used as an insult.The curse words and insults that speakers use reflect how they thinkabout society around them.Children s lexicons have been used to drawconclusions about their awareness of several categories of thought: knowl-edge of sex (Berges et al., 1983; Grey, 1993; Kleinke, 1974; Lucca &Pacheco, 1986; Sutton-Smith & Abrams, 1978; Thorne, 1993), level of moraldevelopment (Gray, Hughes, & Schneider, 1982), sense of humor (McGhee,1979; Wolfenstein, 1954), perception of gender differences (Thorne, 1993),and in-group versus out-group membership (Meeker & Kleinke, 1972).(These categories of thought are discussed throughout Parts III and IV.)However, it should be noted that once children become aware of the use ofnames and curse words to make social references, they are more likely to usecurse words (+) than children who have not learned these name calling andlabeling habits (-).Moral ReasoningAwareness through moral reasoning is an example of how decision-makingaffects one s reaction to cursing.Gray, Hughes, and Schneider (1982) evalu-ated college students level of moral reasoning using Kohlberg s (1969) moralstage theory.Kohlberg described how children reason about moral dilemmasat three levels of moral thought:(a) Preconventional reasoning (ages 4 to 10 years when childrenreason in terms of good-bad, primarily assuming conduct results inpunishment or reward).(b) Conventional reasoning (most adults when individuals attemptto maintain the expectations and rules of family or society, con-forming to social order).(c) Post-conventional reasoning when individuals are guided byautonomous moral principles, apart from authority figures andinstitutions.Gray et al.(1982) presented subjects with taboo and nontaboo wordsthrough a memory drum and their galvanic skin response (GSR), a measure ofphysiological reactivity, was recorded with a polygraph.The results indicated Language Acquisition and Cognitive Growth 95that taboo words elicited significantly higher GSRs than did nontaboo words.As the authors expected, conventional-level students had significantly higherGSRs to taboo words than post-conventional participants.Conventional-levelsubjects have greater emotionality because they are more concerned withsocial and cultural mores than post-conventional students, who are moreautonomously driven by their beliefs about the acceptability of taboo words.While Gray et al.(1982) studied reactions to taboo words, we may be ableto predict the effects of moral reasoning on the likelihood of cursing.Wepredict that conventional thinkers will be more likely (+) to use curse wordsbecause they recognize them as powerful instruments to affect listeners; theywill also be highly responsive the contexts where social mores are salient.Post-conventional thinkers will be less sensitive to social context but also lesslikely to use curse words (-) to harm listeners.Moral reasoning is plotted withother psychological restraints on cursing in Figure 10.1.2.3 Cursing persists throughout life into old age. The breakdown of cognitive and linguistic capacities which occurs in senil-ity is not haphazard, and seems to exhibit interesting similarities (and differ-ences) with the manner in which these functional capacities arose during thematurational process. (Lamendella, 1979, p.387.)The NPS Theory proposes that curse words are important to emotionalexpression, that they are acquired early and stored relatively permanently inmemory, persisting into old age.As Lamendella suggests, that which persistsinto old age must have had some valuable function early in life.For example,patients with retrograde amnesia tend to forget information that was learnedmost recently; however, their oldest memories are preserved in the order inwhich they were learned.An Alzheimer patient with retrograde amnesia willforget his grandchildren s names but remember his wife s name.During seniledecline, the aging patient with retrograde amnesia returns to a child-like frameof reference.Many of these patients in their last days produce a prodigiousamount of curse words, curse words from childhood.Any cross-sectional study of cursing lexicons covering birth to deathshould reveal the persistence of the offensive lexicon into old age.We havedocumented cursing episodes and attitudes about cursing in a population of 96 Chapter 11English speakers aged 70 to 90 years (Jay 1996c) who resided in a nursinghome in western Massachusetts.The research assistant, who was a nurse in thesetting, recorded the residents using over 700 curse words over the course of1000 hours.The data from this sample are presented in Table 11.2.Elders cursing is, in some ways, similar to contemporary teenagerscursing (see Jay, 1992a).There are also differences.Elders curse less frequentlythan teens, and they use less offensive words than teenagers in public.Today sTable 11.2 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.g., fat ass) to those that rely more on social awareness (e.g.,commie).The semantic references underlying insulting names provide a windowinto a child s perceptions of others.Young children are quick to label somenoticeable differences between themselves and deviants as bad.The child 94 Chapter 11says, That lady is fat, or That man looks like a monkey, and is told by aparent that such language is rude and should not be uttered in public.The childlearns that rude language is hurtful to victims and that it must be inhibited.Thechild thereby knows that the speech can be used as an insult.The curse words and insults that speakers use reflect how they thinkabout society around them.Children s lexicons have been used to drawconclusions about their awareness of several categories of thought: knowl-edge of sex (Berges et al., 1983; Grey, 1993; Kleinke, 1974; Lucca &Pacheco, 1986; Sutton-Smith & Abrams, 1978; Thorne, 1993), level of moraldevelopment (Gray, Hughes, & Schneider, 1982), sense of humor (McGhee,1979; Wolfenstein, 1954), perception of gender differences (Thorne, 1993),and in-group versus out-group membership (Meeker & Kleinke, 1972).(These categories of thought are discussed throughout Parts III and IV.)However, it should be noted that once children become aware of the use ofnames and curse words to make social references, they are more likely to usecurse words (+) than children who have not learned these name calling andlabeling habits (-).Moral ReasoningAwareness through moral reasoning is an example of how decision-makingaffects one s reaction to cursing.Gray, Hughes, and Schneider (1982) evalu-ated college students level of moral reasoning using Kohlberg s (1969) moralstage theory.Kohlberg described how children reason about moral dilemmasat three levels of moral thought:(a) Preconventional reasoning (ages 4 to 10 years when childrenreason in terms of good-bad, primarily assuming conduct results inpunishment or reward).(b) Conventional reasoning (most adults when individuals attemptto maintain the expectations and rules of family or society, con-forming to social order).(c) Post-conventional reasoning when individuals are guided byautonomous moral principles, apart from authority figures andinstitutions.Gray et al.(1982) presented subjects with taboo and nontaboo wordsthrough a memory drum and their galvanic skin response (GSR), a measure ofphysiological reactivity, was recorded with a polygraph.The results indicated Language Acquisition and Cognitive Growth 95that taboo words elicited significantly higher GSRs than did nontaboo words.As the authors expected, conventional-level students had significantly higherGSRs to taboo words than post-conventional participants.Conventional-levelsubjects have greater emotionality because they are more concerned withsocial and cultural mores than post-conventional students, who are moreautonomously driven by their beliefs about the acceptability of taboo words.While Gray et al.(1982) studied reactions to taboo words, we may be ableto predict the effects of moral reasoning on the likelihood of cursing.Wepredict that conventional thinkers will be more likely (+) to use curse wordsbecause they recognize them as powerful instruments to affect listeners; theywill also be highly responsive the contexts where social mores are salient.Post-conventional thinkers will be less sensitive to social context but also lesslikely to use curse words (-) to harm listeners.Moral reasoning is plotted withother psychological restraints on cursing in Figure 10.1.2.3 Cursing persists throughout life into old age. The breakdown of cognitive and linguistic capacities which occurs in senil-ity is not haphazard, and seems to exhibit interesting similarities (and differ-ences) with the manner in which these functional capacities arose during thematurational process. (Lamendella, 1979, p.387.)The NPS Theory proposes that curse words are important to emotionalexpression, that they are acquired early and stored relatively permanently inmemory, persisting into old age.As Lamendella suggests, that which persistsinto old age must have had some valuable function early in life.For example,patients with retrograde amnesia tend to forget information that was learnedmost recently; however, their oldest memories are preserved in the order inwhich they were learned.An Alzheimer patient with retrograde amnesia willforget his grandchildren s names but remember his wife s name.During seniledecline, the aging patient with retrograde amnesia returns to a child-like frameof reference.Many of these patients in their last days produce a prodigiousamount of curse words, curse words from childhood.Any cross-sectional study of cursing lexicons covering birth to deathshould reveal the persistence of the offensive lexicon into old age.We havedocumented cursing episodes and attitudes about cursing in a population of 96 Chapter 11English speakers aged 70 to 90 years (Jay 1996c) who resided in a nursinghome in western Massachusetts.The research assistant, who was a nurse in thesetting, recorded the residents using over 700 curse words over the course of1000 hours.The data from this sample are presented in Table 11.2.Elders cursing is, in some ways, similar to contemporary teenagerscursing (see Jay, 1992a).There are also differences.Elders curse less frequentlythan teens, and they use less offensive words than teenagers in public.Today sTable 11.2 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]