Taboo language across the globe: A multi-lab study

Simone Sulpizio (1) , Fritz Günther (2) , Linda Badan (3) , Benjamin Basclain (4) , Marc Brysbaert (5) , Yuen Lai Chan (6) , Laura Anna Ciaccio (7) , Carolin Dudschig (8) , Jon Andoni Duñabeitia (9) , Fabio Fasoli (10, 11) , Ludovic Ferrand (12) , Dušica Filipović Đurđević (13) , Ernesto Guerra (14) , Geoff Hollis (15) , Remo Job (3) , Khanitin Jornkokgoud (16) , Hasibe Kahraman (4) , Naledi Kgolo-Lotshwao (17) , Sachiko Kinoshita (4) , Julija Kos (18) , Leslie Lee (19) , Nala H. Lee (19) , Ian Grant Mackenzie (8) , Milica Manojlović (13) , Christina Manouilidou (18) , Mirko Martinic (14) , Maria del Carmen Méndez (20) , Ksenija Mišić (13) , Natinee Na Chiangmai (16) , Alexandre Nikolaev (21) , Marina Oganyan (22) , Patrice Rusconi (23) , Giuseppe Samo (24) , Chi-Shing Tse (6) , Chris Westbury (15) , Peera Wongupparaj (16) , Melvin J. Yap (19) , Marco Marelli (1)

1 UNIMIB - Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca = University of Milano-Bicocca
2 HU Berlin - Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin = Humboldt University of Berlin = Université Humboldt de Berlin
3 UNITN - Università degli Studi di Trento = University of Trento
4 Macquarie University [Sydney]
5 UGENT - Universiteit Gent = Ghent University
6 CUHK - The Chinese University of Hong Kong [Hong Kong]
7 Freie Universität Berlin
8 Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen = University of Tübingen
9 Universidad Antonio de Nebrija
10 UNIS - University of Surrey
11 ISCTE-IUL - Instituto Universitário de Lisboa
12 LAPSCO - Laboratoire de Psychologie Sociale et Cognitive
13 University of Belgrade [Belgrade]
14 UCHILE - Universidad de Chile = University of Chile [Santiago]
15 University of Alberta
16 BU - Burapha University
17 UB - University of Botswana
18 University of Ljubljana
19 NUS - National University of Singapore
20 Universidad de Alicante
21 University of Eastern Finland
22 University of Washington [Seattle]
23 UniMe - Università degli Studi di Messina = University of Messina
24 Beijing Language and Culture University

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.

Mots clés: taboo words; swearing; semantics; best-worst scaling; emotion

Domaines: Psychologie

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⟩