A Lexicographical Account of the Negative Linguistic Expressions of English Taboo Homonyms in the Latest OALD

Abstract or Introduction

This paper is an attempt at detecting the 30 most frequent ‘Taboo Homonyms’ in the latest Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, henceforth OALD, 10th edition. Three hypotheses have been included in this regard. First, taboo can be carried not only by the semantic level but by many other levels, such as pragmatics, phonology, phonetics. This can certainly be applicable to the phenomenon of homonymy. Second, semantic change may lead to turning some homonyms into taboo words. Thirdly, taking a sociolinguistic differentiation among linguistic forms into account, taboo affects all types of words regardless of their origins, formality, the domain in which they are utilized, and the speech community that are using them. Measuring the negative linguistic expressions of taboo homonyms, the use of the ABC-hypothesis of taboo words, proposed by Rosenberg et al. (2017), is adopted here so that a clear-cut distinction can be made on three levels: very offensive, offensive and disapproving taboo homonyms. Not to mention time, which plays a considerable role in the change of norms and standards of the taboo use, e.g., what is taboo today may not be taboo tomorrow.

Following the real fact that people vary the style of speaking to fit the occasion, they often avoid using certain vocabularies that may offend others or arouse their disapproval or may intentionally use these expressions for some reason. A salient instance of such avoidance is the use of taboo words and phrases. In all societies, there are taboo words that are avoided because they are felt to give bad realization to what they refer to. The extent to which such words are used varies generally between cultures.