The Oxford Handbook of Taboo Words and Language

This volume brings together experts from a wide range of disciplines to define and describe tabooed words and language and to investigate the reasons and beliefs behind them. In general, taboo is defined as a proscription of behaviour for a specific community, time, and context. In terms of language, taboo applies to instances of language behaviour: the use of certain words in certain contexts. The existence of linguistic taboos and their management lead to the censoring of behaviour and, as a consequence, to language change and development. Chapters in this volume explore the multiple types of tabooed language from a variety of perspectives, such as sociolinguistics, anthropology, philosophy, psychology, historical linguistics, and neurolinguistics, and with reference to fields such as law, publishing, politics, and advertising. Topics covered include impoliteness, swearing, censorship, taboo in deaf communities, translation of tabooed words, and the use of taboo in banter and comedy.

1 - Taboo words and language: An overview
2 - Taboo language and impoliteness
3 - Taboos in speaking of sex and sexuality
4 - Speaking of disease and death
5 - The psychology of expressing and interpreting linguistic taboos
6 - Taboo language awareness in early childhood
7 - Swearing and the brain
8 - sticky: Taboo topics in deaf communities
9 - Taboo terms and their grammar
10 - Taboo as a driver of language change
11 - Problems translating tabooed words from source to target language
12 - Linguistic taboos in a second or foreign language
13 - Philosophical investigations of the taboo of insult
14 - Religious and ideologically motivated taboos
15 - Speech or conduct? Law, censorship, and taboo language
16 - Taboo language in books, films, and the media
17 - Taboos and bad language in the mouths of politicians and in advertising
18 - Taboo language used as banter
19 - Taboo language as source of comedy
20 - An anthropological approach to taboo words and language

Keith Allan is Emeritus Professor of Linguistics at Monash University and Honorary Professor at the University of Queensland. His research interests include the history and philosophy of linguistics, and aspects of meaning in language. His many books include Linguistic Meaning (Routledge, 1986; reissued 2014), Natural Language Semantics (Blackwell, 2001), and The Western Classical Tradition in Linguistics (Equinox, 2007; 2nd ed. 2010). He is the co-editor of multiple volumes, including The Cambridge Handbook of Pragmatics (with Kasia Jaszczolt; CUP, 2012), The Oxford Handbook of the History of Linguistics (OUP, 2012), and The Routledge Handbook of Linguistics (Routledge, 2015).