Especially linguistic belief, verbal indecency and indignation (as one
of the functional attributes of vulgarism) is inevitably associated
with vulgarisms. A majority of definitions of the verbal indecency and
indignation bear these two common features:
1. deliberateness
2. relation to the conceptual notion of “face”
This concept also prompts the interpreters’
(often subconscious) efforts to deliver the
communication so as not to
hurt the feelings of one of
the parties involved.
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￮
Indecency or direct vulgarity in social interactions
results from the expectations of the
individual
(subjective or normative) that apply to a set
of circumstances.
￮
In
intercultural communication, the intercultural
factor also comes into play
￮
– different cultural
communities perceive
boundaries of indecency and vulgarity in
￮
different light.
￮
1 The “face” concept has been developed by
Canadian-American sociologist Erving Goffman
The term vulgarism, as used to single out a definite
group of words of non-standard English, is rather
misleading. The ambiguity of the term apparently
proceeds from the etymology of the word. Vulgar, as
explained by the Shorter Oxford Dictionary, means
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a) words or names employed in ordinary speech;
b) common, familiar;
c) commonly current or prevalent, generally or widely
disseminated.
So vulgarisms are:
1) expletives and swear words which are of an
abusive character, like 'damn', 'bloody', 'to hell',
'goddam' and, as some dictionaries state, used now
as general exclamations;
2) obscene words.
