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There is an assumption that the mat and various curses demonstrate undeveloped speech and low intelligence of the speaker. It is based on the fact that people use such expressions only because they are not able to express their thoughts and feelings by other means. Scientists now have evidence that this is not the case.
American psychologists Kristin Jay (Kristin Jay) and Timothy Jay (Timothy Jay) decided to check whether people who are better at using obscene language are worse at speaking “decent” language. To participate in the study, they recruited 43 student volunteers (30 women and 13 men) aged 18 to 22. They were given a rather unusual task – within a minute to remember and pronounce as many different curses as possible. For comparison, they also had to name as many animals as possible within a minute, as well as any decent words that begin with a single letter (these were separate tasks).
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On average, students were able to name 9 swear words, 14 common words, or 22 types of animals in a minute. Moreover, on average, the more curses a student could remember, the more he called other words. It turned out that a rich vocabulary of obscene vocabulary was not at all equated with a poor vocabulary. The researchers also conducted a second experiment in which other students (34 women and 15 men) completed a similar task but wrote down the words rather than speaking them out loud. The same pattern emerged. In total, study participants were able to recall 533 different swear words. At the same time, women did not lag behind men in terms of the richness of the vocabulary of obscene expressions.
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Participants were also tested on the so-called five-factor personality questionnaire. Good use of obscene language correlated with personality traits such as neuroticism and openness, but showed a negative correlation with conscientiousness and complaisance.
“These results indicate that knowing more taboo expressions is more likely to be indicative of good rather than poor language ability. Those who do not shy away from a strong word usually understand the many subtleties and nuances of the correct use of such vocabulary, which requires developed language skills,” the authors summarize.
Подробнее см. K. Jay, T. Jay «Taboo word fluency and knowledge of slurs and general pejoratives: deconstructing the poverty-of-vocabulary myth», Language Sciences, Vol. 52, November 2015.