Changing taboos in Australian English: Findings from Australian university students

Joshua Wedlock; Nick Wilson; Anita Szakay

doi:10.1080/07268602.2025.2548469

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Changing taboos in Australian English: Findings from Australian university students

Journal article

Open access

Peer reviewed

Changing taboos in Australian English: Findings from Australian university students

Joshua Wedlock, Nick Wilson and Anita Szakay

Australian Journal of Linguistics, Vol.45(4), pp.657-680

2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/07268602.2025.2548469

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Abstract

Sociolinguistics

Applied linguistics and educational linguistics

Linguistics

sociolinguistics

taboo language

swearing

Australian English

pragmatics

offensive

censorship

For more than two decades there have been claims of a shift in the way various linguistic taboos (i.e. swearwords and slurs) are used and perceived by members of the broader community. This supposed shift, which is believed to reflect the current values maintained by society on the whole, has prompted social commentators and researchers alike to suggest that the most taboo words no longer relate to sex, religion, or bodily effluvia, but derive from a domain of language classified as "-IST language" (i.e. disparaging or pejorative language targeting people sharing similar characteristics). To test this claim in an Australian context, the authors of this paper asked 60 Australian-born university students to complete an online survey assessing not only each participant's personal perception of swearing, (potentially) offensive, and taboo language, but also their thoughts concerning the way the Australian population at large view various taboo terms. The results of this survey indicate that language which was once deemed to be the most offensive and taboo, has been overtaken in terms of taboo by -IST language.

Details

Title: Changing taboos in Australian English: Findings from Australian university students
Authors: Joshua Wedlock (Corresponding Author) - Macquarie University
Nick Wilson - Macquarie University
Anita Szakay - Macquarie University
Publication details: Australian Journal of Linguistics, Vol.45(4), pp.657-680
Publisher: Routledge
Date published: 2025
DOI: 10.1080/07268602.2025.2548469
ISSN: 1469-2996
Copyright note: © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
Data Availability: The participants of this study did not give written consent for their data to be shared publicly, so due to the sensitive nature of the research, supporting data are not available.
Organisation Unit: Centre for Support and Advancement of Learning and Teaching
Language: English
Record Identifier: 991216651702621
Output Type: Journal article

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