“Frequent coarse language” —Swearing and taboo language downunder

This talk provides an account of Antipodean swearing patterns, based on examples from existing written and spoken data banks. It considers general questions to do with swearing (e.g. what it is, why speakers do it and how swearing patterns have changed over the years), as well as the shift in social attitudes toward swearing and the repercussions of this for the law. Swearing has always been characterized as an earmark of Australian and New Zealand English. The talk concludes that it remains an important feature of these varieties, but questions just how uniquely Antipodean it is.