Swear(ING) ain't play(ING): The interaction of taboo language and the sociolinguistic variable

Swearwords influence social evaluation of a speaker in variety ways depending on context (Jay & Janschewitz (2008), The pragmatics swearing. Journal Politeness Research. Language, Behaviour, Culture, 4(2), 267–288). Little attention has been paid to the role linguistic variation perceptions swearing, however. This paper presents two experiments that test sociolinguistic Experiment 1 is variant categorization task, which participants categorized acoustically ambiguous swearwords and phonetically matching neutral nonwords as ending either “-ing” or “-in.” Results suggest led hear items. 2 matched-guise task listeners heard passage featuring mix words one four conditions: fully velar (All-ing), alveolar (All-in), only (Swear-ing), (Swear-in). Participants rated speakers Likert scales (Schleef et al. (2017), Regional diversity (ING). Language Variation Change, 29(1), 29–56). again displayed tendency towards hearing swearwords. As result, responses Swear-in guises were similar those for All-ing guises. consequences our understanding perception cognition, style, are discussed.