Abstract: Many commentators on Japanese culture, from Aston (1873) to Martin (1975), have asserted that Japanese does not curse or swear words. The basis of this belief is based upon that fact that the Japanese are considered to be very polite, and most Japanese interjections can be translated into non-offensive language. A common example of this is when a driver is angry he will the equivalent of ‘this” or “that” in frustration instead of what is stereo-typically thought of as a ‘swear word’. Though swearing can be seen as having a complete control of a language, my stance is that swearing is an extra-linguistic act to show the emotional state of the speaker. The lexical meaning of a word is not relevant to the explicative speech act. I set out to prove that though the lexical meaning of the words used in Japanese is somewhat benign these words do indeed meet the criteria of ‘swear words’, based on the work of Jay (1999), Mannheimer (1993), and Brown & Kushner (2001).

Review of Literature:
“We swear for several different purposes: neurological, psychological, and sociocultural. At a neurological level, cursing may be viewed as an automatic process, relying on the right hemisphere and subcortical areas. An example of automatic cursing is cursing in response to surprise or frustration.” (Jay, 2000)

“Swearing is, in one sense, a violation of these taboos: the ‘high’ varieties violate the taboo of invoking the name of deity, while the ‘low’ are often violations of sexual taboos, especially those concerning incest” (Hughes, 1991)

“There are five elements that must coalesce to render a speech act unprotected under the fighting words doctrine: first, the words must constitute a direct personal insult; second, the words must be directed to the addressee personally and individually, and may not be a generalized insulted addressed to a large group or indiscriminately to the world at large; third, the words must be addressed to the person face-to-face; fourth, the words must be of such a nature as to be likely to provoke the average addressee to an immediate violent response; and finally, the words must be likely to provoke the actual addressee to violence in light of all the circumstances.” (Mannheimer, 1993).

The use of euphemisms does not have the same emotional effect as the actual swear words (Bowers & Pleydell-Pearce, in press)

“So far as euphoria is concerned, it is now commonly only the swearer who may ‘feel better’ after an outburst.” (Hughes, 1991)

“Some researches have found lower incidences of coprolalia among Japanese with TS than among Europeans and North Americans. Others have noted, however, that coprolalia in Japan often takes the form of a change in the tone and pitch of voice that is no less culturally inappropriate and obscene than cursing in other cultures.” (Brown & Kushner, 2001)

In Farrell (2000), a story is re-told of how he told his son that ‘clorox’ was the dirtiest word in the English language and only to be used privately to vent anger. His son did so for three years until he learned to read the cleaning bottles in the laundry room.

“We repeat curse words that others use. We choose the curse words that our culture proscribes for specific practices and contexts. We choose curse words from a small semantic pool: those that are taboo or disgusting, profane or obscene. We choose words to affect others’ feelings. We choose words purposefully that have the semantic features needed in the context. … We choose strong words to express strong emotions. We learn that cursing has psychological, social, and legal consequences, which ultimately affect our word choices.” (Jay, 2000)

Method:
Synthesize the different definitions of cursing, swearing, and taboo language. Postulate my definition: swearing is an explicative speech act provoking an emotional response in the hearer leading to a separate performance. Sometimes the hearer of the swearing is also the speaker, allowing to speaker to vent frustration, anger, etc.

Results:
Show how definition applies to examples of Japanese swearing, chikushou (Ranma 1/2), yagaru (Potts & Kawahara, 2004a & 2004b), baka yarou( Suzuki, 1998), doaho, korya, sorya (personal experience) versus non-swearing omanko, baka (Suzuki, 1998).

Conclusion:
“[T]he use of insulting language by some people may not be a particularly useful way of getting their precise point across, but may in fact be the only way they can do so.” (Mannheimer, 1993)

“Cursing permits humans to express strong emotions verbally in a manner that noncurse words cannot achieve.… Because we have strong emotions and speech, we learn to use cursing to express our emotions.”(Jay, 2000)

List of references--add on second page.

Aston, William George. A short grammar of the Japanese spoken language . London : Trübner, 1873.

Bowers, Jeffrey S. & Pleydell-Pearce, Christopher W. Verbal Conditioning, Euphemisms, and Linguistic Relativity. Manuscript under review. Available from Jeffrey Bowers, University of Bristol, U.K., 2005.

Brown, Kate E & Kushner, Howard I. Eruptive Voices: Coprolalia, Malediction, and the Poetics of Cursing. New Literary History, 32: 537-562, 2001.

Chamberlain, Basil Hall. A Handbook of Colloquial Japanese. London : Sampson Low, Marston, & co., 1898.

Farrell, Edmund J. Speaking My Mind: A Few Good Words for Bad Words. The English Journal, Vol 89, No. 5. 2000.

Hughes, Geoffrey. Swearing : a social history of foul language, oaths and profanity in English. Oxford, UK;Cambridge, Mass., USA:Blackwell, 1991.

Jay, Timothy. Why we curse: a neuro-psycho-social theory of speech. Philadelphia:John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2000.

Ling, Tsang Yuet. A Comparative Investigation of Attitudes towards Taboo Language in English and Cantonese. The University of Hong Kong:Hong Kong, June 2005.

Mannheimer, Michael J. The Fighting Words Doctrine. Columbia Law Review, Vol. 93, No. 6, pp. 1527-1571, 1993.

Martin, Samuel E. A Reference Grammar of Japanese. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975.

Potts, Christopher & Kawahara Shigeto. Japanese honorifics as emotive definite descriptions. In Kazuha Watanabe and Robert B. Young, eds., Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory 14, 235-254. Ithaca, NY: CLC Publications. 2004a.

Suzuki, Mikio. A Psychopathological Study on Gilles de la Tourette’s Syndrome. Psychiatria et Neurologia Japonica, Vol. 98, pp 61-88. 1996.

Takahashi, Rumiko. Ranma ½, Vol 28, Tokyo:Shonen Sunday, Mar 1994.