TABOO WORDS IN THE MOVIES “EASY A” AND “THE CHANGE-UP”
DEWA AYU YADITYA ARIESTA PRIMANANDA 1201305107
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LETTERS AND CULTURE UDAYANA UNIVERSITY
This paper is submitted as partial fulfillment to achieve S1 Degree
at English Department, Faculty of Letters and Culture Udayana University
Approved by the Examining Board of English Department Faculty of Letters and Culture Udayana University
Denpasar, 20 Mei 2016
Chairman Secretary
ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First of all, I would like to thank God for His guidance. I thank You for the strength that You have given that I could finish this thesis on time. In this occasion, I would like to extend my best gratitude to some people for their support, encouragement, and guidance during the completion of this study.
First, I would like to thank my supervisor, Drs. I Ketut Tika, M.A and Drs. I Gede Putu Sudana, M.A, for their guidance, patience, and advice. Their support and help contribute to the completion of this study.
My gratitude is also addressed to my family. Thanks to my father for his guidance and financial support and my mother for her inspiration. Also thanks to brother, for accompanying me while analyzing the data.
Many thanks to Afriansyah as my best supporter to finish this thesis as quickly as I could; he gave me so much spirit. Thank you for being my partner and advisor. Your support gave me strength.
Last but not least, I share my gratification to all the English Department 2012 regular class students during the three and a half years, especially for class D. I am very happy to be part of class D.
Denpasar, 2nd May 2016
iii ABSTRACT
The aims of this study entitled Taboo Words in Movies Easy A and The Change-Up are to find out the types of taboo words used in Easy A and The Change-up movies, to explain the function of taboo words used in Easy A and The Change-Up movies, also to present the dominant type of taboo words used in Easy A and The Change-Up movies.
The data of this study were analyzed using the theory proposed by Jay (1992) as the main theory. This theory was used to identify types of taboo words and the supporting theory proposed by Holmes (1992) to analyze the functions of taboo words. Based on Jay’s theory there are 10 types of taboo words; they are Cursing, Profanity, Blasphemy, Taboo, Vulgarity, Obscenity, Epithet, Slang, Insult and Slurs, and Scatology. And according to Holmes, there are 6 functions of taboo words: Expressive function, Referential function, Directive function, Metalinguistic function, Phatic function, and Poetic function.
This study compares Easy A and The Change-Up movies to see the difference between those movies. The differences are, Easy A movie has 10 types of taboo words and The Change-Up has 8 types of taboo words. The dominant type of taboo words in the first movie is Insult and Slurs while Vulgarity is the dominant type in the second movie. There were 5 functions of taboo words which had been identified in both movies; they are: expressive function, referential function, directive function, metalinguistic function, and phatic function.
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TABLE OF CONTENT
Acknowledgements ii
Abstract iii Table of Contents iv CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background ... 1
1.2 Problems of the Study ... 2
1.3 Aims of the Study ... 2
1.4 Scope of Discussion ... 3
1.5 Research Method ... 4
1.5.1 Data Source... 4
1.5.2 Method and Techniques of Collecting Data ... 5
1.5.3 Method and Techniques of Analyzing Data ... 6
1.5.4 Method and Techniques of Presenting Data ... 7
CHAPTER II THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 2.1 Literature review ... 8
2.2 Concepts ... 11
2.2.1 The Concept of Taboo ... 11
2.3 Theoretical Framework ... 13
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2.3.2 Function of language ... 16
CHAPTER III THE ANALYSIS OF TYPES AND FUNCTION OF TABOO WORDS IN MOVIE EASY A AND THE CHANGE-UP 3.1 Types and Function of Taboo Words in Easy A Movie... 18
3.2 The Dominant Type of Taboo Words in Easy A Movie ... 33
3.3 Types and Function of Taboo Words in The Change-Up Movie ... 34
3.4 The Dominant Type of Taboo Words in The Change-Up Movie ... 49
CHAPTER IV CONCLUSION ... 50
4.1 Conclusion ... 50
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background
Language has a phenomenon. A large number of words are, therefore, taken
as silly, vulgar or obscene when used in communication. These words are “taboos”,
according to Gao (2013). The phenomenon of taboo words can be found in certain
cultures, but most people who use taboo words are from American cultures.
Taboo is a social or religious custom prohibiting or restricting a particular
practice or forbidding association with a particular person, place, or thing based on
The New Oxford Dictionary of English (2001).
According to Wardaugh (2010:250) in “An Introduction to Sociolinguistics,
Sixth Edition ”Taboos may also be violated on occasion to draw attention to oneself,
or to show contempt, or to be aggressive or provocative, or to mock authority.
Taboo word is a forbidden word in a culture, because such a word is not
allowed to be uttered, and it includes sex, death, genitalia, intermarriage and many
more on the use of offensive language. Kusuma (2013) stated that taboo words are
usually used in daily conversations. It can be found when people express their
emotions, such as emotion of anger like “fuck”; “shit”, or shocked feeling like “holy
shit”;”damn it”. Taboo words are a unique phenomenon, because they may produce
According to Wiadnyana (2012) nowadays almost every movie uses taboo
words in the dialogue because the use of taboo words in the dialog makes the
characters of the film look natural to express their emotion. Taboo words support the
representation of a real life in the plot of the story.
In Easy A and The Change-Up movie, there are taboo words found in the
conversations. The use of taboo words in this movie are: as a dirty joke, shocked
feeling, and the emotions. This unique phenomenon becomes the reason of this study
to analyze the types and functions of taboo words, also to see the dominant use of
taboo words used in Easy Aand The Change-Up movie. This study analyzes by the
scenes of the movies, making the data valid.
1.2 Problems of the Study
The problems of the study can be formulated as follows:
1. What types of taboo words are used in “Easy A and The Change-Up” movie?
2. What functions of taboo words are found in the dialog of “Easy A and The
Change-Up” movie?
3. What is the dominant type of taboo words used in “Easy A and The Change-Up”
1.3 Aims of the Study
The aims of this study are:
1. To find out the types of taboo words used in Easy A and The Change-up
movie;
2. To explain the function of taboo words used in Easy A and The Change-Up
movie;
3. To present the dominant use of taboo words type used in Easy A and The
Change-Up movie
1.3.1 General Objective
Generally, the objective of the study is to analyze and develop the research of
taboo words that are used in general even in movie scripts. By analyzing and
developing taboo words, people will understand why taboo words still use even if
they are not allowed universally.
1.3.2 Specific Objective
Specifically, the objectives of the study are to describe the types of taboo
words and analyze the functions of taboo words, and find the dominant use of taboo
1.4 Scope of Discussion
This study focuses on the function and analysis of taboo words that occur in
Easy A and The Change-Up movie. There are three problems in the scope of
discussion; they are the analysis of the various types of taboo words in the movie
“Easy A and “The Change-Up”, the functions of taboo words in the movie “Easy
Aand “The Change-Up”, and the dominant use of taboo words in the movie “Easy A
and “The Change-Up”.
1.5 Research Method
The research method can be divided into three. They are: data source, method
and technique of collecting data, and method and technique of analyzing data.
1.5.1 Data Source
The data of this study were taken from the movies entitled Easy A and The
Change-Up. Easy A is written by Bert V. Royal, directed by Will Gluck, and starred
by Emma Stone. This movie was released on September 11th, 2010. The second data
is The Change-Up.This movie is written by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, directed by
David Dobkin, and starred by Ryan Reynolds. The Change-Up was released on
Easy A and The Change-Up movies were chosen as the data sources because
the dialogues of the movies use natural daily conversation and contain a lot of taboo
words. Also these movies have many variations of taboo words.
Easy A is an American teen romantic comedy film that tells about Olive
Penderghast, a teenage girl living in Ojai, California, who feels anonymous in the
high school where she studies. Rhiannon is Olive’s best friend who wants to be
popular in their school, she is proud of herself because she loses her virginity.
Besides, she wants Olive to be like her. Rhiannon invites Olive to spend weekend
with her parents in her house, but Olive refused it and she lied to Rhiannon. She said
that she had to go with a guy. On the following day, Rhiannon enforced Olive to say
that she losed her virginity. Olive lied again, she said yes that she lost her virginity.
The rumors spread at school and she welcomes the attention. When she agrees to help
out a bullied gay friend by pretending to sleep with him, her image reputation
degrades and her world begins to spin out of control. As she helps more and more of
her classmates and her lies continue to escalate, Olive must find a way to save face
before the school religious fanatic Marianne gets her expelled.
The Change-Up is an American romantic comedy film that tells about best
friends Dave and Mitch who are jealous of the others’ lifestyles. Dave is a lawyer that
expects to be promoted to be a partner of the law firm; he has been married to Jamie
for ten years and has three children. Unlike his best friend, Mitch is an untrained
and Dave are unhappy with their lives because they are bored with the routine. They
wish they could switch places. Accidentally, their wishes come true; they magically
switched into the other’s body when they peed on the fountain.
1.5.2 Method and Technique of Collecting Data
The data were collected through observation method and documentation
method. Observation is the first step method to collect the data before documentation
method. Documentation method is the supporting method of this study.
There were two steps in collecting the data. First, downloading the movies
from http://www.ganool.com/easy-a-movies-2010.html and
http://www.ganool.com/the-change-up-movies-2011.html then watching every scene
in detail and using English subtitle. Second, note taking the taboo words showed in
the movies for every scene while watching the movies, the utterances which are
considered appropriate data were noted. There are 20 scenes from Easy A and 25
scenes from The Change-Up movie. But there are 10 scenes selected from Easy A
and 12 scenes were selected from The Change-Up.
1.5.3 Method and Techniques of Analyzing Data
A descriptive qualitative method was used to analyze the function and types
of taboo words. After all the data collected, the data were classified based on the
types according to Jay (1992) and the function of taboo words according to Holmes
of data presentation with the purpose of describing the various types of taboo words
and the function of taboo words in the dialog. After the data were analyzed, the next
step was counting the types of taboo words to see dominant types of taboo words in
movies.
1.5.4 Method and Technique of Presenting Data
This study used the descriptive method in presenting the data related to the
subject of this study. The data were categorized, depending on each scene.
Furthermore, each scene was presented descriptively. The selected data from both
movies were presented based on the selected movie scenes. There are 10 selected
scenes of Easy A movie and 12 selected scenes of The Change-Up movie. From 22
CHAPTER II
LITERATURE REVIEW, CONCEPT, AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
2.1 Literature Review
This chapter consists of literature review, concept, and theoretical framework. There are some sources which are reviewed to write this thesis; those are from thesis and international journals. The thesis was written by Kusuma (2013), Wiadnyana (2012), and Aditia (2013). The international journals were written by Pilloti (2012) and Fakuade (2013). Those studies are related to this study, the topics of those studies have the similar character.
The thesis entitled “The Function of Taboo Words and Their Expressions in
Bad Boys Movie” was written by Kusuma (2013). He used the theory of taboo words proposed by Jay (1999) about Taboo word which were produced to show disgust,
embracement, and violate social norms and Andersson’s theory (1985) to analyze
function, and the dominant use of taboo words in the movie. This study also analyzes the main characters and supporting characters in the movies. It can enrich the result of the research.
Another thesis was written by Wiadnyana (2012), in his work “Taboo words
in Hollywood movie Bad Teacher” , in which analyzed the types of taboo words and
the use of taboo language in woman’s, men’s, and mixed gender conversations in the
movie Bad Teacher. The writer listened to the conversation of all the characters in the movie to collect the data, after that the note-taking data was divided based on each category. The writer classified the data by arranging them in the table to analyze the data; there were three steps used to analyze the data: they are categorizing, classifying, and analyzing the collected data. The theory that he used are the theory proposed by Jay (1992) which was used to analyze taboo words and the theory proposed by Lakoff (1975) which was used to analyze the gender difference of taboo words. The data were categorized based on their types. The difference between his study and this study is that this one does not give the difference to analyze about the
use of taboo words in woman’s, men’s or mixed gender. This study analyzes the
types and functions of taboo words in the movies in the women’s or men’s dialogues.
Aditia (2011), in his work “An Analysis of Taboo Word and Swear Word in
Dustin Lee Abraham’s How High Movie” analyzed the types of taboo words and the
words in How High movie and two types of swear words in How High movie. This study has the same topic as that of his study. But the difference is that this study focuses on taboo words; their types, functions, and the dominant use of the film. His study combined swear words. Therefore, the theory that was used in his study is different from that used in this present study.
The international journal written by Pilotti (2012) entitled “Taboo Words in
Expressive Language: Do Sex and Primary Language Matter?” in “American
International Journal of Contemporary Research”Vol.2 No.2 published by School of
Arts and Sciences, New Mexico Highlands University United States of America on 2012 analyzed the sex matter of taboo words use. Because there are differences in the number of taboo words that women and men use to refer to others either of the same sex or of adifferent sex. Her study used the quantitative method to get the result of taboo words used by different sex. The theories used in her study are by proposed by Jay (2009) and Mehl & Pennebaker (2003) to analyze the sociolinguistic of taboo words, also the sex differences reported in the literature by Foote & Woodward (1973). The result of her study is that the male respondents emerged as more likely to produce taboo words than females.
The topic of this study is similar to that of her study and her study also used
Jay’s theory to analyze the sociolinguistics of taboo words. But the differences are
used by different sexes. The explanation formula of analyzing questionnaire in the journal is not clear; it makes the explanation random and hard to understand.
Another journal was by Fakuade (2013) entitled “Linguistic Taboo in The
IGBO Investigation: Sociolinguistic Investigation” in the journal “Department of
Linguistics University of Ilorin” published by University of Ilorin, Nigeria in 2013. IGBO is one of the three major Nigerian languages spoken in the eastern part of Nigeria. This journal investigated the linguistic prejudice towards taboo expressions in the Igbo society and its implications on the teaching of the Igbo language both as a first and second language. He used the quantitative method to get the result and he made 50 copies of questionnaire. This journal used the theory proposed by Jay (1996) and Qanbar (2011). The result of this journal is that the taboo words exist in the Igbo language.
The journal is different from this present study because the journal analyzed taboo words that exist in Igbo language; the journal used a different method of collecting data with this study. The quantitative method was the method used in the journal. This journal only mentioned the theory he used but did not mention the main theory, it made the result of the journal not arranged with the number of the problems.
2.2 Concepts
Allan Burridge (2006) stated “a taboo is a proscription of behavior for a
specifiable community of people, for a specified context, at a given place and time.”
Wardhaugh (2000:234) said “Taboo is prohibition or avoidance in any society
of behavior believed to be harmful to its members in that it would cause them
anxiety, embarrassment or shame.” It means that taboo is harmful for any society
because it makes embarrassment for some people.
In Routledge Dictionary of Language and Linguistics (2000), it is stated that Taboo word is a term that is avoided for religious, political, or sexual reasons and is usually replaced by a euphemism.
In the Oxford Advance Learner’s Dictionary (1995) it is stated “Taboo is a cultural or religious custom that forbids people to do, touch, use or talk about a
certain thing. Taboo words are often considered offensive, shocking or rude.” Taboo
is rude because it refers to the parts of the body and sometimes it refers to sex that are sensitive.
2.3 Theoretical Framework
2.3.1 Taboo Words
Taboo word is a phenomenon of people to express words related to any area of human activity. Taboo itself comes from Tongan, a language that is spoken from Polynesians where any sacred or humble things are forbidden to touch or talk about. Taboo words are related to sociolinguistics because taboo words are a unique phenomenon in social life. There are many taboo words used in many movies nowadays. The reason is because taboo words are used in daily life; it makes the director of the movie use taboo words purposively to make the movie look like the reality. There are several types of taboo words based on sociolinguistics developed by Jay (1992) as the main theory of this study:
1. Cursing
The intention of cursing is to invoke harm on another person using certain words or phrases. Religion makes a point to note that there exist in language a set of
special words. For example, “Damn you!”; “Goddamn you!” On the other hand,
curse can be non-religious but still wishes to harm the target person, for example “Eat
shit and die!”
2. Profanity
ignorance of or indifference to these matters. Some examples are “Jesus Christ, I’m
tired of this!”.
3. Blasphemy
Blasphemy resembles profanity. Profanity and blasphemy are both religious. But the difference is blasphemy is a religious doctrine, not religious distinction.
These verbal assaults would take form of using the Lord’s name in vain. Blasphemy
has lost its impact as an insult. Example: “Say what it says in the bible!”
4. Taboo
A taboo operates to inhibit certain behavior through speech. Different cultures have different ways when use taboo to control individuals within the groups. The function of taboo is to prohibit the behavior of a speaker and social cohesion. Example: screw, piss, etc.
5. Obscenity
Obscene words are considered the most offensive and rarely, if ever, are used in public places. Obscenities are pointed sexual in nature; this kind of expression is indecent. But obscenity is legal. Most of the time, it is offensive and repulsive. The function of obscenity law is to protect listeners from harmful language. Obscenity
laws control the content of books and the content of broadcasts. Example: ‘Fuck’,
’mother fucker’
Vulgarity means the language of the common person, ‘the person in the
street’, or the unsophisticated, un-socialized, under-educated. It does not serve any
particular need or function beyond the normal communication demands of the common human.Vulgarism is not necessarily obscene or taboo, it just reflects the
crudeness of street language. Example: ‘Kiss my ass!’
7. Slang
Slang is a word that is developed in certain sub-groups for ease of communication. The slang code serves to identity members of the group, while misuse or ignorance of it identifies non-members, which may be especially important in illegal translations. Sometimes slang terms become popular and are used in standard language, putting on sub-groups members to invent a new code. Example:
“pimp”,”dweeb”
8. Epithets
Epithets are brief but forceful burst of emotional language. They are more powerful in presentation (loudness or duration) and in offensiveness than other type of cursing, for example, joking. The epithet is uttered from frustration, as when you do a lot of assignments and feel frustrated. It may also mark a sense of hostility, as when someone crowds in front of you in a supermarket check-out-line. Example:
9. Insults and Slurs
Insults are verbal attacks on other people. These words are spoken to harm other people by the word alone. Slurs may be racial, use a psychological qualities of
the target. Some insults use animal imagery. Example: “pig!” ; “dog!” When
someone’s insults are commonly based on abnormal psychological characteristic,
example: ‘nigger’ ‘big mouth’
10. Scatology
The term scatology refers to human waste products or process. Scatological insults are common among children. Americans have a great desire in changing childish terms rather than using standardized terms or those of scientific origin. Since scatological references are about faces and elimination, they appear as:
‘poop’;’piss’;’crap’;’turd’.
2.3.2 Function of Language
The function of language was analyzed using Janet Holmes’ theory (1992).
This function helps the speakerto convey his meaning to the listener in order to avoid missed communication. There are six functions from Holmes:
1. Expressive function
This function is used to tell other people about the speaker’s feeling. This
Example: I got headache. The speaker can express his sock feeling, fear, anger, or sad.
2. Directive function
Directive function attempts to get someone to do something or also can divine as to command people. This function is used when the speaker wants someone else to
do something or do what the speaker’s want. Example: Open the window. The
directive function can be difined as a command to other people. 3. Referential function
Referential provides information on an action or activities but it just provides the information without taking any response. In this case, the speaker tells someone else about an action or gives another person information about what happened in some situation. Example: at the third stroke it will be three o’clock precisely.
4. Metalinguistic function
Metalinguistic is an utterance that comments on the language itself. Metalinguistic function is used when the speaker comments about another, agree or disagree with anther people say. Example: I don’t think that she’s beautiful.
5. Poetic function
This function is focused on aesthetic, e.g. a poem. This is used in order to fulfill the need for aesthetic reason.
Phatic function expresses solidarity and empathy with others, example: hi
