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Title Language of Social Taboos: English Used for Euphemism in Pakistani Films

Author(s) ASIF SHAHBAZ

Abstract Language use is dependent upon the speaker, situation and society whereas use of language is also effected by the taboos that prevail with a society. Every speaker has to avoid taboos present in the society to retain a positive face, which differ from one society to another and from one context to other as well. Pakistan is a Muslim majority country that is why many taboos other than the Anglophone world exist, such as talking about love and marriage between an unmarried man or woman, having a heterosexual relationship and using high tone words and talking about practices that are against the norms of the society. Every speaker wishes to maintain the positive face in the society, and for that purpose speakers use euphemized language. The researcher has collected the taboo words and utterances spoken by the characters of the movies released in 2018. Taboo words and utterances are transcribed and put under different categories. Taboo language is offensive language and the researcher used the theory of Battistella (2005) who categorized offensive language, as epithets, profanity, vulgarity and obscenity. For the present study, 128 taboo instances, which fall under different categories, were found in the movies and along with the types of taboo words used in movies, functions of taboo words are also explained according to the context. Transcriptions technique by Powers (2005) was used to transcribe the data. The researcher found that the most discussed topic in the movies is “love” while other related words like “bitch ( کتیہ، کینہ ور یا بد فطرت عورت )”, “asshole (چوتڑ )”, “one sided love( یک طرفہ پیار )”, “life partner( جیون ساتھی )”, “love marriage ( محبت کی شادی )”, “lesbian ( ہم جنس پرست عورت )”, “bastard ( حرامی )”, “honeymoon (ماہِ عُسل )”, boyfriend ( رفیق. چاہنے والا )”, “girlfriend ( ساتھ گھومنے والی عورت یا لڑکی )”, and “hell(دوزخ )” were also found which are uttered by the characters of the movies. The findings show that the speakers in Urdu movies of Pakistan partially or completely switched to English language for mentioning taboo topics and objects. They showed a sound recognition and knowledge about the taboos within the Pakistani society, which helped them euphemize those topics by using English language.

Type Thesis/Dissertation MS

Faculty Languages

Department English

Language English

Publication Date 2022-04-01

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