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OKARA: Jurnal Bahasa dan Sastra, Vol. 14, No. 2, November 2020
224
AN ANALYSIS OF SWEAR WORDS IN “ONCE UPON A TIME... IN
HOLLYWOOD” FILM
Peggy Andriani Kakisina1,*, Isti Purwaningtyas2
1Department of Languages and Literature, Faculty of Cultural Studies, Universitas Brawijaya, Malang 65145,
Indonesia
2Department of Languages and Literature, Faculty of Cultural Studies, Universitas Brawijaya, Malang 65145,
Indonesia
A R T I C L E I N F O
A B S T R A C T
Keywords:
Once Upon a Time… in
Hollywood
Swear Word
Semantic referent
Swearing motive
Swear words are one of the linguistic choices which show cultural aspects.
Found in both oral and written forms. Swear words represent emotions and
convey powerful messages. Some people utter swear words because of specific
reasons, and they occasionally ignore their literal meaning. The phenomenon
of swearing also happens in films. Based on the film Once Upon a Time...
in Hollywood, this qualitative research addressed the semantic referents of
swear words and the motives of swearing. By employing content analysis, the
results show that (a) 59 swear words are classified into nine semantic
referents, consisting of offensive slang (17%) as the main referent, followed
by profane or blasphemous (15%), psychological-physical-social deviations
(15%), scatological and disgusting objects (15%), sexual references (12%),
substandard vulgar terms (10%), ethnic-racial-gender slurs (7%), animal
names (5%), and ancestral allusions (4%) and (b) swearing are caused by
three motives, namely psychological, social, and linguistic. The study
concludes that the film contains severe and various swear words, and
particular situations can lead the characters to swear. General readers are
hoped to be more considerate in expressing themselves and be wiser in
determining their word choices.
Article History:
Received: 30/05/2020
Accepted: 16/11/2020
Available Online:
30/11/2020
2442-305X / © 2020 The Authors, this is open access article under the (CC-BY-NC) license
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), DOI: 10.19105/ojbs.v14i2.3394
* Corresponding Author:
Email address: peggykakisina@gmail.com (P. A. Kakisina)
A. Introduction
As the initial communicative device,
language holds an essential role in
connecting people. English as the global
language serves as the lingua franca that
unites people across the world. Like any
other language, English contains a power
that can impact the speaker and the
hearer. This kind of influence can be
delivered in the form of swear words.
Swearing has always been
considered as an inappropriate act.
Regardless of the offensiveness, swear
words are used in everyday lives, merely
as a means of expressing people‟s
emotions. However, the meaning of swear
OKARA: Jurnal Bahasa dan Sastra, Vol. 14, No. 2, November 2020
225
words and the reasons for swearing are
barely acknowledged by the speakers
themselves. Andersson and Trudgill
define swear word as a type of language
which refers to taboo things, illustrates
powerful feelings, and should be
interpreted imprecisely.
1
However,
Karjalainen argues that not all taboo
words are classified into swear words.
2
As one of the activities that some
people might find taboo and offensive,
swearing is marked by the connection of
powerful attitudes and emotions, the
social context between the addressers
and the addressees, as well as the
formality and the nature of the
circumstances.
3
Jay suggests that a
swearing style depends on the personal
knowledge formed by individual
experiences, psychological construction,
and the culture whereby the person is
raised.
4
This implies that swearing
behavior is a product of social and cultural
contexts during the process of
psychological development.
Some people may avoid uttering
swear words, yet others tend to insert
them due to various reasons while
1
L. Andersson and P. Trudgill, Bad Language
(Oxford: Blackwell, 1990), 53.
2
Markus Karjalainen, “Where Have All the
Swearwords Gone? An Analysis of the Loss of
Swearwords in Two Swedish Translations of J. D.
Salinger‟s Catcher in the Rye,” Pro Gradu Thesis
Faculty of Arts Department of English University of
Helsinki (University of Helsinki, 2002), 18.
3
Ad J. J. M. Vingerhoets, Lauren M. Bylsma, and
Cornelis de Vlam, “Swearing: A Biopsychosocial
Perspective,” Psychological Topics 22, no. 2
(2013): 287–304.
4
Timothy Jay, Why We Curse: A Neuro-Psycho-
Social Theory of Speech (Amsterdam: John
Benjamins, 1999), 20.
communicating. Informal situations also
tend to be the most appropriate occasion
whereby people may express themselves
through swear words.
5
Because of that,
the status of swearing as a rude and
offensive act decreases. It also gradually
loses the ability to create shock value for
becoming more accustomed around
societies.
6
Thereby, swearing turns into a
culture, a part of a social life now.
The use of swear words in social life
continues to evolve and eventually shift
through generations. The persistence and
the offensiveness are the outcomes of the
addressees‟ viewpoint regarding the
topics instead of the words alone. The
government also tolerates the use of
vulgar language by allowing ideas, such
as verbal art, containing words that may
be considered offensive by some people.
7
Kristiano and Ardi describe that the
literal meaning of swear words is
generally neglected since they do not
represent what is intended to be referred
to as swearing.
8
This prompts the use of
swear words connotatively. The
connotative meaning of swear words is
5
Yehuda Baruch et al., “Swearing at Work: The
Mixed Outcomes of Profanity,” Journal of
Managerial Psychology 32, no. 2 (2017): 149–62,
https://doi.org/10.1108/JMP-04-2016-0102.
6
Karyn Stapleton, “Swearing,” in Interpersonal
Pragmatics (New York: De Gruyter Mouton, 2010),
289–305.
7
Edwin L. Battistella, Bad Language: Are Some
Words Better than Others? (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2007), 76.
https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195172485.
001.0001.
8
Johan Tobias Kristiano and Priyatno Ardi, “Swear
Words in Bad Boys II: A Semantic Analysis,”
Journal: A Journal on Language and Language
Teaching 21, no. 2 (2018): 191–98,
https://doi.org/10.24071/llt.2018.210208.
OKARA: Jurnal Bahasa dan Sastra, Vol. 14, No. 2, November 2020
226
related to the personal association that
shows a specific attitude to a particular
entity or circumstance.
The literal meaning, usually coded
as the denotative meaning, is carried in a
referent. Kreidler states that referent is the
extralinguistic object referred by a word.
9
Referent is not the same as reference. He
defines reference as the relational
concept between a language form and
some physical entity, which is the referent
of that sign. In other words, reference and
referent illustrate the successful way of
the speakers and the hearers in using
language expressions since they both
have the same common knowledge about
a certain situation of language use.
Jay identifies types of semantic
referents of swear words as sexual
references (expressed through sexual
terms related to sexual acts, sexual
anatomies, and sexual deviations);
profane or blasphemous (expressed
through religious denotations);
scatological and disgusting objects
(expressed through excretion organs and
processes as well as body products);
animal names; ethnic-racial-gender slurs
(expressed through hate speech,
discrimination, and pride of own culture);
psychological - physical - social deviations
(expressed through psychological states,
physical appearances, and against-norm);
ancestral allusions (expressed through
family members and ancestors);
substandard vulgar terms (expressed
through offensive phrases that are below
9
Charles W Kreidler, Introducing English
Semantics (London: Routledge, 1998), 131.
https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203265574.
the satisfactory standard of language),
and; offensive slang (expressed through
slang which contains insult).
10
Horan also
argues that swear words are usually
structured out of animals, sex, bodily
excretions, and disease.
11
In agreement
with Jay, Trudgill asserts that taboo words
involve terms linked to sex, excretion,
religion, animals, and female relation.
12
Despite their inappropriateness,
swear words offer various functions to the
addressers. They imply verbal aggression,
represent group identity, reflect the
emotions, emphasize, and serve as
grammatical categories.
13
Swearing does
not merely celebrate the verbal
aggression but also a means to cope with
anger which will escalate into positive
affective valence and lower physical
activation.
14
10
Timothy Jay, “The Utility and Ubiquity of Taboo
Words,” Perspectives on Psychological Science 4,
no. 2 (2009): 153–61,
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-6924.2009.01115.x.
11
Geraldine Horan, “„You Taught Me Language;
and My Profit on‟t/Is, I Know How to Curse‟:
Cursing and Swearing in Foreign Language
Learning,” Language and Intercultural
Communication 13, no. 3 (2013): 283–97,
https://doi.org/10.1080/14708477.2013.804533.
12
Peter Trudgill, Sociolinguistics: An Introduction to
Language and Society, 4th ed. (London: Penguin
Books, 2000), 18. https://doi.org/10.2307/326846.
13
Eric Holgate et al., “Why Swear? Analyzing and
Inferring the Intentions of Vulgar Expressions,” in
Proceedings of the 2018 Conference on Empirical
Methods in Natural Language Processing, EMNLP
2018 (Brussels, 2018), 4405–14,
https://doi.org/10.18653/v1/d18-1471.
14
Simona A. Popuşoi, Grigore M. Havârneanu, and
Corneliu E. Havârneanu, “„Get the F#∗k out of My
Way!‟ Exploring the Cathartic Effect of Swear
Words in Coping with Driving Anger,”
Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology
and Behaviour 56 (2018): 215–26,
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trf.2018.04.013.
OKARA: Jurnal Bahasa dan Sastra, Vol. 14, No. 2, November 2020
227
Vingerhoets, Bylsma, and de Vlam
claim that swearing provides interpersonal
consequences, which are parted into
intra-individual functions and inter-
individual functions. Positive intra-
individual roles create stress relief,
aggressive reduction, pain tolerance, and
confidence, while the negative effects are
realized through disapproval and negative
judgment. Positive inter-individual aim to
signal the emotions, discontinue
unwanted activities, increase perceived
credibility, enhance persuasiveness, serve
as group binding, identity marker, and
humor elicitation. Feeling socially isolated
and rejected, fear, hostility, indignity, and
loss of status are the disadvantages of
inter-individual functions.
15
Every swear word signifies power.
When people do not expect to produce
swear words, the use of these terms may
create a shock to the addressee, but it
makes the addresser easier to receive the
goal of uttering them. Andersson (as cited
in Karjalainen)
16
proposes three types of
reasons for swearing, that are grouped
into psychological motives (PM), social
motives (SM), and linguistic motives (LM).
In psychological motives, swearing
is assumed as a way of expressing
feelings and reducing stress. The
emotional feelings included in this
category are non-emphatic feelings,
anger, frustration, surprise, sorrow, and
joy. Stephens and Zile also assert that the
15
Vingerhoets, Bylsma, and de Vlam, “Swearing: A
Biopsychosocial Perspective," 296.
16
Karjalainen, “Where Have All the Swearwords
Gone? An Analysis of the Loss of Swearwords in
Two Swedish Translations of J. D. Salinger‟s
Catcher in the Rye,” 2002, 24.
swearing fluency can be induced by
increasing emotional arousal.
17
Holmes
reveals that each swear word forms
different functions depending on the social
context.
18
Therefore, in terms of social
motives, swearing functions to amuse,
insult, and shock the addressee. It can
also illustrate intimacy or friendship,
strengthen group identity, along with
social distance and solidarity. Social
distress, such as being rejected,
excluded, or spurned, may trigger the
speaker to respond by swearing and
showing aggression.
19
Through linguistic
motives, swearing is not employed directly
to insult or express emotions. They also
appear as pure motives on linguistic
subjects. Moreover, they emphasize what
the speakers attempt to state and indicate
their daily conversational style.
Swear words are the relatively
neglected research areas, and there are
few studies regarding this topic in films.
With the exception of Cahyani and
Setiawan
20
who analyzed the form and
17
Richard Stephens and Amy Zile, “Does
Emotional Arousal Influence Swearing Fluency?,”
Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 46, no. 4
(2017): 983–95, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-
016-9473-8.
18
Janet Holmes, An Introduction to Sociolinguistics,
4th ed. (New York: Routledge, 2013), 283.
https://doi.org/10.1525/jlin.2003.13.2.252.
19
Michael C. Philipp and Laura Lombardo, “Hurt
Feelings and Four Letter Words: Swearing
Alleviates the Pain of Social Distress,” European
Journal of Social Psychology 47, no. 4 (2017): 517–
23, https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2264.
20
Putri Dwi Cahyani and Teguh Setiawan,
“Swearing Words on Yowis Ben Movie by Fajar
Nugros and Bayu Skak,” in International
Conference on Interdisciplinary Language,
Literature and Education (ICILLE 2018) (Paris:
Atlantis Press, 2019), 282–87,
https://doi.org/10.2991/icille-18.2019.58.
OKARA: Jurnal Bahasa dan Sastra, Vol. 14, No. 2, November 2020
228
function of swear words in a non-English
language film and Kristiano and Ardi
21
who examined swear words in an English
film. Other studies focused on the practice
of teaching swearing in foreign language
learning have been executed by Andang
& Bram,
22
Finn,
23
and Horan,
24
and the
comparison of English swear words
utilization in different countries as studied
by Goddard,
25
and the variety of English
taboo words in a non-native English
speaking country as Gao‟s research.
26
All
of the previous research explore the
variety, function, comparison, and
utilization of swear words. The current
research continues offering a deeper
understanding of the topic by addressing
the semantic referents of swear words
and swearing motives.
As the representation of everyday
life, films become the devices for the
transmission of swearing. This signals that
the role of swear words as taboo and
offensive expressions alert to be less
21
Kristiano and Ardi, “Swear Words in Bad Boys II:
A Semantic Analysis,” 191.
22
Kristina Andang and Barli Bram, “Swear Words
and Their Implications for English Language
Learning-Teaching,” LLT Journal: A Journal on
Language and Language Teaching 21 (2018): 43–
49, https://doi.org/10.24071/llt.2018.Suppl2105.
23
Eileen Finn, “Swearing: The Good, the Bad & the
Ugly,” ORTESOL Journal 34 (2017): 17.
24
Horan, “„You Taught Me Language; and My Profit
on‟t/Is, I Know How to Curse‟: Cursing and
Swearing in Foreign Language Learning,” 283.
25
Cliff Goddard, “„Swear Words‟ and „Curse Words‟
in Australian (and American) English. at the
Crossroads of Pragmatics, Semantics and
Sociolinguistics,” Intercultural Pragmatics 12, no. 2
(2015): 1, https://doi.org/10.1515/ip-2015-0010.
26
Chunming Gao, “A Sociolinguistic Study of
English Taboo Language,” Theory and Practice in
Language Studies 3, no. 12 (2013): 2310–14,
https://doi.org/10.4304/tpls.3.12.2310-2314.
taboo and more acceptable across
societies. Once Upon a Time... in
Hollywood released in 2019 is a drama,
comedy film about a TV star Rick Dalton,
Leonardo DiCaprio, and his longtime stunt
double Cliff Booth, Brad Pitt, who are
struggling to achieve their career again in
the film industry in 1969 Los Angeles. The
film becomes the focus of the present
study as it contains severe profanity, is
relatively new, and is accessible.
Since the phenomenon of swear
words in films has gone largely
unanswered, the present study seeks to
investigate the semantic referents in an
that film. Moreover, swearing motives
need to be studied to ensure that people
acknowledge the cause of swearing.
Because of becoming a part of
communication, people should understand
the use of swear words be wise in their
conversations. To fulfill these aims, this
research study about the semantic
referents of swear words in the Once
Upon a Time... in Hollywood film, and also
what are the motives of swearing in the
Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood film.
B. Method
This qualitative research analyzed
selected dialogues containing swear
words in the Once Upon a Time... in
Hollywood film to investigate the semantic
referents and the motives of swearing.
The approach adopted in this research
was content analysis as it can cover
written and visual data to be identified.
27
27
Donald Ary et al., Introduction to Research in
Education, 10th ed. (Boston: Cengage Learning,
2018), 457.
OKARA: Jurnal Bahasa dan Sastra, Vol. 14, No. 2, November 2020
229
The film was downloaded from
https://yts.mx.
28
Furthermore, the script of
the film was taken from
https://isubtitles.org.
29
The data were collected by several
steps, which were realized through
watching and taking-note techniques. To
avoid providing double data, one sample
was used as the representation of the
same sentences whose semantic
referents and motives of swearing were
identical.
To discover the semantic referents,
the script was analyzed based on the
categorization of semantic referents
proposed by Jay.
30
To support the theory
and check the meanings of the swear
words, some dictionaries and an
encyclopedia were used, which included
Longman Dictionary, Merriam-Webster
Dictionary, Encyclopedia of Swearing, and
www.urbandictionary.com. Meanwhile, the
motives of swearing theory proposed by
Anderson (as cited in Karjalainen) was
used as the basis for examining the
characters' reasons for swearing.
31
28
Quentin Tarantino, Once Upon a Time... In
Hollywood, Comedy-Drama (Sony Picture
Releasing, 2019), https://yts.mx/movie/once-upon-
a-time-in-hollywood-2019.
29
“Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood - 2019 -
English Subtitles,” isubtitles.info, accessed October
21, 2020, https://isubtitles.org/once-upon-a-time-in-
hollywood/english-subtitles/1548808.
30
Jay, “The Utility and Ubiquity of Taboo Words,”
154.
31
Anderson in Markus Karjalainen, “Where Have
All the Swearwords Gone? An Analysis of the Loss
of Swearwords in Two Swedish Translations of J.
D. Salinger‟s Catcher in the Rye” (Thesis,
University of Helsinki, 2002), 24–26,
C. Results
1. Types of Semantic Referents of
Swear Words in Once Upon a Time...
in Hollywood
The semantic referents of swear
words in Once Upon a Time… in
Hollywood were analyzed based on Jay's
theory.
32
The following table displays the
distribution of each category of the
semantic referent.
Table 1.
Types of semantic referents of swear words in
Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
No.
Types of
Semantic
Referents of
Swear Words
Quantity
Percentage
(%)
1.
Offensive
Slang
10
17
2.
Profane or
Blasphemous
9
15
3.
Psychological-
Physical-Social
Deviations
9
15
4.
Scatological
and Disgusting
Objects
9
15
5.
Sexual
References
7
12
6.
Substandard
Vulgar Terms
6
10
7.
Ethnic-Racial-
Gender Slurs
4
7
8.
Animal Names
3
5
9.
Ancestral
Allusions
2
4
Total
59
100
As many as 59 semantic referents of
swear words (table 1) were identified on
the whole, in which offensive slang (17%)
became the most prevailing referent and
32
Jay, “The Utility and Ubiquity of Taboo Words,"
154.
OKARA: Jurnal Bahasa dan Sastra, Vol. 14, No. 2, November 2020
230
were followed by profane and
blasphemous (15%), psychological-
physical-social deviations (15%),
scatological and disgusting objects (15%),
sexual references (12%), substandard
vulgar terms (10%), ethnic-racial-gender
slurs (7%), animal names (5%), and
ancestral allusions (4%).
a. Offensive Slang
The form of slang shifts from time
to time. Modern slang involves some
words containing similarity and familiarity
with particular activities and showing the
creativity of inventing the new term.
33
Joker, numbnut, prick, jughead, bullshit,
shithole, sick mind, crap, phony, and
poontang were the offensive slangs
uttered in the Once Upon a Time... in
Hollywood film.
Some slangs are produced as a
new name for something, such as sick
mind which refers to a deranged
psychological state and phony which
means an impostor or a fake. The word
poontang is related to a sexual act. Slang
is used to identify a person with a
particular characteristic, such as the
words jokers and prick, which means
annoying and obnoxious people along
with numbnut and jughead which denote
stupid persons. Slang also functions to
denote something unpleasant, such as
bullshit which means nonsense, shithole
which denotes a disgusting place, and
crap which means excrement.
33
Edwin L. Battistella, Bad Language: Are Some
Words Betters than Others? (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2007), 84–85.
b. Profane and Blasphemous
There were nine swear words
categorized as profane referents and were
represented by goddamn, damn, God,
gosh, Jesus, Jesus Christ, hell, heck, and
devil. All of these phrases were profanity
instead of insults to a particular belief or
religion. Jesus and Jesus Christ are
specific terms related to Christianity, while
God, devil, and hell are common terms for
some religions or beliefs. The words
goddamn and damn are used to condemn
to fate or for some real fault. Gosh and
heck are the euphemism of the words
God and hell. Jay and Janschewitz
suggest that euphemism is a linguistic
choice that replaces any unpleasant and
inappropriate words to be more polite and
less offensive.
34
These euphemisms were
uttered to avoid using the initial swear
words since the characters wanted to
lessen the inappropriateness of using
God, which is believed to have power over
nature, and hell, a place believed as the
home of wicked people, as swear words.
c. Psychological – Physical – Social
Deviations
There were seven swear words
counted as psychological-physical-social
deviations, consisting of stupid, idiot,
weirdo, jackass, creepy, dirty, shaggy,
loser, and drunk. The words stupid, idiot,
weirdo, and jackass denote the
psychological state, which is the low
intelligence level. Meanwhile, physical
34
Timothy Jay and Kristin Janschewitz, “The
Pragmatics of Swearing,” Journal of Politeness
Research 4, no. 2 (2008): 267–88,
https://doi.org/10.1515/jplr.2008.013.
OKARA: Jurnal Bahasa dan Sastra, Vol. 14, No. 2, November 2020
231
appearance consists of physical
attractiveness, such as creepy, dirty, and
shaggy. Drunk and loser are included
under social deviation since drunk
represents amoral behavior, and a loser
illustrates a failing and incompetent
person to succeed.
d. Scatological and Disgusting Objects
Scatological and disgusting objects
were realized in nine words, namely,
asshole, butt, junk, carcass, shit,
horseshit, piece of shit, and shittiest, and
distributed in 52 utterances in the film.
The words ass, butt, and asshole are
parts of excretion organs, while the terms
shit, crap, and horseshit are excretion
products. Junk and carcass are
considered disgusting objects since junk
denotes trash, and carcass means the
remnants of a dead animal.
e. Sexual References
It was found 120 sexual references
consisted of sexual acts, sexual organs,
and sexual deviations. In terms of sexual
acts, it only has the variations of the word
fuck, such as fuck, fucking, fucker, and
fucked. The variations were applied 113
times, with the word fucking became the
one uttered more frequently. This could
illustrate that the term fucking is more
flexible and likely to be the most popular
interjection. As sexual anatomies, the
terms dick and cock, which refer to male
genitals, were uttered in the dialogue by
male characters. The sexual deviation
only includes the word motherfucker,
which occurred with the different forms of
singularity and plurality.
f. Substandard Vulgar Terms
Substandard vulgar terms were
represented by horse’s ass, shit-scared,
holy shit, pig-shit, shit-fuck, and piss-fart.
The prefixes shit- were added in shit-
scared and shit-fuck while pig-shit
contained suffixes -shit. These terms are
considered vulgar since they are related
to sexual acts, body parts, and body
products. Holy shit and piss-fart are word
constructions that are below the English
standard. Moreover, all these vulgar terms
are not considered grammatically correct.
g. Ethnic – Racial – Gender Slurs
White, redhead, ginger-haired, and
beaner were served as ethnic-racial-
gender slurs in the film. In terms of swear
words, white refers to a person whose
skin color is white. The phrases redhead
and ginger-head denote the same
meaning, that is a person, mostly a
woman whose hair is a color between red,
brown, and orange. In other words, this
person has reddish hair. Beaner is an
offensive word referring to a Mexican or
Mexican descent.
h. Animal Names
Seven utterances containing animal
names were produced in Once Upon a
Time... in Hollywood film. The referents
were presented by bitch, baboon, and pig.
The word bitch refers to a female dog and
baboon is one of the 23 genera of Old
World monkeys. The characters uttered
some animal names, but not as swear
words since they didn't contain any
offensive meaning. The words pussy and
snake were used as proper nouns as they
OKARA: Jurnal Bahasa dan Sastra, Vol. 14, No. 2, November 2020
232
referred to the characters‟ names. A word
construction containing animal name is
also used as an appropriate slang. The
term owl-hoot is a slang which denotes a
cowboy of the old American West.
i. Ancestral Allusions
There were two phrases categorized
in this type of referent, consisting of
bastard and son of a bitch. The term
bastard denotes an illegitimate child. Son
of a bitch is used to illustrate the
relationship between a male and his
mother. However, because of the
nonselective use over the centuries, the
term lost its effect and is generalized
now.
35
This kind of swear word was only
uttered by male characters and applied to
both persons and circumstances.
2. The Motives of Swearing in the Once
Upon a Time... in Hollywood
The distribution of motives of
swearing in Once Upon a Time… in
Hollywood film were presented in table 2
below.
Table 2.
Motives of swearing in Once Upon a Time... in
Hollywood film
No.
Motives of
Swearing
Quantity
Percentage
(%)
1.
Psychological
96
41
2.
Social
82
35
3.
Linguistic
56
24
Total
234
100
35
Geoffrey Hughes, An Encyclopedia of Swearing:
The Social History of Oaths, Profanity, Foul
Language, and Ethnic Slurs in the English-
Speaking World (New York: Routledge, 2015), 441.
https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315706412.
All in all, 234 utterances containing
275 swear words were identified, out of
which psychological was the most
frequent motive with 96 occurrences
(Table 2). On the contrary, linguistic
motives were realized with the lowest
frequency, only with 56 utterances. As for
social motives, it was the second most
prevailing type with 82 utterances.
a. Psychological Motives (PM)
Psychological motives which deals
with someone‟s either positive or negative
emotions, are presented through data (1)
and (2). Based on this theory, son of a
bitch, the fuck, and fucking bitch are
uttered as an expression of feelings and
attitudes in (1) and (2), respectively.
Cliff Booth : Here. Put these on.
Don't cry in front of the
Mexicans.
Rick Dalton : Son of a bitch.
36
(murmuring)
Cliff Booth : What's got you so upset,
man?
Rick Dalton : Well, if coming face-to-
face with the failure that
is your career ain't worth
crying about, then I don't
know what the fuck is.
37
(1)
In data (1), the swearing words of
son of a bitch and the fuck are used by
Rick Dalton to show the feeling of upset.
Dalton thinks that his career and fame in
the film industry are no longer shining as
what he used to be since he is suggested
to do an Italian-genre movie, which he
feels is beneath him.
36
Isubtitles.org, “Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
(2019) English Subtitles,” 2019.
37
Isubtitles.org.
OKARA: Jurnal Bahasa dan Sastra, Vol. 14, No. 2, November 2020
233
Tex Watson : I locked the car. You'll
need keys to get in.
Flowerchild : Oh. Right. Thank you.
Okay. I'll be right back.
Tex Watson : Okay. Just hurry up.
Flowerchild : Yeah, just a little minute.
(car door shuts), (engine
starts), (tires squealing)
Sadie : Oh, that fucking
bitch!
38
(2)
Datum (2) is uttered by Sadie to
show her anger and disbelief towards
Flowerchild who runs away and leaves
them there to continue killing Rick Dalton
without her. All of them belong to the
same cult, hence Sadie doesn‟t think that
Flowerchild will betray them.
Based on the analysis,
psychological motives exist since the
swearing expressions are uttered purely
because of psychological impulsion.
Regardless of any other motives,
psychological motives include the urge of
emotive feelings, such as anger, shock,
surprise, frustration, and upset without
any disturbance of other motives.
b. Social Motives (SM)
Social motives, which focus on
friendliness, social intimacy, or even
social distance, are presented in data (3)
and (4).
Rick Dalton : I don't need you. Not
today. Go home, fix my
antenna, do whatever.
See you at wrap.
Cliff Booth : Hey! You're Rick
fucking Dalton. Don't
you forget it.
39
(3)
38
Isubtitles.org.
39
Isubtitles.org.
In datum (3), fucking functions as a
filler in Ric Dalton‟s full name. Cliff Booth
uses the swear word to remind Rick
Dalton that he is still the best actor even
tough he is starring in a pilot. This swear
word signifies the friendliness and social
intimacy between Dalton and Booth.
Rick Dalton : You fucking hippies
came up here to smoke
dope on a dark road,
huh? Next time you want
to try that, fix your
fucking muffler.
40
Tex Watson : Look, we're really sorry
we disturbed you. (4)
In data (4), fucking hippies is uttered
by Dalton to insult Tex Watson and his
friends because of their looks which are
closely related to hippie culture, which can
be noticed by their long messy hairstyles
and hippie outfits. Moreover, to humiliate
Watson and his friends, Dalton accuses
them of smoking dope as hippies appear
to consume weed as a part of their
movement. The phrase fucking muffler is
used to both mock Watson‟s defective car
and rudely remind him that his car is not in
a good condition, hence it needs some
reparation. The utterances in data (4)
show the social distance between Rick
Dalton and Tex Watson and his friends.
c. Linguistic Motives (LM)
Linguistic motives of swearing
happen when the swear words are used
to emphasize on what the characters
attempt to communicate and the topic
under discussion.
40
Isubtitles.org.
OKARA: Jurnal Bahasa dan Sastra, Vol. 14, No. 2, November 2020
234
Rick Dalton : No. He wants to help me
get into Italian movies.
Cliff Booth : Then what's the
problem?
Rick Dalton : I gotta do fucking Italian
goddamn movies!
That's the fucking
problem!
41
(5)
Data (5) go along with the claim that
linguistic motives merely give an
emphasis. Rick Dalton is enhancing that
he refuses to do an Italian film and avoids
feeling like a has-been by saying fucking
Italian goddamn movies and the fucking
problem.
Janet : Oh, my God! What the
fuck did you do to my
car?!
42
Randy : What the fuck did you
do to her car?
43
Cliff Booth : I threw this little prick
into it, but I did not know
it was her car. (6)
For instance, in data (6), the fuck is
uttered twice by two different characters,
and each phrase reveals a different
motive. The first phrase focuses on
showing the feeling of shock while the
second one is used to emphasize the
reason why Bruce Lee and Cliff Booth
make Janet‟s car dent. The samples
clarify that each swear word has a
different motive based on its context.
The present study's findings
demonstrate that a wide variety of swear
words exist in Once Upon a Time... in
Hollywood film. Moreover, all of the
semantic referents are carried in the
41
Isubtitles.org.
42
Isubtitles.org.
43
Isubtitles.org.
swear words but not allocated equally.
This supports the viewpoint held by
Kristiano and Ardi who see the semantic
referents as one unity of swear words
ranged based on its offensiveness.
44
Likewise, Cahyani and Setiawan argue
that the forms of swear words in a non-
English language film also include sexual
reference, animal names, body parts, and
psychological conditions and all of them
are not equally distributed in the film.
45
This finding is also in line with Andang
and Bram regarding swear words'
construction as the influence of their
occurrences.
46
The highest frequency of semantic
referents is offensive slang. The finding
contradicts Kristiano and Ardi‟s research,
which reveals that the most prevailing
semantic referent of swear words is
profanity.
47
The higher rate of slang might
be primarily due to the nature of creating
new terms to ease communication. This
substantiates Battistella‟s suggestion that
slang invents new words to show the
inventiveness of language.
48
However,
slangs were considered the lowest form of
communication since some were
constructed out of poor word choices.
Instead, because of the rich and insightful
44
Kristiano and Ardi, “Swear Words in Bad Boys II:
A Semantic Analysis,” 197.
45
Cahyani and Setiawan, “Swearing Words on
Yowis Ben Movie by Fajar Nugros and Bayu Skak,”
285–87.
46
Andang and Bram, “Swear Words and Their
Implications for English Language Learning-
Teaching,” 46.
47
Kristiano and Ardi, “Swear Words in Bad Boys II:
A Semantic Analysis,” 194.
48
Battistella, Bad Language: Are Some Words
Betters than Others?, 84–85.
OKARA: Jurnal Bahasa dan Sastra, Vol. 14, No. 2, November 2020
235
variation, slang becomes part of standard
language and continuously emerges.
Although some slang words are offensive,
they are still popular among people
nowadays.
It is also acknowledged that
psychological is the most dominant motive
of swearing. The reason why this is the
case might be due to the function of
swearing itself that is to represent the
speaker‟s feelings. In line with this, as the
film is going to reach the climax, swear
words become more frequent. This
happens because the series of conflicts
leading to the climax start rising and the
tension between the characters turns to
be more heated, causing them to express
their emotions and attitude through swear
words. The present study provides further
support for Stephens and Zile‟s
proposition that raising emotional arousal
can cause and facilitate swearing as the
expression of powerful emotion.
49
The similarity this study bears to
Finn‟s study is that both show the positive
function of swearing.
50
In her study,
swearing indicates closeness, intimacy,
acceptance, and inclusiveness between
speakers. Horan explains that while swear
words carry strong and creative emotional
language, their function is context-
dependent and is determined by the
formality and the intensity of a specific
emotional experience.
51
In line with this,
49
Stephens and Zile, “Does Emotional Arousal
Influence Swearing Fluency?,” 993.
50
Finn, “Swearing: The Good, the Bad & the Ugly,”
22–23.
51
Horan, “„You Taught Me Language; and My Profit
on‟t/Is, I Know How to Curse‟: Cursing and
Swearing in Foreign Language Learning,” 295.
Gao reveals that the level of
offensiveness in swear words can be
lessened by euphemism.
52
The study's findings are in
compliance with Goddard‟s suggestion,
considering swear words as individual
expressions carrying particular meaning
and are bound to the context.
53
The
current paper indicates that swear words
are powerful linguistic choices signifying
freedom as people are no longer reluctant
to include them in daily conversations
regardless of the offensiveness and the
negative consequences. It is also well
understood that swear words mostly occur
directly in informal encounters because of
professional language expectations,
norms, and behaviors in formal settings.
This claim upholds Baruch's viewpoint, et
al., whom regard swear words as
expressions of emotional release that
happen mostly in informal settings.
54
The least part of values and belief in
society is reflected via swear words.
Nevertheless, the application of them
manifests strength for the addressers.
Because of its powerful motion, swear
words come up with stress relief through
verbal aggression instead of physical
ones. The empirical argument above
complies with the claim of Popuşoi,
Havârneanu, and Havârneanu‟ that swear
words are the expressions of verbal
52
Gao, “A Sociolinguistic Study of English Taboo
Language,” 2313.
53
Goddard, "'Swear Words' and 'Curse Words' in
Australian (and American) English. at the
Crossroads of Pragmatics, Semantics, and
Sociolinguistics," 212.
54
Yehuda Baruch et al., “Swearing at Work: The
Mixed Outcomes of Profanity,” 158..
OKARA: Jurnal Bahasa dan Sastra, Vol. 14, No. 2, November 2020
236
aggression that lower physical aggression
and self-reported negative affective
valence.
55
Given the prominent status of swear
words in communication, these findings
offer implications for general readers,
suggesting that they should be wise in
expressing their feelings because swear
words are powerful linguistic choices
containing a different degree of
offensiveness. Moreover, because of the
mutual relation between swear words and
social life, the utilization of swear words
might need to be included in the
curriculum of education. There are also
implications for more profound research
about related issues to give a deeper
understanding and enrich the knowledge
about swear words. Future studies may
examine the relation between non-English
language films and the occurrence of
semantic referents and motives of
swearing as well as the effect of race and
gender in the occurrence of swearing.
D. Conclusion
Based on the analysis of
semantics referents of swear words in
Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood movie,
59 semantic referents are found and
divided into nine notions, such as
offensive slang (17%), profane or
blasphemous (15%), psychological-
physical-social deviations (15%),
scatological and disgusting objects (15%),
sexual references (12%), substandard
vulgar terms (10%), ethnic-racial-gender
55
Popuşoi, Havârneanu, and Havârneanu, “„Get the
F#*k out of My Way!‟ Exploring the Cathartic Effect
of Swear Words in Coping with Driving Anger,” 224.
slurs (7%), animal names (5%), and
ancestral allusions (4%). Because of the
urge to create new terms to ease
communication, offensive slang becomes
the most dominant semantic referent with
10 referents. Three reasons contributing
to the reasons for swearing are coded as
psychological motives, social motives, and
linguistic motives. The most prevailing
motive is psychological, as it indicates the
characters‟ emotions. General readers are
expected to improve their knowledge
about English swear words and maintain
their politeness while communicating.
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