Minutes 10/10/13

A lot of new ideas were discussed in today's meeting:
- We decided to change our topic idea altogether (previously accent/dialect) due to the fact that our previous topic lacked originality.
- The idea of racist language was discussed, which had been mentioned briefly in the previous meeting and was something that really interested us. We then discussed what could be investigated if we were to choose the study of racist language e.g. the use of certain lexis within ethnic groups and outside of them.
- The topic of sexist language was then discussed. Comparison of sexist and racist language - why is racist language considered more offensive/shocking?
- We then considered the more general idea of studying taboo language, which could include racist and sexist terms within it. Studying taboo language would give us the opportunity to investigate the use of swear words and why certain words are more offensive than others.
- In order to investigate another level of taboo language, we discussed the idea of the use of taboo in other languages as it was mentioned how in Italy, for example, the worst kind of swearing refers to god or family. Whereas in English, many references tend to be made towards sex. We also proposed to study the deterioration of swear words over time e.g. bloody etc.
-Which words and phrases are more taboo than others? Why? How similar is the taboo lexis in English language to other languages? Is there sufficient evidence to suggest that it differs? If so, why?
- We listed some methods that we could use to obtain our research. The group will design and create a questionnaire which will be distributed to members of the public(/students?) Corpus study will establish Context, medium, number count, collocation, gender, time period.
- Our presentation will make use of graphs, tables, pie charts, etc – showcase data/evidence.
- In order to condense our ideas, we decided that our research would hopefully enable us to identify the social and cultural influences on the use of taboo lexis.

Influences:  Moral, ethical, religion, defecation, relationships – family, etc, politics – whether certain phrases are deemed politically correct or incorrect, racism, sexism, passive vs. confrontational scenarios.
Ideas for the proposal were collected, so that we can write it up during week 3. The proposal will be a more detailed description of our plans for the investigation. Between now and our next meeting, we have decided to each conduct some independent research in order to find some relevant readings that we could use for our investigation.