The Oxford Handbook of Taboo Words and Language

This volume brings together experts from a wide range of disciplines to define and describe tabooed words and language and to investigate the reasons and beliefs behind them. In general, taboo is defined as a proscription of behaviour for a specific community, time, and context. In terms of language, taboo applies to instances of language behaviour: the use of certain words in certain contexts. The existence of linguistic taboos and their management lead to the censoring of behaviour and, as a consequence, to language change and development.
Chapters in this volume explore the multiple types of tabooed language from a variety of perspectives, such as sociolinguistics, anthropology, philosophy, psychology, historical linguistics, and neurolinguistics, and with reference to fields such as law, publishing, politics, and advertising. Topics covered include impoliteness, swearing, censorship, taboo in deaf communities, translation of tabooed words, and the use of taboo in banter and comedy.

Keith Allan is Emeritus Professor of Linguistics at Monash University and Honorary Professor at the University of Queensland. His research interests include the history and philosophy of linguistics, and aspects of meaning in language. His many books include Linguistic Meaning (Routledge, 1986; reissued 2014), Natural Language Semantics (Blackwell, 2001), and The Western Classical Tradition in Linguistics (Equinox, 2007; 2nd ed. 2010). He is the co-editor of multiple volumes, including The Cambridge Handbook of Pragmatics (with Kasia Jaszczolt; CUP, 2012), The Oxford Handbook of the History of Linguistics (OUP, 2012), and The Routledge Handbook of Linguistics (Routledge, 2015).

- 1: Keith Allan: Taboo words and language: An overview - 2: Jonathan Culpeper: Taboo language and impoliteness - 3: Eliecer Crespo Fernández: Taboos in speaking of sex and sexuality - 4: Réka Benczes and Kate Burridge: Speaking of disease and death - 5: Timothy B. Jay: The psychology of expressing and interpreting linguistic taboos - 6: Timothy B. Jay: Taboo language awareness in early childhood - 7: Shlomit Ritz Finkelstein: Swearing and the brain - 8: Jami N. Fisher, Gene Mirus, and Donna Jo Napoli: sticky: Taboo topics in deaf communities - 9: Jack Hoeksema: Taboo terms and their grammar - 10: Kate Burridge and Réka Benczes: Taboo as a driver of language change - 11: Pedro J. Chamizo Domínguez: Problems translating tabooed words from source to target language - 12: Jean-Marc Dewaele: Linguistic taboos in a second or foreign language - 13: Luvell Anderson: Philosophical investigations of the taboo of insult - 14: Keith Allan: Religious and ideologically motivated taboos - 15: Christopher Hutton: Speech or conduct? Law, censorship, and taboo language - 16: Gabriele Azzaro: Taboo language in books, films, and the media - 17: Toby Ralph and Barnaby Ralph: Taboos and bad language in the mouths of politicians and in advertising - 18: Elijah Wald: Taboo language used as banter - 19: Barry J. Blake: Taboo language as source of comedy - 20: Stanley H. Brandes: An anthropological approach to taboo words and language