TY - JOUR
T1 - The mental representation and social aspect of expressives
AU - Donahoo, Stanley A.
AU - Lai, Vicky Tzuyin
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Copyright:
Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2020/10/2
Y1 - 2020/10/2
N2 - Despite increased focus on emotional language, research lacks for the most emotional language: Swearing. We used event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate whether swear words have content distinct from function words, and if so, whether this content is emotional or social in nature. Stimuli included swear (e.g. shit, damn), negative but non-swear (e.g. kill, sick), open-class neutral (e.g. wood, lend), and closed-class neutral words (e.g. while, whom). Behaviourally, swears were recognised slower than valence- and arousal- matched negative words, meaning that there is more to the expressive dimension than merely a heightened emotional state. In ERPs, both swears and negative words elicited a larger positivity (250–550 ms) than open-class neutral words. Later, swears elicited a larger late positivity (550–750 ms) than negative words. We associate the earlier positivity effect with attention due to negative valence, and the later positivity effect with pragmatics due to social tabooness. Our findings suggest a view in which expressives are not merely function words or emotional words. Rather, expressives are emotionally and socially significant. Swears are more than what is indicated by valence ore arousal alone.
AB - Despite increased focus on emotional language, research lacks for the most emotional language: Swearing. We used event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate whether swear words have content distinct from function words, and if so, whether this content is emotional or social in nature. Stimuli included swear (e.g. shit, damn), negative but non-swear (e.g. kill, sick), open-class neutral (e.g. wood, lend), and closed-class neutral words (e.g. while, whom). Behaviourally, swears were recognised slower than valence- and arousal- matched negative words, meaning that there is more to the expressive dimension than merely a heightened emotional state. In ERPs, both swears and negative words elicited a larger positivity (250–550 ms) than open-class neutral words. Later, swears elicited a larger late positivity (550–750 ms) than negative words. We associate the earlier positivity effect with attention due to negative valence, and the later positivity effect with pragmatics due to social tabooness. Our findings suggest a view in which expressives are not merely function words or emotional words. Rather, expressives are emotionally and socially significant. Swears are more than what is indicated by valence ore arousal alone.
KW - ERP
KW - Swearing
KW - emotion
KW - language
KW - taboo
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U2 - 10.1080/02699931.2020.1764912
DO - 10.1080/02699931.2020.1764912
M3 - Article
C2 - 32419627
AN - SCOPUS:85085307710
VL - 34
SP - 1423
EP - 1438
JO - Cognition and Emotion
JF - Cognition and Emotion
SN - 0269-9931
IS - 7
ER -