Swearing and cursing. Contexts and practices in a critical linguistic perspective. Edited by Nico Nassenstein and Anne Storch. Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton 2021. Book Review
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Abstract
Swearing and cursing are little-recognised and cross-culturally ostracised, but subliminally particularly effective expressions in any language. As the papers in Swearing and Cursing, an anthology edited by Nico Nassenstein and Anne Storch as proceedings of a 2015 convention in Cologne, demonstrate, the two terms imply more than a speech act, though. Verbal snotting, the use of taboo words and its emotion make use of materialities and modalities whose study usefully complements the existing book-length analyses by Magnus Ljung (Swearing: A cross-cultural linguistic Study, 2010) or Timothy Jay (Why we Curse, 2000). It is Jay whom the editors present as the opener to their collection of sixteen articles, giving him room for consideration of the state of arts in Swearingistics and Cursingology.
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