Does Place Affect The Use of Taboo Words

Abstract

This research belongs to descriptive qualitative research as it fulfills five axioms and describes the data as a real phenomenon. It aims to find out whether there is the effect of place in using taboo words or not by comparing two movies that took different places as the setting. After analyzing the data, it is found out that place does affect the use of taboo words because (1) taboo words related to sex and excretion are increased (11.2 and 2.5%); (2) taboo words related to functions and parts of body and religion are decreased (8.5 and 2.6%); and (3) taboo words related to death only appear in the first movie. The reasons why this happens are (1) college students have more freedom to speak up than high school students; and (2) college students are more familiar in using taboo words than high school students.