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Relating Tabooness to Humor and Arousal Ratings in American English: What the F Is so Funny?
Emotion can have a profound effect on language processing, and taboo words have been increasingly used in research as highly emotional, negatively valenced stimuli. However, because taboo words as a lexical category are socially constructed and semantically idiosyncratic, they may also have complex...
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Published in: | Language and speech 2024-12, Vol.67 (4), p.1121-1134 |
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creator | Shafto, Meredith A. Abrams, Lise James, Lori E. Hu, Pengbo Gray, Genevieve |
description | Emotion can have a profound effect on language processing, and taboo words have been increasingly used in research as highly emotional, negatively valenced stimuli. However, because taboo words as a lexical category are socially constructed and semantically idiosyncratic, they may also have complex emotional characteristics. This complexity may not be fully considered by researchers using taboo words as research stimuli. This study gathered tabooness, humor, and arousal ratings to provide a resource for researchers to better understand the sources and characteristics of the strong emotions generated by taboo words. A total of 411 participants aged 18–83 were recruited via online platforms, and all participants rated the same 264 words on tabooness, humor, and arousal. Analyses indicated that tabooness and humor ratings were positively related to each other, and both were predicted by arousal ratings. The set of ratings included here provides a tool for researchers using taboo stimuli, and our findings highlight methodological considerations while broadening our understanding of the cognitive and linguistic nature of highly emotional language. |
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subjects | Adolescent Adult Aged Aged, 80 and over American English Arousal Emotions English Female Humans Humor Language Language processing Male Middle Aged North American English Ratings & rankings Researchers Semantics Stimuli Taboo language Taboos Wit and Humor as Topic - psychology Words Young Adult |
title | Relating Tabooness to Humor and Arousal Ratings in American English: What the F Is so Funny? |
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