Taboo words present an interesting contradiction: despite the prohibited status that characterise them, they are intentionally used in everyday communication in probably all languages and cultures. This might indicate that when someone uses a taboo word, they achieve something that cannot be achieved otherwise even with a non-taboo word with the same reference, and this “something” offsets the liability of the prohibition. Many authors have proposed that this “something” that taboo words are capable of conveying is information about emotional states and attitudes. This information, however, cannot be described in the traditional formats used by semantic and pragmatic theories; rather, it belongs to a connotative dimension of meaning that is still insufficiently explored. In view of the undeniable role of emotion in human psyche, this dimension is essential to understand the cognitive nature of communication.
Thus, taboo words present themselves as a perfect candidate to explore this fundamental aspect of communication. And yet, they have not received enough attention from Semantics and Pragmatics, being mainly approached from perspectives focused on describing the sociocultural circumstances of their use or origin. Therefore, an adequate theoretical description of the semantic and pragmatic properties of taboo words is still to be provided. This is the goal of this project: to develop an account of the nature of taboo words, their communicative content, especially in a connotative dimension of meaning, and their contribution to cognitive processes of interpretation. The main outcomes of this analysis will be experimentally tested to corroborate their validity using linguistic and psychological methods.
If successful, this account will shed some light on the potentially universal role of taboo words in communication and establish solid foundations about their semantic and pragmatic properties, which could contribute to a better understanding of the connotative dimension of meaning and the role of emotions in communication.
