A psycho-social study into Maltese residents understandings of and reactions to offensive language/taboo words

Abstract

The aim of this research study was to investigate the possible relationships between the demographics of the Maltese population and their understandings of and reactions to offensive language/taboo words. The theory that individuals perceive language as more offensive in their first language than other languages was also researched. A five person focus group was used in order to select the ten offensive English words (seven of which were also translated into Maltese) which were entered into a self-made online survey. Participants (N = 100) were recruited via opportunistic sampling to examine their perception of offensive words. This data was then analysed using a number of techniques carried out on the statistical software package 'SPSS'. The results showed significant relationships between a number of areas including gender, religion, childhood exposure to offensive language and one's personal frequency of offensive language use. Whilst the sample size was not large or varied enough to obtain significant findings over all variables, a number of findings could be drawn from the results obtained in order to support the researched theories, such as that males use offensive language more frequently than females, and conclude that relationships do exist between demographics of the Maltese population and their perceptions of offensive language.