Strong Language: A Socio Pragmatic Study of Gender Differences in the Use of Profanity

The current paper investigates the communicative function of profanity and swear words in both men and women’s language use, and highlights further how the linguistic and gendered interactions in Moroccan Arabic have evolved. The paper displays offensive expressions in vernacular Moroccan Arabic and examines the most common functions of the chosen expressions used by both genders. It was important for the researchers to study this layer of vocabulary because it reflects the culture and relevance of gender-specific language, and what such language accomplishes in the speech community. The findings are basically generated from quantitative and qualitative data. Quantitative methods were used to determine men’s and women’s perceptions of profanity while qualitative methodology was adopted to determine the communicative function of each expression. The findings of the study suggest that the use of profanity and swear words carries social functions and pragmatic meaning, and that the level of obscenity of swear words is highly dependent on the context and influenced by pragmatic variables, such as the speaker-listener relationship, social context and the nature of the swear word. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY GENDER STUDIES المجلة الدولية للدراسات الجندرية متعددة التخصصات: ميدوسا و الفكر المعاصر, Vol. 1 No. 1 (2021): REFRAMING THE CONTEMPORARY MOMENT When knowledge has a gender