The National Science Foundation is paying more than $200,000 for a study whose results might be unprintable.
The grant's title, "Expressive Content and the Semantics of Contexts," doesn't sound exciting, until you figure out what "expressive content" means.
Christopher Potts, a linguist at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, will catalog and analyze the use of obscenities, vulgarities and racial epithets, as well as titles and honorifics.
All are words or phrases that express emotion, or whose absence can convey an emotion, such as disrespect. (Imagine failing to address the Queen of England as "Your Majesty.")
Laws of language
Potts will chart when and how these words are used in books, television, movies, records of ordinary conversation, and other discourse. He aims to discover the laws of emotionally expressive language, in the same way a physicist might chart the movement of planets in order to discover the laws of gravity.
People intuitively understand the rules of using obscenities - at least most of the time - but making them explicit could yield tangible benefits, Potts and other linguists said.
One of Potts' projects involves creating language rules to power robots designed for urban search-and-rescue operations. In such high-pressure situations, humans are inclined to use profanity. While a human listener can intuitively grasp the meaning of a swear through inflection and other cues, a robot can't.
"If you're communicating with a robot, it had better understand that you're agitated in a certain situation and relaxed in another," Potts said. "That's fundamental to whether it can react like a human would."
Other applications
The results of the study could also be applied to law enforcement computers designed to evaluate surveillance tapes or automated systems to summarize the content of books or television shows, he said.
The study will be the first comprehensive effort to discern the linguistic rules that describe how context affects the meaning of swearing, Potts said. Most previous swearing studies have simply documented usage or addressed social questions such as whether men swear more than women.
Linguists have described the rules that govern the structure and patterns of language, including grammar and syntax, but the rules do not explain a speaker's or writer's intended meaning.
One phrase, shouted in the middle of a church service, can be unbearably offensive. The same words, shouted while watching a football game, might go unnoticed.
Potts wants to learn whether there are linguistic rules that would indicate when a swear is meant to offend, shock or be funny and when it's intended to express anger, surprise or fear.
"Looking at the kind of expressive content Chris is doing in a formal scientific way hasn't really been done," said Kai von Fintel, an associate professor of linguistics at MIT who specializes in context-dependent forms of speech.
"He's pretty much the pioneer in the field," von Fitel said. "It hasn't been studied with formal and theoretical methods at all, so it's pushing the science of linguistics to an area it hasn't really looked at. In everyday speech, expressive content is quite important, because it holds emotional force, and we'd like to understand that better."
Solidarity marker
The N-word is a good example of the challenges that await researchers. Originally an expression of hate and discrimination, it has become what Potts calls a "solidarity marker" among some elements of modern black culture.
"Sometimes when we're among friends, we [use taboo words] and it's the verbal equivalent of a friendly punch on the shoulder," Potts said.
But that hasn't made the word any less explosive in the wrong context.
"The same word in my mouth could be radically different if spoken by someone else, really fundamentally different," Potts said.
Potts suspects that linguistics can take the issue only so far, because it examines language independent of the speaker's frame of mind and social context. These factors add an enormous amount of complexity to dialogue.
"When you talk about actual interactions such as dialogue, we bring the full force of our human intelligence to bear," Potts said.
Neurological research backs that up. Studies have found a number of different patterns of brain activity are invoked when someone uses a taboo word, depending on context, said Timothy Jay, author of Why We Curse and a professor of psychology at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in North Adams.
"We've evolved to use this language for a certain reason," Jay said. "Catharsis is a reason. Touching our deep emotions, surprise or fear or joy, whatever they are. The fact that we have those emotions is conveyed through the language.
"When I say, 'I'm angry at you,' or, 'I'm upset with you,' that doesn't emotionally match my feelings," Jay said. "When I say '[expletive] you' ... there's no other way to say '[expletive] you.' There just isn't."