Swearing among Malaysian youth

Abstract

Previous findings have discovered an increase in swearing phenomenon among Malaysian youth. This is unexpected considering the emphasis on politeness and conflict avoidance in the Malaysian culture. This research aims to identify the common swear words and phrases among Malaysian youth in Malay and English languages. This research also focuses on revealing the functions of swearing and the factors influencing the usage of swear words among Malaysian youth. All in all, 1100 tweets, retweets and comments on the 14th Malaysian General Election (GE14) were collected and ten interview sessions were conducted with 28 university students from different races in Malaysia. From the tweets, retweets and comments, 49 Malay and 22 English individual swear words as well as phrases were identified by the researcher. The most common swear words among Malaysian youth identified from both tweets and interviews are ‘bodoh’ for the Malay language and ‘fuck’ for the English language. From the analyses, among the functions of expressing emotions, insulting others, making jokes and expressing solidarity, the highest occurrence is in insulting others. However, the data from the interviews demonstrate that making jokes and strengthening relationships are the most popular functions among the Malaysian youth. Co-participants, setting of interaction, topic of conversation and mood of the speakers are factors affecting the usage of swear words with co-participants as the most important one. These findings justified why swearing phenomenon is currently in the rise among Malaysian youth. However, they still adhere to their culture of politeness and maintaining harmony. Most of the time, they use swear words and phrases with close friends with the intention of making jokes and strengthening their bonds.