Swearing in English: Bad Language, Purity and Power from 1586 to the Present

Do men use bad language more than women? How do social class and the use of bad language interact? Do young speakers use bad language more frequently than older speakers? Using the spoken section of the British National Corpus, Swearing in English explores questions such as these and considers at length the historical origins of modern attitudes to bad language.

Drawing on a variety of methodologies including historical research and corpus linguistics, and a range of data such as corpora, d...