Acknowledgments
Thank you to my advisor, Veronica, for allowing me to write and research this
controversial topic. Also thank you to my family for supporting me throughout my education,
and my friends for providing me with support and endless examples to help me with this
research.
iii
Abstract
The present study is a corpus-based approach using both the British National Corpus
(BNC) and the Blog Authorship Corpus (BAC) to identify variance in spoken use of fuck
between genders, age groups, and social classes. The resulting analysis shows that there is
little variance in use between male and female speakers, while use is most prevalent during
the teens and early 20s. This study offers further support of the idea that there are two distinct
meanings of fuck that can be separated into two distinct words, fuck1 and fuck2, by showing
that a non-referential definition of fuck (fuck2) is the dominant use between all genders, ages,
and social classes.
iv
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ..................................................................................................................... ii
Abstract .................................................................................................................................... iii
Table of Contents ..................................................................................................................... iv
List of Tables ............................................................................................................................ v
Chapter 1: Introduction and Background .................................................................................. 1
Chapter 2: Literature Review .................................................................................................... 4
Chapter 3: Method .................................................................................................................... 9
Chapter 4: Results and Analysis ............................................................................................. 12
4.1 Gender ........................................................................................................................... 12
4.2 Age ................................................................................................................................ 14
4.3 Age and Gender ............................................................................................................ 16
4.4 Social Class ................................................................................................................... 21
4.5 Social Class and Age .................................................................................................... 22
4.6 Social Class and Gender ............................................................................................... 26
4.7 Clusters ......................................................................................................................... 29
Chapter 5: Discussion ............................................................................................................. 32
Chapter 6: Conclusion ............................................................................................................. 36
6.1 Future Study .................................................................................................................. 36
Works Cited ............................................................................................................................ 37
References ............................................................................................................................... 40
v
List of Tables
Table 1: Example Table .......................................................................................................... 10
Table 2: Gender Usage in BNC .............................................................................................. 12
Table 3: Gender Usage in BNC cont. ..................................................................................... 12
Table 4: Gender Usage in BAC .............................................................................................. 13
Table 5: Gender Usage in BAC cont. ..................................................................................... 13
Table 6: Age Usage in BNC ................................................................................................... 14
Table 7: Age Usage in BNC cont. .......................................................................................... 14
Table 8: Age Usage in BAC ................................................................................................... 15
Table 9: Age Usage in BAC cont. .......................................................................................... 16
Table 10: Age and Gender Comparison in BNC .................................................................... 17
Table 11: Age and Gender Comparison in BNC cont. ........................................................... 19
Table 12: Age and Gender Comparison in BAC .................................................................... 20
Table 13: Age and Gender Comparison in BAC cont. ........................................................... 20
Table 14: Social Class Usage in BNC .................................................................................... 21
Table 15: Social Class Usage in BNC cont. ........................................................................... 22
Table 16: Social Class and Age Comparison in BNC ............................................................ 23
Table 17: Social Class and Age Comparison in BNC cont. ................................................... 25
Table 18: Social Class and Gender Comparison in BNC ....................................................... 27
Table 19: Social Class and Gender Comparison in BNC cont. .............................................. 28
Table 20: 2-4 Gram Clusters for BNC .................................................................................... 30
Table 21: 2-4 Gram Clusters for entire BAC .......................................................................... 30
Table 22: 2-4 Gram Clusters in BAC for Males and Females 13-17 ...................................... 31
vi
Table 23: 2-4 Gram Clusters in BAC for Males and Females 23-27 ...................................... 31
Table 24: 2-4 Gram Clusters in BAC for Males and Females 33-48 ...................................... 31
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