"Your blog is (the) shit": a corpus linguistic approach to the identification of swearing in computer mediated communication

Lutzky, Ursula and Kehoe, Andrew (2016) "Your blog is (the) shit": a corpus linguistic approach to the identification of swearing in computer mediated communication. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, 21 (2). pp. 165-191. ISSN 13846655 (ISSN)

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Abstract

The study of swearing has increased in the last decade, diversifying to include a wider range of data and methods of analysis. Nevertheless, certain types of data and specifically large corpora of computer mediated communication (CMC) have not been studied extensively. In this paper, we fill a gap in research by studying the use of swearwords in blog data, and illustrate ways of identifying swearing in a large corpus by taking context into account. This approach, based on the examination of shared and unique collocates of known expletives, facilitates the distinction of attestations of swearing from non-swearing in the case of polysemous lexemes, and the analysis of overlaps in usage and meaning of swearwords. This work therefore goes beyond basic sentiment analysis and offers new insights into the use of collocation for refining profanity filters, providing innovative perspectives on issues of growing importance as online interaction becomes more widespread.

Item Type: Article
Identification Number: https://doi.org/10.1075/ijcl.21.2.02lut
Dates:
DateEvent
September 2016Published
29 August 2016Published Online
Uncontrolled Keywords: Blogs, CMC, Collocation, Pragmatics, Swearing
Subjects: CAH19 - language and area studies > CAH19-01 - English studies > CAH19-01-07 - linguistics
CAH19 - language and area studies > CAH19-01 - English studies > CAH19-01-01 - English studies (non-specific)
Divisions: Faculty of Arts, Design and Media > Birmingham Institute of Media and English > School of English
Depositing User: Kehoe
Date Deposited: 10 Nov 2016 15:46
Last Modified: 03 Mar 2022 15:59
URI: https://www.open-access.bcu.ac.uk/id/eprint/3463

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