Obscene Lexis in Student‘S Language: The Use and Evaluation of Swear-Words

Abstract

It is underlined in the political guidelines on the policy of language approved by the Government of the Lithuanian Republic that language reflects culture and outlook of society. Moreover, language is thereby considered to be a concurrent part of spiritual culture of nation and assures its survival and identity. The overall culture of high school is influenced by various lingual communication of teachers and students, settled culture of public dialogue, etiquette of speech and by the peculiarities of speech in academic community (jargon, lexis of certain social professional groups etc.). The durability and quality of speech may lie with academic youth. Therefore the humanitarian culture understood in terms of spiritual self-expression plays an important role in the background and moral maturity of future professionals of technical sciences. In the article the usage and evaluation of swear-words by the students of technical universities is analysed by means of sociolinguistic method. The variation of obscene lexis over a period of ten years is presented. Ques-tionnaires were used to estimate the differences of attitude towards swear-words. The students claim that the use of obscene lexis in public space affects the communication culture of society members. Therefore it may be concluded that the evaluation of swear-words depends not only on the views and psichological factors of a speaker but also on the attitude of society.