ethnic slurs

Goal of the assignment
This survey will be similar to the one I had you take in week 1, using a tabooness rating scale of 1-7, except that I want you to have your participants rate taboo words in sentences (as opposed to in isolation). The idea is to test how people rate the same taboo words in different contexts (e.g., when they’re being used denotatively vs. connotatively, etc.)

Choose your survey words
Your survey should include (minimally) 4 different taboo words*.  (*As this survey will be administered to individuals outside of this class, you should not choose racial or ethnic slurs for this assignment.) You may include more than this to get better results for your write up for Part II, but you must at least include four.

Write your survey sentences
For each of your survey words, create 3 different sentences in which these words are used in 3 distinct ways. The sample sentences for a given word may differ in any of the different ways discussed in this class, e.g.,

by swearword type (e.g., scatology vs. obscenity vs. (non-racial) slur, etc.),
by swearing type (e.g., propositional vs. emotive vs. invective; denotative vs. connotative)
by swearing sub-type (e.g., emphatic vs. exclamatory vs. maledictive, etc.)
(Other distinctions may be possible as well, such as positive vs. negative use, etc.)

In your write-up, you must clearly identify your 4 test words and include the sample sentences you used in your survey, with each clearly labeled to identify the unique type of usage that sentence illustrates.

When creating your sentences, consider the questions this survey could answer for you (especially given who you might administer the survey to). Do you want to investigate how older vs. younger participants may view the same words? Do you want to compare native speakers of English vs. second language learners? Are you interested in comparing different scatological terms? Or obscenity terms? Profanity? Consider these kinds of questions in designing your survey sentences.

[NOTE: When creating your sentences for each word, make sure you only include one swearword per sentence. Also, be sure to keep the word the same across your 3 sentences — only the context should vary. Be careful not to include very different forms of a word such as with compound words or you will be trying to compare apples and oranges. (As examples, fuck vs. motherfucker or ass vs. asshole, are distinct pairs of swearwords and should not be considered different uses of the same word.) However, you may use different verb forms of the same word (e.g., fucks vs. fucked).

For your write-up
Survey words/sentences
For the write-up for this assignment, include the four words you chose. Be explicit in identifying how they differ. List the 12 sentences (3 sentences x 4 words) that you will include in your survey. For each sentence, identify how they differ by discussing how the word is being used (including information about the word class, swearing type/sub-type, etc.)

Discussion and predictions
Provide a discussion of why you chose these words/sentences. What questions do you hope to have answered after you collect your data?  Include some predictions of what you may find in your survey results. What do you think the data will show? Which words will be considered most taboo? Among the different uses for a word, which sentence do you think participants will consider most taboo? Which ones do you think will be least taboo? Provide reasons and explanations for your guesses. Furthermore, consider what differences might you expect to see based on who ends up taking your survey? Hypothesize how the demographics of the participants (e.g., gender, age, native language, etc.) may play a role in their responses.

Submit your write-up as a double-spaced document with 12-point font using the Canvas file upload tool.