SWEARING: FORMS, REFERENTS, FUNCTIONS, AND USERS

This study attempts to investigate the use of swearing in Waingapu, Indonesia. This is a descriptive study that tries to describe the forms, referents, functions, and users of swearing. Data is collected through recording, questionnaires, and interviews. The finding shows that there are 123 forms of swearing with most swearing referred to parts of the body of 'women' and ‘genitals'. Other referents of swearing are activities, animals, circumstances, objects, kinship, spirts, and profession. Besides, this study becomes proof that swearing is not only used to express anger but also to express other positive feelings. This study also reveals that age, sex, and length of stay do not determine one's knowledge of swearing. However, it reveals that men use swearing more than women. This qualitative study analyzed the swear forms gathered through the data provision. This research was carried out in Waingapu, the capital city of Kabupaten Sumba Timur in Nusa Tenggara Timur. The data collection was done through questionnaires and recording.


Introduction
The use of swearing in everyday life is often seen as a negative thing because it brings the impression that someone who does it is uneducated, not religious, obscene, and rude (Wang 2013). This was also supported by research conducted by Ljung in 1986 which showed that the use of swear words reflected bad behaviour, lack of one's education, and lack of one's language skills (Shakiba 2014). Swear words, which usually used interchangeably with taboo words, are offensive language (Jay 2009). The Collins COBUILD dictionary defines 'swear' as the use of language that is considered to be rude or offensive and that people use it usually because they are angry (Lingea Lexicon 2002). In Bahasa Indonesia, 'maki' or 'to swear' also refers to the use of rude language because of anger (Anon 2016). They are emotionally harmful expressions that are understood as insults (Jay 1999). As it is usually motivated by fear, distaste, or hatred, swear words or tabooed are considered to be offensive, both to the people addressed and to the people overhearing their use (Allan and Burridge 2006). That is the reason why, in some cultures, swearing is considered as inappropriate and must be avoided from using (Wajnryb 2005).
However, many people are always tempted to use swear words because they also, in fact, have a positive meaning. Wang (2013) revealed that swearing has a negative as well as a positive function, which is to express one's emotions or feelings, to give verbal pressure to others, to show solidarity in groups, and as an act of aggression against others. Swear words are not always used as insults. They permit a speaker to express strong emotions and/or produce an emotional impact on a listener. The impact can be positive, as in joking and sexual enticement (Jay 1999), joy and joke (Jay 2000), or it can be negative, as in name-calling and sexual harassment (Jay 1999), and in anger, shock, and frustration (Magnus Ljung 2011), or as a response to pain (Jay and Janschewitz 2012).
Similar to that, Mohr (2013) also stated that swearing has become more prevalent and less taboo in society. Mohr defined swear words as the best words to express extreme emotion, both negative and positive emotions. People use many different swearwords to express negative emotion such as aggression, insult, one-upmanship, and denigration and also positive expression for example love and friendship, and the surprisingness or awesomeness of life experiences (Mohr 2013).
Studies on the use of swearing in Indonesia also show comparable results. The study conducted in Surabaya to examine the use of swearing or abusive words by citizens of Surabaya as speakers of Surabaya's Javanese dialect revealed that swear words can function to express different things, both positive emotions (admiration, intimacy, and joy,) and negative emotions (anger, resentment, disappointment, humiliation, distrust, and hatred). Swearing can also function to show other feelings such as regret, sadness, shock, shame, and pain.
Most swear forms are in form of words and phrases. They are usually used in sentences or not in sentences but in a context where speakers need to express emotions. Words and phrases are parts of linguistic units which also contain other units such as phoneme elements, morphemes, sentences, paragraphs, and discourses. 'Words' is the smallest unit of the form (of sentences) that can stand alone and have meaning. A word is formed from a combination of letters or a combination of morphemes, and a combination of letters and morphemes (Finoza 2007). For example, chairs, tables, and come. These three words are referred to as 'words' because even though they stand alone, they still have their respective meanings. Based on the presence or absence of affixes, the word is divided into unbending words, for example come, and affixed words, for example, coming. Traditionally, words are divided into classes or types of words which also usually known as part of speech. The main parts of speech are verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs, determiners, conjunctions, prepositions and pronouns (Oliva, Meehan, and Colombres 2018).
Phrases are linguistic units at a level between the word and the clause (Aarts, Chalker, and Weiner 1993). Phrases do not contain predicates and have not formed clauses or sentences. The online dictionary of Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia also gives a similar definition, namely, a phrase is a combination of two or more words that are non-predictive (Anon 2016). This group of words is formed from a combination of 2 or more words that form new meanings. The most common types of phrases are noun phrase, verb phrase, adjective phrase, adverb phrase, and prepositional phrase.
As people use language to communicate ideas and opinions, to show feelings, to seek information, and for many other reasons, it is important also to find ways through which people can fully understand each other to fulfill their needs. To understand each other means that people should know and understand the meaning of language uttered by other people. Language meaning itself, for example the meaning of the swear words and phrases, refers to the thing that the language represents, refers to what is intended or indicated by the language.
"When people talk about what a word or phrase means, they may have in mind either its dictionary definition or its referent in a particular context" (Kroeger 2018). Meaning is the relationship between the language we use and the object it indicates. It is what is signified by the words and phrases (Eastwood 2002). In communicating with each other, people need to have the same concept of the meaning of a particular word or phrase or sentence to successfully understand each other. The phrase the bitch may refer to a female animal, but also can refer to a female human being. It means that the word bitch has two meanings. Context then becomes an important part of communication which determines the way the listener understands what the speaker says. The meaning however is something inside the language. It is a set of words that explains language form (words, phrases).
"The meanings of words and sentences in a language can safely be taken as known to competent speakers of the language. Native speakers of languages are the primary source of information about meaning…… the basic data concerning meaning" (Hurford, Heasley, and Smith 2007). This statement is also true related to the referent of language. Native speakers of the language are the best sources to identify the referents of language forms, words, phrases, sentences, used in different contexts.
Further from the meaning of a language, we have a referent. Ferdinand de Saussure (1974), as cited in Saeed, stated that words stand in a relationship to the world, or our mental classification (2003, p.12). Kreidler (2013) mentioned that "Some pieces of language refer to something, real or fictitious, outside of language. Any such linguistic form is a referring expression and what it refers to is its referent". A referring expression is part of the language, for example, a word, that is used as if it is related to a thing outside the language, whether it is a living or dead entity(ies), a concept(s), real or fictitious. The thing to which a referring expression is related to is called the referent. A referent is something to which a language refers to in the real world. "The relationship by which language hooks onto the world is usually called reference" (Saeed 2003, p.12).
Although there are hundreds of taboo words and phrases, the semantic range of referents that are considered taboo is limited in scope. Jay classified swearing forms based on semantic references. The referents are sexual references (blow job, cunt) and on those that are considered profane or blasphemous (goddamn, Jesus Christ), scatological referents and disgusting objects (shit, crap, douche bag); some animal names (bitch, pig, ass); ethnic-racial-gender, slurs (nigger, fag, dago); insulting references to perceived psychological, physical, or social deviations (retard, wimp, lard ass); ancestral allusions (son of a bitch, a bastard); substandard vulgar terms (fart face, on the rag); and offensive slang (cluster fuck, tit run) (Jay 2009).
Winiasih (2010) also revealed the various referents of swear words, namely circumstances, animals, frightening creatures, objects, parts of the body, kinship, activities, professions, food, places, ethnicities and nations, and sound imitations. Rahayu (2015) in her study on the use of swearing in comments toward political news on Facebook found out that swear forms that refer to parts of the body, which closely related to sexual activity and swear forms that refer to sexual activities, are more impolite or rude rather than those that refer to animals.
Ljung (2011) categorized the referent into themes of swearing, where the swearing vocabularies are drawn from. There are major themes such as the religious/supernatural theme, the scatological theme, the sex organ theme, the sexual activities theme, and the mother (family) theme, and also minor themes such as prostitution, certain illnesses and death.
Swearing is used by people of a certain language from different layers of backgrounds. The research conducted in North Sumatera took data on the use of swearing from the daily lives of speakers in the form of spoken language and also from written language derived from books written in Batak Toba language (Napitupulu 2014). In a study conducted by Winiasih (2010), the data sources obtained were from the use of swearing in some warung (small restaurants), markets, houses of speakers, pavilions of flower gardens, schools, boarding houses, gardens, internet cafes, community centres, fields, crossroads, security post, and office. It shows that swearing is not only used in "free" or non-formal places but can also be used in a place with a formal situation, such as in the office.
Gender and status or position also influence the use of swearing. Jay said that men use more swearing than women with the same job, while people with high positions use less swearing than people with lower positions (Jay and Janschewitz 2008). Men also tend to swear more in public than women (Jay 2009), (Gati 2014). Knyazyan also proved that swearing is behaviour more frequently engaged in by males than by females (Knyazyan 2016), (Jay and Janschewitz 2012). Gati (2014) revealed that, specifically for women, the function of swearing are "to communicate an expression of anger, surprise, or as an interjection".
Children also use swear words. "Swearing emerges by age two and becomes adult-like by ages 11 or 12. By the time children enter school, they have a working vocabulary of 30-40 offensive words" (Jay and Janschewitz 2012). Although children might not know the exact meaning of the swear words, the use of swear words in early age exists and they learn it from early age parents, peers, and siblings. However, "younger children are likely to use milder offensive words than older children and adults" (Jay and Janschewitz 2012).
This study aims to analyse the use of swearing in Waingapu, a city located in Kabupaten Sumba Timur. It is a complex society culturally because the citizens come from various places of origin. The majority are the native East Sumbanese people. Others come from other parts of Sumba island, other islands in Provinsi Nusa Tenggara Timur, or other parts of Indonesia and even foreigners. These people use several languages in daily communication, such as Bahasa Indonesia and other regional languages depending on the area of origin and the ability of the speakers, such as Kambera (the language of East Sumba), other vernaculars in Sumba islands or other islands, and English. This cultural complexity leads to various forms of language use, such as the use of swearing. This research is interesting in the way that it studies the use of swearing in a local area where it has never been studied before. Future research on the use of swearing "must sample younger speakers and more diverse communities and ethnic groups (Jay 2009). As taboos on language have been found since the ancient era but are still used globally in modern days, it is important to study their uses from various cultural backgrounds in a different era of time.

Method
This qualitative study analyzed the swear forms gathered through the data provision. This research was carried out in Waingapu, the capital city of Kabupaten Sumba Timur in Nusa Tenggara Timur. The data collection was done through questionnaires and recording.
Firstly, there were fifty (50) respondents chosen to fill out questionnaires. They came from different ages and backgrounds, ranging from high school students, university students, teachers, lecturers, civil servants, and private sector employees, as well as daily-paid workers. All respondents living in the city of Waingapu with a long period of stay varying from 1 month to 60 years. The respondents were asked about (1) their knowledge of swearing, what swear forms that they know and use. The swear forms collected from this stage were classified based on where the languages originally come from. (2) the functions of the swear forms, and (3) how frequent they use swearing.
Secondly, there were informants chosen to be interviewed to obtain data about the meaning and referent of the swear words. There was a key informant who was chosen. He is an adult male native speaker of Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Kambera, who uses and understands both languages very well in everyday communication. There were also 2 other informants chosen later during the analysis because the researcher found out that there are some swear forms that come from other languages besides Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Kambera. The first is an adult male informant who understands languages from Timor island, while the second is an adult female informant who understands Bahasa Lio, a language from Flores island. For the swear forms in the English language, the Collins COBUILD Dictionary was used to consult meanings.

Findings and Discussion
123 forms of swearing were found through the data collection. To identify the lexical units and the referents of the swear forms, it is important to understand the meaning of every single form of swearing. The meaning of the 123 swear forms were gained through the interview with the informants. Based on the meanings, the swearing forms were then classified into their lingual units and their referents.

Forms of Swearing Based on Lingual Units
Data analysis shows that from the 123 forms of swearing, 71 are in forms of words and 52 are in forms of phrases. Swear words can be in the form of nouns, verbs, adjectives, and exclamations. From the four forms of words, noun dominates with 56 words. Meanwhile, there are only 7 verbs, 4 adjectives, and 4 interjections. Figure 1 shows the comparison of swearing in the forms of words.  The results above show that nouns both as words and as phrases are the most dominant forms of swearing. This is closely related to the referent of the swearing, which mostly related to objects or nouns.

Referents of Swearing
Based on the results of data analysis, it was found that there are 8 types of swearing referents, namely 1) activity, 2) body parts, 3) objects, 4) animals, 5) circumstances, 6) kinship, 7) spirits, and 8) professions. Figure 3 below shows the percentage for each referent. The graph above shows that 61% of swearing refers to parts of the body, both animals and humans. Furthermore, 15% of swearing has referent to activities, 8% has an animal referent, 6% refers to condition or circumstances, 7% has objects referent, 2% refers to relatives or kinship, and 1% has spirits and professions referent. The graph above clearly shows that in the majority, people in Waingapu know or use swearing that refers to body parts.
The most commonly used form of swearing is the category of parts of the body. Data of this research shows that there are 75 forms of swearing which refer to parts of the body which then can be grouped into 3 groups: parts of the human body, parts of the animal body, and parts of the spirits. However, the first group, parts of the human body, is the richest category where 65 forms (87%) are included in, while the other two groups, respectively, only have 12% or 9 forms of swearing and 1% or 1 form of swearing.
Further, the 75 swear forms can also be grouped based on the body parts that become referents. 88% is related to genitals or is associated with sexual activities such as the penis and vagina, and 12% refers to other body parts such as the head and teeth. The chart below shows that percentage.

Figure 4. Percentage of Swearing that Refers to Parts of Body
It should be noted that for human body parts as well as animal and devil's body parts, the widely used forms are those related to genitals. Forms such as bongga lau (dog's penis), lahu mbuti (monkey's genital), telle bongga (female dog's genital), or lahu mamarung (devil's genital) are examples of animal and devil's body parts related to genitals which are used for swearing.
For the human body parts, the 65 forms are further classified into 3 groups based on gender, namely women, men, and neutral. Neutral in this case refers to both sexes or in other words, can refer to the female or male body parts. This classification shows that 50% have referent to female body parts such as kapai (women's genital), kubu (vagina's hole), mai pung puki (mother's genital), and ngandu manu (women's clitoris), 36% refers to the male body parts such as lasu (penis), ollo (men's genital), lahu (men's genital), and na wuattamu (your penis), and 14% is neutral or can refer to both female and male body parts such as gigi (teeth) and monyong (mouth jutting forward like a dog's mouth).
The data (see the Appendix) also shows that there are strange forms such as pepe kom bapa and telle kom bapa. The literal meaning of these two phrases is 'your father's vagina'. Pepe and telle both refer to the female genitals or vagina. Even so, both of these phrases are categorized into groups of a male body part because the two words are followed by the word bapa which means 'father'. This swear phrase is used to refer to the male/father's genitals. These forms are doublehumiliation forms in which one uses genitals to swear and at the same time says that the listener's father is having a transgender identity as shemale because the female identity is attached to the male's body by the speaker.
As the first category explained above, activity as the second referent group also shows that sexual activity related to women is the most widely used swear form. The data illustrate that there are 17 swear forms that refer to an activity or something carried out by someone. Of these 17 uses of swearing, 16 have referents of sexual activity, while one form, the fuck off has a slightly neutral meaning because it does not affront sexual activity. Furthermore, the 17 forms of swearing above are divided into 4 groups based on the referent relationship with the particular gender. This means that there are activities that involve women, men, animals, and neutral (both men and women). The graph above shows that out of the 17 uses of swearing which refer to an activity, 44% refers to activities involving women. The use of words like 'ina', and 'mai' means 'mother' and therefore related to women. Furthermore, 17% refers to activities involving men, 33% refers to activities that can involve anyone, both women and men, and 6% refer to activities involving animals.
Genitals and sexual activity are widely used because these forms are referring to very personal parts of someone which are not usually talked about in public. For some, these forms might be too sacred or vulgar to be a topic in public discussion. The use of these forms in public shows that speakers want to threaten the face of the listener. This arises because the sacred or vulgar body parts of someone are stated in public, regardless of the aim of the speaker, which then embarrass the listener.
However, as the forms related to genitals and sexual activity are too many, it can be inferred that they are used frequently and probably not only for negative purposes, such as to express anger or to humiliate others, but also to express positive attitude such as intimacy. Sacred things that are too frequently discussed, especially in improper contexts, become not sacred anymore.
The third group contains swear forms that refer to objects. The results of data analysis show that out of 123 swearings, there are 7% or 8 forms that refer to objects. Five swearings refer to human excrement, dirt, or shit such as tai and poe, 1 swearing refers to the carcass of an animal (bangke), and the 2 others refer to objects related to cooking supplies.
Both phrases cuka garam and cuka minyak refer to objects related to cooking. However, these two phrases are usually used as swearing. If examined more closely, the word "cuka" has a resemblance to the word "cuki" which means "to have sex". The word 'cuka' is likely to be an option to refine or lessen the harshness of swearing. Someone might want to curse or swear with the word "cuki" but don't want to sound rude, so the word "cuka" is chosen. The addition of the word 'garam' or 'minyak' is just an extension of the word into a phrase.
Objects such as mentioned above are usually used to swear because the speaker wants to put the quality of the objects as the quality of the listener. For example, forms such as poe, tai, taiko koro, taiko lau, and shit which all refer to human excrement are basically having a bad quality of bad smell and dirty. Another example is the word bangke which implies the quality of something useless and has a bad smell.
The fourth group of swearing referent includes forms that refer to animals. Similar to the previous group, these forms of swearing are usually used by speakers who consider that the person, he/she is speaking to, or the object being discussed has the character or resembles the animal. Rahayu (2015) says that swearings that refer to the animal are usually used metaphorically (p.69). This means that only certain traits of the animal have similarities with the individual or a condition that is targeted for abuse. There are 10 forms of swearing that have animal referents such as anjing (dog), babi (pig), bongga mate (dead dog), monyet (monkey), and kerbau (buffalo).
The next category is the swear forms that refer to circumstances. Wijana (in Rahayu, 2015) reveals that forms of swearing that refer to unpleasant conditions are the most commonly used (p.68). Broadly speaking, three things can or may be related to this unpleasant situation, namely mental state, a condition that is not blessed by God or religion, and the conditions associated with unpleasant events. The results of this study indicate that 7 swearings have referent to a situation. 6 of them refer to the mental state of being insolent (kurang ajar), stupid (bego), crazy (gila), jerk, and bastard (bangsat). The word sial refers to an unpleasant situation or event or an unlucky situation.
Kinship is the next referent group. There are 3 swear phrases in this study that refer to relatives or kinship, namely kom nene, mai ni, and mother fucker. The first phrase means 'your grandmother'. The word 'kom' is a short form of the phrase 'kau punya' means 'your' in English, which in the dialect of the people of the city of Waingapu is shortened to 'kom'. The word 'nene' means 'grandmother'. Forms that related to kinship usually refer to those who teach about life to the younger generation, parents and grandparents. These individuals are usually respected in the family. As they are respected, it is taboo to talk about them in improper ways. However, to swear or to express negative feelings toward the listener, Indonesian speakers usually use those kinship terms (Wijana 2004). These forms found in this study similar to the form in Bahasa Indonesia such as kakekmu (your grandfather) or Javanese mbahmu (your grandmother).
The second phrase mai ni consists of the word 'mai' which means 'mother' and 'ni' which means 'this'. This phrase if interpreted literally means 'this mother'. However, in its use in public communication, this phrase is considered as swearing because, in addition to being influenced by the tone of voice when used by the speaker, the use of the word 'mai' is indeed intended to show that the speaker wants to speak roughly about the mother of the interlocutor. This phrase is also a short form of the phrase 'pukimai ni' which, as previously explained, "puki" refers to the female genitals or vagina, in this case, the genital of the mother of the interlocutor.
The third phrase motherfucker is a swearing that originated comes from the English language. This meaning is categorized as referring to kinship because there is the word 'mother' at the beginning. This form of swearing is used to insult the interlocutor by mentioning that the mother of the other person is a fucker or who does sexual activities.
Analysis of this study also revealed one form of swearing that has referent on the spirit. The swear word is setan. This word comes from Bahasa Indonesia, which means 'satan' in English. It refers to an evil spirit who always tempts people to do evil. For this reason, the word 'setan' is used as swearing at the other person to match the other person with the devil that the other person also has the same characteristics as the devil. For the record, there is one form of swearing that also actually refers to a spirit that is lahu mamarung. 'Mamarung' is a word that comes from Kambera language in East Sumba, which means "spirit". However, this phrase is included in the category of swearing that refers to parts of the body because the word 'mamarung' is preceded by the word 'lahu' which refers to the 'penis' or male genitals.
The last group is the swear forms that related to a profession. For example, in the word pek that is found in this study. The word 'pek' itself actually refers to 'pepek' or vagina or female genitals and is included in groups of body parts. However, in Waingapu, the use of this word has experienced a shift in meaning. 'Pek' means a woman who is said to sell her body or a prostitute. The form that is also often used is perempuan pek. Prostitutes themselves are professions that are considered low and forbidden by religion so that they are often used by people to express their annoyance to a particular woman. People or opponents who are said to be perempuan pek are not necessarily in fact prostitutes.

Use of Swearing
Swearing is always linked to negative behaviour and is used to express anger or other similar feeling or attitude. However, as it has been studied in different cultures and places, there is evidence which shows that swearing is also used to express other emotions and attitude. Through this study, the use of swearing is also revealed and the results prove that swearing is used for many other functions. Figure 6 below shows 14 functions or uses of swearing.

Figure 6. Function of Swearing
From the data in the graph above it can be seen that two uses of swearing that are being occupied the most, to express anger and to express intimacy. In terms of meaning, these two functions refer to two very contradictory things. On the one hand, anger refers to someone's displeasure towards others, and on the other hand, intimacy refers to a close or intimate relationship between someone and others who have feelings of pleasure towards one another.
Twenty-one percent of the respondents uses swearing to express their anger. This function is a function with the largest percentage. This shows that anger is the main reason people use swearing in communication. It means that people use swearing when they have anger or feel unhappy about something. Several forms of swearing are used in a very large portion for this function, namely anjing, pukimai, puki dia punya mai, cukimai, and kapai ina. Although the word anjing is referring to an animal (dog) and is regarded as 'not rude' by respondents, the other 2 swearings, which refer to female genitals or vagina and 2 others which refer to sexual activities involving mothers or women, are felt to be 'very rude'.
Fifteen percent of the respondents uses swearing to express their intimacy toward others. There are several forms of swearing which are mostly used for this function, namely lau, lahu, lolo, lasu, and telor. All of them refer to male genitalia or penis. However, respondents feel these four forms as 'rude' only, less rude that swearing related to women's' genital.
Other functions from the graph above also show that swearing is not used merely for expressing anger or other similar attitudes such as showing hatred and insulting others. Swearing is also used to show positiveness for example to show intimacy, excitement, surprise, and admiration. There are also other negative functions which are not caused by anger, such as to show disappointment, pain, shame, regret, distrust, and sadness.

Identity of Respondents: Their Knowledge and Use of Swearing
Age, sex, and the length of stay of the respondents do not affect their knowledge about swearing in this case their inventories of swear forms. When respondents are grouped based on age, sex, and length of stay, the result shows that there are no significant differences of knowledge between respondents of different ages, sexes, and length of stay in Waingapu. It means that each person can have knowledge of swearing regardless of those 3 identities that they may bear. One's knowledge of swearing might be gained through involvement with the societies or communities where that person lives, spend time in everyday life, such as workplace and school. As Jay stated, children may acquire swear words in their vocabulary even as soon as they start to speak. Children acquire the swear words from what they hear and learn to use them through social learning (Jay 1999). When a speaker lives in a society or in a community where using swear words is a normal phenomenon, that person will gain knowledge of the usage of swearing.
However, sex plays an important role when dealing with how frequent one uses swearing. To measure the frequency, there are 4 categories used (1) never, (2) sometimes, (3) often, and (4) always. Data analysis shows that more women who "never" used swearing at 45% compared to men at 27%. In the second frequency category, "sometimes", the ratio is between 31% and 34% where more men who "sometimes" use swearing. The 3% difference in this category shows that the level of use of swearing by men and women in this category does not differ much. In the third frequency category, "often", a significant difference is shown between 17% and 24%. This data shows that more men 'often' use swearing. In the last frequency category, "always", the ratio is between 7% of women and 15% of men "always" use swearing. This shows that more men always use swearing than women. This result proves that men tend to swear more than women and is in line with result show by Knyazyan in a study about male and female profanity in English anecdotes (Knyazyan 2016) as well as the study of Jay and Janschewitz on the pragmatics of swearing (Jay and Janschewitz 2008).

Conclusion
The analysis shows that there are 123 forms of swearing used by people in Waingapu. Classified based on the lexical units, there are 71 words and 52 phrases. For the words category, there are 56 nouns, 7 verbs, 4 adjectives, and 4 interjections. For phrases, there are 39 noun phrases, 12 verb phrases, and 1 adjectival phrase. It is important to highlight the use of swear in the form of nouns, both as words and as phrases. In sum, 95 swear forms related to nouns. This phenomenon is related to the fact that most of the swearing have nouns as their referent. The noun itself is linguistically defined as a word that refers to a person or a thing or object. It is proved by the result of this study, which reveals that there are 8 referents of swearing namely 1) parts of the body, 2) activities, 3) animals, 4) circumstances, 5) objects, 6) kinship, 7) spirts, and 8) profession. Six referents, not including activities and circumstances, are those categorized as nouns lexically. (Wang, 2013) Parts of the body are the most used referents, ranging from parts of the human body, parts of the animal body, and parts of the spirits. It is also very important to underscore two intriguing facts related parts of the body that firstly, 88% of the 75 swearings are related to genitals or are associated with sexual activities such as the "penis" and "vagina", and 12% refer to other body parts such as the head and teeth. Secondly, for the swearing that refers to human body parts, 50% refer to female body parts, 36% refers to the male body parts, and 14% are neutral or can refer to both female and male body parts. The 50% percent that refers to female body parts are all related to female genitals, such as vagina and clitoris.
This study becomes another proof that swearing is not only used to express anger. Swearing can also be used to express other feelings which are positive. Besides, this study reveals that age, sex, and length of stay do not determine one's knowledge of swearing. However, it reveals that men use swearing more than women.