“Bloody + Emotions” – An Investigation into the Australian Exclamations and Expletives
Abstract
Australian variety of English is known as very informal, often associated and even synonymous with slang. Hunter (2004: 5) wrote that Australians tend to be informal in their speech and behaviour, and one aspect of this informality is the extensive usage of slang.
One of the most prominent indicators of this informality is the adjective bloody used as an element of an everyday speech as a component of various compounds to intensify the speaker’s message or in numerous exclamations.
The purpose of this paper is to present the partial results of a survey carried out among young Australian Speakers with a view to investigating the case of bloody used as an intensifier, expletive and a part of a compound as well as to present other expletives and exclamations in current use.
The study sheds light on the most typical compounds used in exclamations as well as on the current state of bloody in comparison with other expletives.
Keywords:
Australian, bloody, expletive, emotions, contextReferences
Allan, K., and K. Burridge. 2006. Forbidden words: Taboo and the censoring of language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Allan, K., and K. Burridge. 2009. Swearing. In P. Peters, P. Collins, and A. Smith (eds.), Comparative studies in Australian and New Zealand English grammar and beyond, 361–386. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Baker, S. J. 1978. The Australian language. Milson’s Point, NSW: Currawong Press.
Burridge, K. 2005. Weeds in the garden of words: Further observations on the tangled history of the English language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Burridge, K. 2010. English in Australia. In A. Kirkpatrick (ed.), The Routledge handbook of world Englishes, 132–151. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.
Butler, S. 2009. The dinkum dictionary: The origins of Australian words. Melbourne: The Text Publishing Company.
Coleman, J. 2012. The life of slang. New York: Oxford University Press.
Collins, P. 2012. Australian English: Its evolution and current state. International Journal of Language, Translation and Intercultural Communication 1(1): 75–86. Available at: doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.12681/ijltic.11.
Damousi, J. 2014. Colonial voices: A cultural history of English in Australia, 1840–1940. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Décieux, J. P., A. Mergener, K. M. Neufang, and P. Sischka. 2015. Implementation of the forced answering option within online surveys: Do higher item response rates come at the expense of participation and answer quality? PSIHOLOGIJA 44(4): 311–326. Available at: doi: 10.2298/PSI1504311D.
Delbridge, A. 2001. Lexicography and national identity: The Australian experience. In D. Blair and P. Collins (eds.), English in Australia, 303–316. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Dillman, D. A., R. D. Tortora, and D. Bowker. 1999. Principles for constructing web surveys. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/2465935_Principles_for_Constructing_Web_Surveys [Accessed on 21st February 2025].
Fritz, C. W. A. 2007. From English in Australia to Australian English: 1788–1900. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
Hughes, G. 2006. An encyclopedia of swearing: The social history of oaths, profanity, foul language, and ethnic slurs in the English-speaking world. New York: M. E. Sharpe.
Hunter, J. 2004. The true blue guide to Australian slang. Sydney: New Holland Publishers.
Kelly, W. 1859. Life in Victoria, or, Victoria in 1853 and Victoria in 1858: Showing the march of improvement made by the colony within those periods, in town and country, cities and the diggings. London: Chapman and Hall.
Lambert, J. 2008. Macquarie best Aussie slang. Sydney: Macquarie Dictionary Publishers.
Laugesen, A. 2024. Australia in 100 words. Sydney: New South Publishing.
Moore, B. 2008. Speaking our language: The story of Australian English. South Melbourne: Oxford University Press.
Moore, B. 2014. Australian slang. In J. Coleman (ed.), Global English slang: Methodologies and perspectives, 87–95. London and New York: Routledge.
Marjoribanks, A. 1847. Travels in New South Wales. London: Smith, Elder, and Co. Available at: https://archive.org/details/travelsinnewsou00marjgoog/page/n7.
Peters, P., P. Collins, and A. Smith (eds.). 2009. Comparative studies in Australian and New Zealand English: Grammar and beyond. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Rowe, K. P. 2005. Wordbook of Australian idiom – Aussie slang: No worries! She’s apples!. Victoria, BC: Trafford Publishing.
Szymańska, M. 2022. G’day mate! A sociolinguistic study of Australian slang. Ph.D. diss., University of Wrocław, Wrocław.
Wierzbicka, A. 1997. Understanding cultures through their key words: English, Russian, Polish, German, and Japanese. New York: Oxford University Press.
Wilkes, G. A. 2008. Stunned mullets and two-pot screamers: A dictionary of Australian colloquialisms. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.
University of Zielona Góra https://orcid.org/0009-0004-7045-5067
