ANALISIS DEL APORTE INNOVADOR DE LAS IDEAS EMPRESARIALES

Crystal (1995: 172) defines taboo language as ―items which people avoid using in polite society, either because they believe them harmful or feel them embarrassing or offensive.‖ According to Allan and Burridge (2006: 2-3) the term was first reported by Captain James Cook in 1777, who on his journey to Polynesia mentioned the Tongan tabu as a term for actions and behaviours which were not to be undertaken among the indigenous community. Captain Cook described the customs of the local people whereby women were strictly forbidden to eat with men. On another occasion he reported on a local custom whereby the house visited by the king becomes taboo and can no longer be inhabited by its original owner. Taboo, therefore, in its most general sense, refers to things, persons, actions and behaviours which are not to be touched, done, interacted with, spoken of or undertaken, lest they bring about harm to the violator or the whole society. (Allan and Burridge, 2006: 3-4). The penalties for violating a taboo may vary from social disapproval to downright fatality. In principle any kind of human behaviour may undergo tabooisation. Burridge (2006b) states that common cultural taboos include bans on naming dangerous animals, dietary restrictions, limits on interaction with members of higher social classes and certain aspects of birth, death and menstruation. Allan and Burridge (2006: 1) enumerate the following categories of universal human taboos:

I. Bodies and their effluvia (sweat, snot, faeces, menstrual fluid etc.) II. The organs and acts of sex, mictruition and defecation

III. Diseases, death and killing (including hunting and fishing)

IV. Naming, addressing, touching and viewing persons and sacred beings, objects and places

What follows below is a short description of these categories.

Historically speaking, perhaps the most salient category are the restrictions against invoking deities and supernatural powers. In many religions, direct references to the divine are taboo, (e.g. Brahmanism, Judaism, Islam). Leviticus 24:16, for instance, makes it plain that ―blaspheming the name of the Lord‖ is punishable by death. In Hebrew the name of God, rendered by the tetragram YHVH – and assimilated into English as Jehovah of Jahveh – is taboo and is not supposed to be pronounced. Therefore, for referring to the divinity, orthodox Jews typically employ a range of linguistic substitutes, such as Adhonai (the Lord) or

Hashem (the Name) (Gebert, 2004: 80; Cibien, 2010: 83). The ban on direct

verbal references to the divine is often paralleled with prohibition of the artistic representation of God. Such is the case in Judaism and Islam. Generally, in the context of religion, human interaction with gods, holy places and sacred objects tends to be strictly limited and regulated as to who, where and under what circumstances can undertake a given action.

The ban on the unauthorized or blasphemous use of holy names may stem from a particular ontological status which in many cultures has been ascribed to proper names and the process of naming. The ancient Babylonians believed, for instance, that:

[…] there is no difference between thought and its referent, between name and the object it refers to. ―To create‖ means ―to give name‖ and ―to exist‖ is to ―have name.‖

(Keller et al. 1988: 238-9)19 Similarly, different Slavonic tribes used to believe that having a name is the crucial condition for existence (Malec, 2004: 49). Therefore, giving a name has been considered to be identical with the act of creation. Proper names have been believed to hold the essence of things or persons named. Thus, knowing and uttering the name of a person is equated with exerting control over them; whoever owns the name, owns the person. Therefore, using the name of deities in vain has been perceived as an act of usurpation of divine power, and hence such an act has been considered one of the most salient taboos. Throughout the history of religion,

therefore, the name of divinity has had a privileged status of secrecy and holiness, as illustrated in the ancient Egyptian hymn to Amon-Ra:

His Name is hidden /‘IMN/ from his children

In his name Amon /‘IMN‘/ […]

(Bator 2000: 45)20

Contemporarily, as mentioned above, the idea of holiness and secrecy of God‘s name is a strong theme in Judaism. This is the reason why the God of Israel refused to divulge his name to Jacob (Genesis, 32: 24-30) and why the Hebrew prayer of Amidah (or Shemoneh esreh – ―Eighteen blessings‖) – one of the most important prayers in Judaism – clearly expresses the holiness of God‘s name in

Kedushat Hashem (sanctification of the Name):

You are Holy, and your Name is Holy, And Saints glorify you every day, for ever, For You are God, Great and Holy King, Blessed are, You, Yhvh, Holy God.

(Cibien, 2010: 83-4)

Another kind of taboo discussed by Allan and Burridge is connected with diseases, death and restrictions concerning food preparation and consumption. Most societies and religions have had dietary injunctions regarding certain types of food. Jews and Muslims are prohibited from eating pork. Muslims are not supposed to drink alcohol, while Catholics are urged not to eat meat on Fridays. The Bible enumerates a number of species which are not to be eaten (Leviticus: 11) and provides other numerous dietary regulations. It is often argued that many of these prohibitions have been of sanitary and health-protective nature. For instance, the biblical taboo against eating pork has been argued to be motivated by the fear of trichinosis, although it appears conceivable that the regulation reflects the local environmental and climatic changes in the Middle East, which led to abandoning the production and consumption of pork (Harris, 2007: 40-7). The issues connected with health protection are related to another group of taboos, namely illnesses and dying. The dread of disease and death indeed appears to be a universal human theme. In many societies names of the deceased, objects and

places connected with them have been considered taboo (Burridge, 2006b: 454). Languages employ numerous euphemisms to refer to these topics. In contemporary Western culture, for instance, the language used by medical doctors, patients and the media reveals a tendency to employ numerous euphemistic expressions for particular diseases (Pinker, 2008: 343). The taboos involving ailment and death appear to be more significant in some parts of the world than in others. In societies where the level of hygiene and healthcare is high, the dread of disease has largely been modulated by sanitation and pharmacology (Pinker, 2008: 344). It‘s worth mentioning here that numerous languages, for instance English, do not have many swearwords connected with diseases. Other languages – on the other hand – have retained this trait (cf. Polish

cholera).

Another category of linguistic taboos involves constraints on mentioning certain body parts and their effluvia. Blood, saliva, faeces, nails and hair have been believed in many cultures to potentially hold magical powers. According to these beliefs, individuals may be harmed by mutilating or casting spells on their bodily or bodily substances. Conversely, their proper handling has been believed to have the effect of preventing a person from harm or having certain beneficial results (Allan and Burridge 2006: 172; Pinker, 2008: 345). Certain effluvia, most notably blood, has been believed to contain the essence of life. This may be a factor behind dietary restrictions and prohibitions concerning eating or drinking blood in many religions and cultures.

Irrespective of their supposed magical powers, contemporary reaction of Western societies to many bodily effluvia is one of disgust. Allan and Burridge (1991: 69- 74) present the results of the questionnaire they conducted among a group of Australian students and university staff. The subjects were asked to ascribe the revoltingness rating for different bodily substances and provide a degree to which different body parts were – in their opinion – freely mentionable in conversation. The results have shown that the most revolting bodily substances included faeces (shit) and vomit followed by urine and semen. The body parts which were reported to be the most taboo were vagina, penis and anus. Pinker (2008: 334-5) observes that the substances marked by the highest level of revoltingness are

possible carriers of dangerous diseases and that the least freely mentionable body parts are typically the ones which produce this kind of bodily waste. Pinker states that although in contemporary Western societies the dread of effluvia has largely been modulated by sanitation and garbage disposal, the thought about or interaction with these substances in many contexts is still considered inappropriate or even revolting and thus a subject of taboo.

Finally, the organs and acts of copulation also provide an extensive range of tabooed expressions. The reasons for that appear to be complex. Pinker (2008: 346-7) notes that in contemporary Western culture sex – understood as a conscious act undertaken by consenting adults – doesn‘t appear to be an obvious candidate for restricted language. Still, in many languages – including English – sexual terms belong to the most emotionally powerful expressions. The taboo surrounding sex and genitals may derive from their procreative functions; the fear of genealogy and considerations of their progeny motivates people to take a deep interest in these matters and urges them to be possessive of their partners genitals (Allan and Burridge, 1991: 54). At the same time, male and female genitalia are organs whereby bodily effluvia are excreted, which may be a factor adding up to the power of this taboo. One should also not undermine the fact that sexual fluids are possible vectors of sexually transmitted diseases. As Pinker (2008: 347) puts it: ―sex has high stakes, including exploitation, disease, illegitimacy, incest, jealousy, spousal abuse, cuckoldry, desertion, feuding, child abuse and rape.‖ These factors appear to build up on the cultural perception of sex as a subject of taboo.

The sources of taboos presented above appear to be universal across cultures in the sense that they are manifested worldwide. At the same time, taboos are subject of constant cultural and linguistic evolution. Burridge (2006b: 452) remarks that the most powerful taboos in contemporary Western culture appear to be motivated by social disapproval, rather than by fear of the divine. Hughes (1991: 4) remarks that the general evolution trend of English taboo expressions represents the change from higher themes of swearing, such as God and the supernatural, to

lower ones, involving certain physical functions (copulation, defecation and

of significance from religious to secular taboos is well illustrated in numerous linguistic expressions, where religious maledictions, such as the ones presented in (101a) below provide a linguistic pattern for sexual and scatological expletives (101b) (Hughes, 1991: 21):

(101)

(a) For Christ‘s sake!

(b) For shit‘s sake!/ For fuck‘s sake!

A possible explanation for this fact is that while religious swearwords have began to lose their significance, in order to have a similar effect, substitutes with heavy emotional load had to be employed. These substitutes happen to be predominantly sexual and scatological expressions (Pinker, 2008: 358-9). A general trend observed by Pinker and others is that certain taboos and swearwords connected with them tend to lose their emotional significance over time. This phenomenon of semantic inflation of swearwords is exemplified, for instance, by the history of the expletive hell and damn, which in contemporary English have lost much of their emotional significance (Pinker, 2008: 341-2).

The history of taboo language is inadvertently connected with the attempts at controlling linguistic expression. Allan and Burridge (2006: 24) make a distinction between censorship and censoring of language. Censorship of language refers to official, institutionalized attempts of suppressing linguistic expression, while censoring refers, more broadly, to official and institutionalized attempts, as well as individual choices of speakers. Censorship of language has been introduced and re-introduced throughout centuries. From the Biblical injunctions described above to the Laws of Alfred in 900 A.D. (Hughes, 1991: 43) to modern-day laws and regulations (Pinker, 2008: 324). Typically, their aim has been to institutionally protect language against elements which have been considered blasphemous, offensive, abusive, or simply inappropriate. On the other hand, individual self-censoring of language, as reflected in individual speaker‘s choices is a psychologically grounded phenomenon; due to social, legal and religious norms speakers are under constant pressure to censor their language, lest they be held responsible for it. Awareness of this fact is manifested e.g. in the use

of euphemistic expressions, a short account of which is proposed in the following section.