Euphemistic Metacognition and Taboo Sensitivity: A Socio-Psychopragmatic Comparative Study of Male and Female Speakers

Abstract

Gendered patterns of language have been investigated by many researchers in terms of prestige, formality and stylistics in general and it has been seen that females tend to be more formal and elaborate than men (Syafrizal, 2020; Ramadhani, 2014). Such studies have not looked specifically into the comparative euphemistic tendencies of males and females, the detailed in-depth specifications of their euphemistic strategies, their conceptual knowledge and awareness of euphemism, the contexts under which they prefer to use or not use it, which is an area that requires thorough exploratory analysis. For this purpose in the present study, a sample of 60 Undergraduate students comprising 30 boys and 30 girls, from two institutes at Mardan was constructed. Concepts from Bandura’s (1986) Social Cognitive Theory have been used to gauge metacognitive aspects of the study and to explain the findings, which reveal that females are more eloquent in their use of euphemism in that they use a plethora of expressions whenever and wherever needed to be polite and articulate themselves as appropriately as possible compared to males. This, as revealed in the present study, seems to stem from their increased awareness of social taboos and socially sensitive subject matters compared to males and also from their more precise anticipation of negative and positive outcomes of certain expressions. Females have also been found to be more innovative in their use of euphemism as compared to males. This study is helpful in understanding the deeper relationship of gender and language use; context, need and psychological associations surrounding the individuals’ use of euphemistic language when dealing with subject matters of certain natures.