Invective Lexicon in the Foreign Film Discourse of the Last Decade

Abstract

Invectivity is an ambiguous but integral feature of modern cinema. The author used a complex linguistic approach to describe the obscene vocabulary of foreign movie discourse. The article attempts to answer the following questions: Why do films need invectives? Who they are addressed to? How many invectives fit in one movie line? How emotionally colored are invectives? How do they fit into the idiomatic composition of the language? What kind of shock power do they carry? What sacred values do they attack? Who swear more, male or female characters? Are invectives perceived literally or figuratively? How can they be avoided? The scientific novelty of the taboo studies is in tracking and maintaining the balance between two conflicting trends: the oversaturation of mass media with obscenities vs. the current purist movement. The theoretical significance lies in the comprehension of the ongoing cultural interaction. The author believes that the choice of invectives depends on the filmmaker, their sense of humor, and the style of character imagery. The method of continuous sampling from modern film scripts provided extensive exemplary material, which was subjected to cognitive-semantic, stylistic, pragmatic, and quantitative analyses. Western cinema often uses invectivity to make a line catchy. In addition, obscene vocabulary designates subgroup affiliation, encourages immediate interaction, and demonstrates a dominant social position. In a cultural society, invective vocabulary refers to criticized signs of verbal aggression, and the negative connotations of invectiveness can be eliminated in euphemisms. However, foreign cinema demonstrates and facilitates the degradation of the cultural background.

Keywords

• taboo
• invective lexis
• foreign movie discourse
• movie character lines
• euphemism