Use of Swearwords among Young Danes in the Reality TV series Ex on the Beach

Abstract

The majority of research on swear words has for many years been conducted on English language data (Beers Fägersten and Stapleton 2017: 7). In Danish language research, there has been a resurgence in the study of swear words in recent years, but the study of their use in young people’s spoken language has been a neglected area. In this article, the use of swear words in the reality show Ex on the Beach, which was broadcast in Denmark from 2018-2019 and featured young participants in their early twenties, is examined. One finding is that young people swear more than in previous Danish studies, and the young participants from Ex on the Beach primarily swear with modern swear words from the taboo area of “lower body functions”, which confirms previous studies of Scandinavian young people's swear words yielding the same result (Rathje 2010; Stroh-Wollin 2010; Hasund 2005). The proportion of English swear words among young people also appears to be increasing, not least the omnipresent swear word “fucking”. Lastly, the study of swear words in Ex on the Beach reveals the result that female participants swear as much as the males, contradicting numerous previous national and international research results indicating that men swear more often than women (e.g., McEnery and Xiao 2004; Jay 1992; Jay and Jay 2013; Beers Fägersten 2012; Quist 2012; Rathje 2017; Bednarek 2008, 2010; Stroh-Wollin 2014).