A sociological comparison of speech act of swearing: A case study of Persian and English languages

Granted that factors such as gaining a deep insight into different cultures and delving into cultural differences may lead to successful communication and since well-directed communications can be cemented by truth value and trust, this study seeks to investigate the speech act of swearing in the sense of oath taking in Persian and English languages. To this end, 100 movies (50 English movies and 50 Persian ones) were watched and swearing phrases were transcribed. The collected data was analyzed based on Hymes’ (1967) model of SPEAKING. Moreover, religious and sociological aspects of swearing were scrutinized. The findings of this study demonstrated that oath taking occurs in 17 situations in Persian language, whereas there are only 7 ones in English which might depict lack of trust in society. Furthermore, Persian oath enjoyed a wide range of referents in comparison to the English ones. In the end, the probable causes of these differences were discussed.