Chapter 3 Verbal Communication 79Profanity and Civility
Comedians curse and audiences laugh; perhaps you have a relative who adds
colorful words to his or her stories, which amuses your family members (“That’s
Uncle Mike for you!”). This was not the case for A.J. Clemente who cursed on
air on his first day as a broadcaster for the North Dakota NBC affiliate KFYR.
Clemente later explained that he was practicing his lines and nervously uttered
the offensive words without realizing that his microphone was on; he also offered
an apology for his behavior on Twitter. But in the end, he could not undo the
impression he left with his new employer and was ultimately fired (ABC News,
2013; Grossman, 2013). Recent years have seen an increase in swearing over
mediated channels (Butler & Fitzgerald, 2011), and some critics believe that
public outrage over sex, violence, and profanity seems to have waned in recent
decades (Steinberg, 2010). In fact, in the wake of Clemente’s outburst, more
than fifteen hundred fans wrote supportive notes on the station’s Facebook page
asking managers to reconsider their decision to let Clemente go. Twitter support-
ers also showed their support with #FreeAJ and #KeepAJ.
Profanity includes cursing and other expressions considered, rude, vulgar,
or disrespectful. Such words get their social and emotional impact from the
culture and can be perceived positively, neutrally, or negatively (Johnson, 2012)
based on factors like the social setting (for example, friends at home watching
televised sports) or the relationship. If A.J. Clemente had uttered the exact same
words at a bar surrounded by friends, it would not have made national news.
Rather, he cursed in a formal, professional environment.
Regardless of whether language is viewed as rude or appropriate based on
the relational, cultural, or situational context, it should meet some standards
of civility, the social norm for appropriate behavior. Crude, offensive, vulgar,
and profane language can create uncomfortable and unproductive relation-
ships and work environments (Johnson & Lewis, 2010). Following are five
guidelines for the production of more civil language in the workplace (Troester
& Mester, 2007), but most of them are applicable outside of the business con-
text as well:
c Use no words rather than offensive ones.
c Use words appropriate to your specific listener.
c Choose temperate and accurate words over inflammatory ones when com-
menting on ideas, issues, or persons.c Use objective, respectful, nondiscriminatory language.
c Use clean language at all times when at work.
Language in Context
You learned about the importance of context in Chapter 1 as part of our
model of communication competence. Context is particularly important to
our study of language in three ways: language reflects, builds on, and deter-
mines context.