Sex Roles and Dirty Word Usage: A Review of the Literature and a Reply to Haas.

Haas reported on sex differences in male and female speech, noting that little evidence exists to distinguish between males' and females' use of dirty words. A careful review of the literature reveals numerous empirical studies of the comparative use of dirty words. Profanity and obscenity, although somewhat difficult to control, have been and can be submitted to laboratory study. Documentation of this phenomenon requires a contextual approach, wherein various sociolinguistic factors (speaker-listener characteristics, social-physical setting, and the intent of the message) should be accounted for in both laboratory and field studies. A comparison of laboratory and field data is certainly in order for convergent validation of the process.