Monday, May 21, 2012

Teen fiction characters who swear are more popular


Popular teenage novels contain hundreds of swear words and the most popular characters are the most foul-mouthed, a study has found.

Blooming romance: Robert Pattinson and Kirsten Stewart in 'Twilight: New Moon'
Eclipse and New Moon from the Twilight series features 35 profanities from the mild and excretory categories
Books from popular series including Harry Potter and Twilight were found to contain language which parents may deem as obscene or vulgar despite some being targeted at children as young as nine.
The study of 40 teenage and young adult books found that characters who swore were generally portrayed as rich, attractive and more popular than those who did not.
Researchers said their paper raised questions over whether books should be given age ratings similar to those used on films and video games to help parents decide whether the material is appropriate for their child.
The team from Brigham Young University found 1522 instances of profanity across the 40 books, an average of 38 per book, with 88 per cent of all books containing at least one swear word.
Mild profanities such as “hell” and “damn” accounted for half the instances, but a further 20 per cent were made up of the “seven dirty words” such as “s---“ and “f---“ which are banned on US prime time television.

Other categories, including sexual words, excretory words or other strong profanities, were less common.
In books aimed at the 9-11 age group swearing was milder and less frequent, with the two final books in the Harry Potter series containing six and 13 profanities respectively, including three “strong” swear words and ten mild words.
But one book in this category, Raven Rise from the Pendragon series, featured seven sexual words, described by researchers as "coarse" descriptions of body parts or sexual behaviour.
Full story at The Telegraph

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