Taboo Words in Borat Movie
on
ISSN: 2302-920X
Jurnal Humanis, Fakultas Ilmu Budaya Unud
Vol 20.1 Agustus 2017: 217-224
Taboo Words in Borat Movie
Dewa Ayu Sri Catur Gayatri
English Department Faculty of Arts – Udayana University email: [email protected]
Abstrak
Judul dari penelitian ini adalah “Taboo Words in Borat Movie” mengeksplorasi jenis dan fungsi dari kata-kata tabu pada film tersebut. Kata-kata tabu secara khusus diucapkan dalam percakapan informal atau dalam situasi tertentu yang mungkin sesuai dengan cara dan tujuan tertentu. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk meningkatkan pengetahuan tentang kata-kata tabu. Ada dua teori yang diterapkan dalam penelitian ini, teori utama oleh Timothy Jay (1992 ). Jay mengklasifikasikan sepuluh jenis kata-kata tabu yaitu cursing, profanity, blasphemy, obscenity, taboo, vulgarity, slang, epithets, insult & slurs, dan scatology. Teori kedua oleh Raymond D. Liedlich (1973) untuk mengeksplorasi fungsi kata-kata tabu. Liedlich mengklasifikasikan enam fungsi kata-kata tabu seperti create attention, discredit, provoke violent confrontation, endearment, create strong personal identification dan provide catharsis . Penelitian ini menggunakan film “Borat” sebagai suber data karena pada percakapan di film tersebut banyak meggunakan kata-kata tabu. Hasil analisis penelitian ini menjelaskan bahwa ada 72 kata yang termasuk dalam kata-kata tabu. Dari sepuluh jenis kata tabu, ada enam yang ditemukan di Borat Movie. Selain itu, hanya ada empat fungsi kata-kata tabu yang muncul di film ini.
Kata Kunci : tabu, film, Borat.
Language is a tool of human to communicate to one another. Sociolinguistic studies observe that there are differences in language tending to focus on language style. The word Taboo is borrowed from Tongan, which is spoken by Polynessians in Pacific archipelago (Gao, 2013). Taboo or tapu means “forbidden”, “not allowed”, “under
prohibition” but on the other hand tapu also means “holy” or “sacred”. Taboo words specifically uttered in informal condition or in certain situation that may qualify in suitable manner and purpose.
Nowadays, taboo words are commonly used in the world, especially in movie. It is to express the characters emotion such as; strong emotion of anger shock
feelings, anger, dissatisfaction and the others. And the other reason why many movies use taboo words in their dialogue is to support the plot of the story. As applied in daily activities, occurrence of taboo words is clear, like in Borat Movie. .
Considering the uniqueness of the use of the taboo words itself as mentioned on the background of the study above, there are two problems that can be formulated as follows:
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1) What types of taboo words
are used in the movie
“Borat”?
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2) How do taboo words
function in movie “Borat”?
On every study, of course, there is a special aim, which is to find relevant answer to the problem of the study. Based on the statement above, this research aims at accomplishing the following purposes:
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1) To classify the types of taboo words, which are used in the movie “Borat” .
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2) To analyze the function of taboo words in the movie “Borat”.
The research methods that were used in this study were quantitative and qualitative methods including methods and techniques in determining data source, collecting data, and analyzing data. The data that were used in this research was taken from “Borat” movie. The data was taken from the dialogue, which were spoken by the actors in “Borat” movie. Borat is an American comedy film that tells about Cultural Learning’s of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. The film was written and produced by British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, Dan Mazer, Anthony Hines, Peter Baynham Cohen. The data were collected by watching the “Borat” movie, downloading script and the last step was classifying and transferring the selected dialogues containing taboo words into the data sheet.
There are five types of taboo words produced by the characters in Borat movie. They are obscenity, epithets, profanity, vulgarity, and slang.
Obscenity refers to expressions that are prohibited from public use since they involve repulsion to the sense, abhorrent, impolite and detestable to morality (Jay, in Doyle, 2009: 1).
In Borat movie, obscenity appears 27 times. Here are an examples of them:
Azamat : Calm down, let me explain.
Borat : What did you do with the bear?
Azamat : She ran off. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.
Borat :Hey! Fuck off,
death!(Borat,01:12:03)
Azamat :You need to calm down yourself.
Borat uttered taboo words “fuck off” to express his emotional reaction to Azamat. “Fuck off” in this conversation
are the harmful words and may generate disgust as the function of obscenity.
Profanity occurs when someone is using religious terminology in a profane, secular, or uncaring manner such as Jesus Christ, hell, damn, and Goddamn.
Here is the examples of profanity:
Shop Man : That’s not enough.
Borat : Do you want
hair…
Shop Man : No, I don’t
want any damn hair.
(Borat,00:54:18)
Borat : This is the best
hair in
Kazakhstan.
Feel the quality.
Shop Man : I don’t want your damn
hair.(Borat,00:54 :23)
Then Borat offer him (the shop owner) a hair; the best quality hair according to Kazakhstan. Since hair is not really a valuable thing here in America then the shop keeper refuse it by using a taboo word related
with profanity to show his emotional reaction.
Vulgarity refers to words or expressions that contain sexual anatomy and excretory function in a rough manner such as ass, tit, cock, dick and clit. Vulgarity is believed to demonstrate the raw expression of the street language.
Borat : It is a custom
have cheese at the start.
Bob : Thank you.
Borat : My wife, she
makes this cheese.
Bob : Very nice.
Borat : She makes it
from her tit. (Borat,00:24:54) The word tit in the dialogues above is not allowed to use in formal situation. It is related to sexual activity or anatomy and believed to demonstrate the raw expression of the street language.
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4. Epithet
Epithet can occur because the one who utters the world is motivated by frustration or anger. Here is some examples about it:
Borat : First stop on our
journey was
Washington D.C. Home of mighty U.S warlord.
Premier Brush. Look! Who has an embassy here! Uzbekistan, fuck you, motherfuckers!( Borat,00:24:23)
That word was to describe his emotion to Uzbekistan. He hated Uzbekistan because his country has a bad relation with them.
Slang is very informal language and it is usually spoken than written, used in a groups among young people or teenagers.
Luenell : Everybody
almost see your underpants.
Borat : I never rode a
bull before.
Luenell
Borat
: Well, you wanna... You wanna come in for a little while?
(Borat,00:51:06 )
: I would like
very much but I in love with a woman in
Malibu.
Luenell launched taboo words wanna, which is unusual spoken by the people in formal conversation.
All of the function of taboo words including to discredit, creating attention, to endearment, and to creating strong personal identification. They are shown with its example below:
This function can occur when people utter taboo words to show their disrespect felling toward the addressee.
you.
Man : Get the fuck out
of here before I break your jaw, bro.(Borat,00:0 7:32)
The man show his disrecpect in his mind and manifested it into an utterance of taboo words they use to show their contempt clearly.
This function can occur when someone utter a taboo word which has a strong connection to gain the listener’s attention.
Negro Man : What the hell?
Is that
fishnet?(Borat,00 :30:57)
Borat : No, no, no,
these are my anti-pants.
He employed a taboo word to
draw others attention so
Man : What’s
happening?
Borat : Nice to meet
everyone knew what he was
thinking.
This function happens when a speaker utters taboo words to provoke a certain response from the listeners such as violation
and anger.
Azamat : So call the
ministry and
get more
money.
Borat : What? If I did
that, they would kill us!
Azamat : California had
better be as good as you say, or we’re finished.
Borat : You bastard!
(Borat,00:55:29)
Azamat got depressed and asked Borat to call the Kazakhstan
ministry to get more money. Borat felt frustrated and launched taboo words to express his anger.
This function happens when people utter taboo words because they are not satisfied
with public images such as government and institutions.
Borat : And asshole
Uzbekistan.(Borat,00:01:34)
When explaining about his country territories Kazakhstan, which are located near Uzbekistan Borat employed a taboo word before the word Uzbekistan to mock the authority of it. It is because they have a bad relation and the people from these countries tend to mock each other government.
There are five types of taboo words, i.e obscenity, profanity, vulgarity, epithet, and slang. The most dominant type used by the characters is obscenity, which appears 27 times (38%). Then, the secondhighest frequency is ephitet which appears 21 times (29%) in the tirdh place is vulgarity which appear 18 times (23%). Finally, the fourth and fifth place are profanity and slang which are appears only 3 times (5%). From the four functions of taboo word, the highest frequency occurs in the function
discredit which appears 39 times or 54%. The second place is to creating attention which occours 21 times or 29%. Then the function to endearment is on the third place which occurs 7 times or 10%. And finally, the last position is the creation of strong personal identification which is only occurred 5 times or 7%.
This study also found an overlapping phenomenon. Some taboo words such as shit, fuck can be categorized into obscenity, vulgarity or epithet. The word “fuck” in the table above can be classified as obscenity and epithet. In term of meaning of the word “fuck” is categorized into obscenity because it is considered an impolite word. On the other hand, word “fuck” is can also be categorized into epithet because it used to express frustration or anger feeling.
The second overlapping phenomenon was the word “shit” that it can be classified into obscenity and vulgarity. “Shit” can be categorized into obscenity because it involves lack of morality. But, “shit” may become as vulgarity because if it refers to sexual anatomy. The word “shit” that occurred
in vulgarity means sexual part of body organ.
After analyzing the data, the writer has made final conclusion to explain about taboo words. According to the theory from Jay (1992), there are six types of taboo words that found in Borat movie. All types of taboo words including obscenity, profanity, vulgarity, epithet, slang and taboo are found in the dialogue among the characters in the Borat movie. The total number of taboo words found in the dialogue of Borat movie was 72 times.
Obscenity becomes the most frequency used taboo words because it is considered as the most effective way to insult someone. It is concluded that obscenity used by the character in Borat movie whenever they want to show disrespect towards the addressee.
Beside of types of taboo words, there are four function of taboo words found in Borat movie including discredit, create attention, endearment and the creation of strong interpersonal identification. Discredit becomes the most frequent function used by the character of Borat movie. This function
used by the character to show disrespect to others.
It is also found that some taboo words can be overlapped depends on the use of taboo words itself. The first overlapping word was “fuck” that can be classified into obscenity and epithet. The second was the word “shit” that may categorized into obscenity and vulgarity.
Gao, Chunming. 2013. A Sociolinguistic Study of English Taboo Language. China;
School of Foreign Languages, Changchun University of Science and Technology
Jay, Timothy. 1992. Cursing in America: A Psychological study of Dirty Language in the Courts, in The Movies, in The Schoolyards and on The Street. Philadelphia: John Benjamin’s Publishing Co.
Jay,Timothy. 2009. The Utility and Ubiquity of Taboo Words. America; Massachusetts College
Liedlich, Raymond D. 1973. Coming to terms with language: an anthology. New York, Wiley.
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