New Evidence for Competing Explanations. Identify and describe a phenomenon
related to taboo language (from the book or elsewhere). For our purposes, a
“phenomenon” is some known fact, like that raising a middle finger affects how people
interpret actions, or that people are statistically more likely to object to ‘moist’ than the
average word or that English profanity follows a particular sound pattern, etc. Using
primary and/or secondary sources, review the evidence that this phenomenon is real.
Then find or generate two competing explanations of this phenomenon. For instance,
one explanation for the phenomenon that English profanity follows the closed
monosyllable sound pattern could be that closed syllables are universally hard for
children to produce, while a competing explanation could be that it’s due to consonants
being useful for cutting off a profanity quickly. Describe existing evidence (if any) for or
against each explanation. Finally, identify what additional data would be necessary to
distinguish between the different explanations for the phenomenon. Your essay should
do the following:
a. Describe a swearing-related phenomenon (in the book or elsewhere)
b. Summarize and evaluate the evidence that this phenomenon is real
c. Describe two competing explanations for it (from the book or that you generate)
d. Review existing evidence, if any, that supports one explanation over the other.
e. Identify additional evidence that would conclusively tell which explanation is
correct. (Each explanation should make a different prediction about the results of
these future observations.)
Sample Topic [you can use this or another of your choice]: (a) A study reports
that swearing relieves pain. (b) Participants were told to swear or not while
holding their hand in cold water, and could endure it longer when swearing. (c)
The apparent hypoalgesic qualities of profanity might be due to either (i) the
negative emotional content of profane words or (ii) the comedic value of swearing
repeatedly. (d) The control condition included in the study does not adjudicate
between these explanations, nor does other evidence. (e) In order to distinguish
between these, we’d need to compare swearing with specific control conditions.
Attatchd is what my proposed subject is and my start
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