The employment of sex-related taboos and corresponding euphemisms in Arabic among Jordanian university students

This study aims to examine the extent to which Jordanian university students use positive and negative euphemism to address the problematic references of the taboo language in sex-related topics, namely sexual organs, sexual intercourse, and illegitimate sex relations. It also aims to shed light on certain aspects of this existence such as the formation processes of the various types of euphemisms and the extent to which Jordanian university students observe Grice‟s maxims of conversation or flout them. The theoretical framework used in this research is based on the following theories; the Politeness theory proposed by Brown and Levinson in 1987 and Grice's Co-operative principle and the Maxims of conversation in 1975. This study followed a mixed-methods approach, using both quantitative and qualitative methods. The variables selected for this study are divided into two main categories: independent variable (gender) and dependent variable (the use of euphemisms by Jordanian university students). The current study found that Jordanian university students (male/female) slightly used taboo language to a certain extent. It was also found that the euphemisms‟ formation processes proposed by Farghal‟s model in 1995 are used by Jordanian university students, especially figurative speech and Euphemizers devices. The study has further revealed that Farghal‟s model is incapable of accounting for all euphemisms‟ formation devices employed by Jordanian university students. As a result, a modified version of Farghal‟s model was formulated by the researcher. The study also found that the euphemisms of sex-related topics, namely sexual organs, sexual intercourse, and illegitimate sex relations used by Jordanian university students (male/female) flout two of Grice‟s maxims of conversation, namely the maxim of quality and the maxim of manner. Finally, the findings of this study demonstrated that gender is slightly influential in terms of the Jordanian students‟ use of positive euphemism.