Taboo in popular music : sex, infidelity and death in songwriting by Taylor Swift

Abstract

This thesis examines taboo language on the album The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology (2024) by the American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. The research approach for examining taboo language is the three-step critical discourse analysis developed by Norman Fairclough (1995; 2010). The objective in analyzing taboo language on The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology (2024) with the methods of critical discourse analysis is to discover how language is utilized to discuss the taboo topics of sex, infidelity and death, and whether they are treated contrastingly with language. Moreover, the analysis focuses on three linguistic strategies that are inherent in taboo language, which are orthophemism (straight talking), euphemism (sweet talking) and dysphemism (offensive talking). The analysis is divided into two: linguistic analysis and social analysis. Linguistic analysis presents the linguistic strategies that are used for discussing each taboo topic, after which they are identified and interpreted within the songs that they appear in. Social analysis summarizes the findings of the linguistic analysis and connects the use of taboo language to social meaning.

The linguistic analysis finds that the topic of sex invokes the most avoidant language, whereas the topic of death is discussed openly the most, which suggests that sex is treated as most taboo and death the least in the material. The social analysis considers the social and cultural background of the artist to impact the linguistic treatment of the taboo topics and suggests that religion is a significant influence through which the taboos are discussed on the album The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology (2024). The results of this thesis suggest that researching the use of taboo language in song lyrics with methods of discourse analysis is revealing of the topics that are perceived as taboo by the songwriter, and thereby, of the social norms and ideologies that influence the production of the song lyrics.