Profanity in the Social Classes:

Alhanati, Joao. N/A. 23 September 2012. Which Income Class Are You?.web. 14 April 2015.

Karlin, Anatoly. Lower class whites are “white trash” in the US, “chavs” in Britain, and “gopniki” in Russia. April 8, 2011. National Comparisons: The People. Web.14 April 2015.

Upon watching the documentary People Like Us, which is about social classes; I noticed that the amount of cursing a person does is directly related to the person’s social class. Throughout the film, several different people from different social classes were interviewed and it seemed as though people in the lower classes used profanity more often than people in the upper or middle classes. I believe the reason is because of socialization and education. Religion is also a contributing factor that can influence the use of profanity in the social classes but I will just focus on socialization and education. Socialization is the lifelong process by which individuals develop their human potential, learn their culture, and become self-aware. Therefore each person is taught what is considered acceptable behavior in their own social class. People who are raised in the middle or upper classes are taught how act in public which includes how to dress, eat, speak, etc. Whereas people in the lower classes are not expected to act as well-mannered in public, so their speech is not as proper as the people in the upper or middle class. The amount of education available to each person is also dependent upon social class. The school systems in the lower class or poverty stricken areas have less school funding; therefore, the teachers in the lower class areas are of poorer quality in comparison to the upper or middle class education systems. Also, middle or upper class people have the opportunity to attend private schools which results in them having a more extensive vocabulary in comparison to people in the lower class. As a result of lower class people not being as educated as the upper or middle class people, their vocabularies are not as broad, so they use curse words as fillers in their speech. Hence the more abundant use of profanity by the lower class people in comparison to the upper or middle class people.