Offensiveness of Modern Greek slang words: Conducting a questionnaire survey

Author : Chrisa Kazitori, George I. Xydopoulos

Abstract :The aim of this study is to conduct a questionnaire survey in order to create an online lexical database of slang, derogatory, pejorative, ironic and emotionally charged words, based on Affective Norms for English Words (ANEW Bradley & Lang, 1999), including also the dimension of offensiveness/tabooness (Beers-Fägersten, 2007 Eilola & Havelka, 2010 Janschewitz, 2008 Jay, 1992). To this end, we have collected approximately 13,300 slang, derogatory, pejorative, etc. Modern Greek words from general and specialized dictionaries and two online lexical databases. With the intention of examining the above-mentioned emotional dimensions, we used the Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM Lang, 1980), in accordance to previous studies. The questionnaire’s first page includes the demographic characteristics of age, gender, religion, homeland, profession, educational level and sexual orientation. The following pages include approximately 130 words in random order. For the four aforementioned affective ratings, SAM was employed. Participants rated each word on a Likert scale, ranging from 1 to 9. Based on Redondo et al. (2007) and Eilola & Havelka (2010), among others, and taking into consideration the quite large number of words collected, we created 101 questionnaires with 131-132 words each. The pilot study has so far been completed. In the pilot study, 170 participants have heretofore taken part, from different social and age groups: retired secondary school teachers, 60-80 years old undergraduate linguistics students, 18-25 years old air force officers, 35-50 years old ceramists and painters, 35-55 years old, private sector employees, 27-39 years old, etc. The results have been analyzed based on the parameters mentioned above

Keywords :Slang and Pejorative Language, Emotional Lexicon, Affective Norms for English Words (ANEW), Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM), Offensiveness/Tabooness, Modern Greek, Lexical Database, Questionnaire Survey, Psycholinguistics

Conference Name :International Conference on General Linguistics and Language Teaching (ICGLLT-25)

Conference Place Helsinki, Finland

Conference Date 26th Dec 2025