Hot! Popular! Swears Like a Longshoreman!
by Robert PondiscioMay 23rd, 2012
Tags: language, reading, Sarah Coyne, Scholastic, Young adult fiction
Posted in Education News, Literacy, Teaching | No Comments »
Posted in Education News, Literacy, Teaching | No Comments »
If you’ve read more than a handful of young adult (YA) novels, you’re probably well past the point of being dismayed by the thematic darkness and swear words. A new study by Brigham Young University professor Sarah Coyne finds that on average, teen novels contain 38 instances of profanity between the covers or almost seven instances of profanity per hour spent reading.
But the number of curse words is less interesting than who’s got the potty mouth. The characters who swear the most tend to be rich, attractive and popular, Coyne found “From a social learning standpoint, this is really important because adolescents are more likely to imitate media characters portrayed in positive, desirable ways,” Coyne tells Science