Forbidden Words: Taboo and the Censoring of Language

134 Forbidden Words
the role the speaker perceives the hearer-or-named to have adopted relative
to the speaker in the current situation of utterance or, if need be, on some
prior occasion;
the speaker’s communicative purpose on this present occasion; in particular,
whether s/he intends to be insulting or not.
We discussed strategies for dysphemism in Chapters 2 and 3; here we
discuss the speaker’s use of addressing or naming forms which seek to either
enhance the hearer-or-named’s face or, in the least, to avoid loss of face by
any party.
The harm that kings and chiefs can do ensures that they are nearly always
surrounded by taboos, most of which were originally instituted to protect the
stability of the community by protecting the ruler against malevolent spiritual,
physical or political acts. Consequently, special language is often used, both
when communicating with rulers and when talking about them. Perhaps as
an antidote to downgrading a ruler, naming or addressing him/her often
involves extreme pomp and circumstance, beset with euphemism. In Gulliver’s
Travels, Jonathan Swift mocked the splendiferous titles given to contemporary
princes in the following address to the Emperor of Lilliput – a man slightly
taller than Gulliver’s middle finger was long:
GOLBASTO MOMAREN EVLAME GURDILLO SHEFIN MULLY ULLY GUE, most Mighty Emperor
of Lilliput, Delight and Terror of the Universe, whose Dominions extend five
Thousand Blustrugs, (about twelve Miles in Circumference) to the Extremities of the
Globe: Monarch of all Monarchs: Taller than the Sons of Men; whose Feet press
down to the Center, and whose Head strikes against the Sun: At whose Nod the
Princes of the Earth shake their Knees; pleasant as the Spring, comfortable as the
Summer, fruitful as Autumn, dreadful as Winter. His most sublime Majesty proposeth
to the Man-Mountain [¼ Gulliver], lately arrived at our Celestial Dominions, the
following Articles . . . (Swift 1958: 24)
This mode of addressing or naming exaggerates the importance of the heareror-named
by magnifying his/her perceived or pretended higher social status.
Today, it is often those in the lower ranks who get the longest titles, e.g. the
Personal Assistant to the Secretary (Special Activities) for ‘cook’. This exaggeration
is a kind of euphemism. Now that we have constitutional monarchs
and democratically elected presidents, the terror which our rulers once inspired
has been replaced by a notional respect, while terror has become the mark of the
petty dictator and terrorist. Yet the language used to rulers has remained much
the same, even if it is no longer so very different from the respectful deference
extended to other hearer-or-named persons of superior power to the speaker. At
the March 1989 coronation of Prince Mangkubumi in Yogyakarta, Indonesia,
the new Sultan was given the following title: Ngarso dalem kanjeng ratu
inkang sinuhan sri sultan hamengku buwono adipati ingalogo ngabdurahman