When reading is harder than a mother kucker: The effect of orthographic neighbor taboo-ness on novel word pronunciation

Abstract

Although taboo words are by definition aversive and offensive, they are nevertheless ubiquitous across languages. However, the consequences of taboo language on cognitive processes, such as reading, are generally not understood. Typically, when readers pronounce an unknown word, that word’s orthographic similarity to known words leads to a similar pronunciation. Here we ask how taboo language affects this link between orthography and phonology in reading and pronunciation. In the current experiment, participants read aloud novel words that were either orthographic neighbors to taboo words or to frequency matched non-taboo words. Overall, participants were less accurate in pronouncing novel words with taboo neighbors than those with non-taboo neighbors. However, we also found individual differences such that participants who self-reported swearing frequently were not affected by the taboo-ness of known neighbors. Together the results suggest that taboo language has top-down influences on the reading and pronunciation of novel words.