Lexicon of the decency taboo in the Laguna de Apoyo Plan community: a sociolinguistic approach

Abstract

In the linguistic taboo, it is given the use of terms that include certain restrictions and prohibitions, seen as morally unacceptable behavior, activity or custom, imposed by a society or religion. There are different types of taboos, however, this is the one that concerns us, the decency taboo, it includes three aspects: sexual organs and erogenous zones, sexual relations and physiological functions of the body.  The present investigation focuses on the first of these and analyzes, from a sociolinguistic perspective, the lexicon used by the informants of the Plan de la Laguna de Apoyo Community, in the department of Masaya, since the influence of the social variables age and sex in the compiled lexicon, in order to carry out an exploratory approach to the linguistic phenomenon under study.  The survey technique was applied to 12 informants, and the results obtained showed that sex is determinant when referring to the erogenous zones of the body, for example, men responded more openly, and made use of a greater number of dysphemisms.