Swearing By Peers In The Work Setting: Expectancy Violation Valence, Perceptions Article Review Examples

Johnson, D. (2012). Swearing by Peers in the Work Setting: Expectancy Violation Valence, Perceptions of Message, and Perceptions of Speaker: Communication Studies, 63:2, 136- 151.
This article seeks to study on how swearing occurs in the workplace setting and to measure the perception of people on the same. From the study it is estimated that three percent of the communication made by adults in the workplace is all swearing. This means that most people have been accustomed to cursing in their ways of communication. The study aims at knowing the frequency of people swearing in their communications. The study also seeks to examine the perception built by the recipients of such messages especially in the work setting.
Swearing is viewed as a way of conveying emotions by people; this is very common in a workplace environment. People use those cursing expressions to show how they feel about a particular event or situation at work. This study is based on the expectancy violation theory (EVT). EVT asserts that people engage in dealings of the expectation of how individual persons would behave. If these expectations are breached then people are aroused and emotions may get high thus the use of swearing. In studying the expectancy violations and the perception of the message from swearing, the study develops the following hypotheses.
The first one is that expectancy violation valence will be related positively to the identified effectiveness and correctness of that swearing communication. Whereas the second hypotheses points out that expectancy violation will have a positive correlation with speaker’s evaluation. The study method applied in this research was a survey type. This involved a particular sample being subjected to the various variables that satisfied the set hypotheses. The procedure involved a sample of 56 females and 54 males. Data was collected by use of questionnaires where respondents answered some questions which included some demographic information. The filled questionnaires were later analyzed in order to draw conclusive inferences from the study.
The results of these studies supported the EVT as a description of how individuals perceive those who swear and also the messages that they swear. The results also show that more positive expectation breach valence is correlated to other positive beliefs of the speaker. This also depends on the correctness and effectiveness of the message sworn. One of the limitations of this research is that very few of the swearing words were used. Hence it did not cover a broad area of swearing. Another limitation is that the research used a lot of students as respondents and yet many of them are not used to the workplace setting. However, further research is recommended to examine contextual issues that result to very negatively or positively valence breaches of the expectations. This is because authorities might also affect the perception and violation of expectations.