1. Introduction
Words are not only borrowed for referential purposes. The pragmatic functions of swearing, for instance, also play a role in borrowing. Swearwords also occur in a wide range of constructions, especially fuck and its various forms, with verbal, nominal, and adjectival functions, among others (Mackenzie Reference Mackenzie, Lachlan Mackenzie and Alba-Juez2019).Footnote 1 Words and their constructions may adapt to the grammar of the target language by finding equivalent constructions or creating new ones, as documented for fuck by Andersen (Reference Andersen2014). As a swearword, fuck holds significant interpersonal and interactional potential (Stapleton & Beers Fägersten Reference Stapleton and Beers Fägersten2023).
Research on swearing agrees that context matters for its effect, in terms of social variables, settings and interpersonal relations (Beers Fägersten & Stapleton Reference Beers Fägersten, Frank Brisard, Gras and Vandenbroucke2022, Stapleton & Beers Fägersten Reference Stapleton and Beers Fägersten2023). Formal variation and constructional context, such as the ability of certain swearwords to form freestanding (or stand-alone) utterances or function as intensifiers in another expression (Ljung Reference Ljung2011:30), are also well-known properties. Sequential context has received less attention (Hoey et al. Reference Hoey, Paul Hömke, Neumann, Schuerman and Kendrick2021), especially in comparison to the large combinatorial creativity displayed by fuck (Andersen Reference Andersen2014, Mackenzie Reference Mackenzie, Lachlan Mackenzie and Alba-Juez2019). An interactional perspective with an account of the turn-by-turn understanding is relevant for freestanding use, but also for the effect of swearing as part of a turn’s function. The affective value and syntactic behavior of swearwords are manifested in conversational assessments, where the constructions in an utterance have been shown to matter for the trajectory of the interaction (Couper-Kuhlen & Selting Reference Couper-Kuhlen and Selting2018:285).
The aim of this article is to describe the interactional functions of fuck and fucking in various constructions in Danish spoken interaction. This informs the description of borrowings and swearwords, focusing on assessments. The interactional functions of fuck and fucking shed light on how their use in Danish is different from English and from other Danish swearwords. This demonstrates that fuck and fucking belong to different constructions that adapt to existing ones when borrowed. This study explores the details discovered with an interactional description based on spoken interaction.
2. Background
2.1 Swearing and borrowing
Swearing is an area where borrowing takes place. Both borrowing and swearing are subject to taboo from speakers, as illustrated by sociolinguistic studies on the relationship between such resources and various social variables (Beers Fägersten & Stapleton Reference Beers Fägersten and Stapleton2017). Norms of style and context also matter, and swearing and borrowings may be avoided or used in certain environments, sometimes to challenge social conventions (Beers Fägersten Reference Beers Fägersten and Rathje2014). Borrowings are slightly more frequent in informal spoken conversations than written or formal genres in Danish (Heidemann Andersen Reference Heidemann Andersen2020). That underlines the importance of knowing about their use in interaction. Fuck is also more frequent in spoken language than in written (McEnery & Xiao Reference McEnery and Xiao2004).
Swearwords are often described as ‘expletives’, having no or little propositional value, instead expressing affective or evaluative meaning (Andersson & Trudgill Reference Andersson, Trudgill, Monaghan and Goodman2007, Mackenzie Reference Mackenzie, Lachlan Mackenzie and Alba-Juez2019). While they are often negative, or at least seen negatively, their evaluative effect and valence must be interpreted in context (McGregor Reference McGregor1997:221, Stapleton Reference Stapleton, Locher and Lambert Graham2010) and can be both positive and negative (Beers Fägersten & Stapleton Reference Beers Fägersten, Frank Brisard, Gras and Vandenbroucke2022). The spread of fuck across languages exemplifies pragmatic borrowing as it expresses meaning beyond the propositional level (Andersen Reference Andersen2014). Some constructions have grammatical properties specific to swearwords, such as placement after a question word, e.g. what the fuck (Jespersen Reference Jespersen1911, Andersson & Trudgill Reference Andersson, Trudgill, Monaghan and Goodman2007). Several swearing constructions can be used as whole utterances, while others function as intensifiers or emphasis for another constituent in an expression (Ljung Reference Ljung2011:30). A swearword used by itself as one utterance is described as an expletive or reactive interjection (Ljung Reference Ljung2011:74). While interjections are words that can be used by themselves, they are occasionally used before or after other elements (Andersen Reference Andersen2014:23).
Literature on swearing highlights how swearing is used pragmatically for interpersonal functions (Stapleton & Beers Fägersten Reference Stapleton and Beers Fägersten2023). The functions include collegial relation-building through humor (Nelson Reference Nelson2014), conveying competence and other aspects of identity construction (Debray Reference Debray2023), and indexing low social distance between speakers (Beers Fägersten Reference Beers Fägersten2012:99–101).
Some descriptions of functions of swearing utterances factor in the conversational context. Such descriptions are seen in the description of swearing as reactive expletive interjections (i.e. triggered by something happening before it, such as negative events or pain), acknowledgment of or expressive reaction to some information, self-repair, and emphasis (Ljung Reference Ljung2011:84). Another conversational context of swearing is storytelling (Norrick Reference Norrick2013).
2.2 Interactional functions and constructions
Interactional research recently began studying swearing and how swearwords are resources for stance-taking and assessments, adding detail to the sequential aspects of the interactional functions of swearing (Hoey et al. Reference Hoey, Paul Hömke, Neumann, Schuerman and Kendrick2021, Calabria & Sciubba Reference Calabria and Eleonora Sciubba2022). Consideration of sequences of swearing utterances expands the description of interpersonal and interactional functions.
An interactional function is the contribution by a formal aspect of a turn to the action performed by that turn or its turn-taking. An action can be a specific question type, request, or kind of answer (Levinson Reference Levinson, Sidnell and Stivers2013) and can include the display of a stance, which may be affective, deontic, or epistemic (Stevanovic & Peräkylä Reference Stevanovic and Peräkylä2014). The action of a turn depends on how its features – both formal and content-wise – relate to those of the previous turn. Turn-taking involves timing and signaling when a turn ends and who may (or is expected to) speak next (Sacks et al. Reference Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson1974, Steensig Reference Steensig, Andersen and Aijmer2011). It can also more broadly include the way certain topics are closed or not, such as through sequence-closing thirds (Schegloff Reference Schegloff2007:118).
Swearing can be used for assessing. An assessment sequence consists of one or more assessments, i.e. turns evaluating a referent. The evaluation is usually on a scale from positive to negative (Couper-Kuhlen & Selting Reference Couper-Kuhlen and Selting2018:283) but can also highlight other features or impressions, such as a remarkable or astonishing quality. A first assessment makes a second relevant, which will often be designed to be either agreeing or disagreeing (Pomerantz Reference Pomerantz, Maxwell Atkinson and Heritage1984). An assessment can introduce the assessed referent, but it can also react to something that just happened or information sharing, such as response cries (Goffman Reference Goffman1978), responses during stories (Goodwin Reference Goodwin1986), or in third position (Schegloff Reference Schegloff2007:118). While Pomerantz (Reference Pomerantz, Maxwell Atkinson and Heritage1984) describes upgraded second assessments as the primary way to achieve agreement with a first assessment in American English, Garly (Reference Garly2019) finds it more appropriate to consider same-level assessments the primary strategy to achieve agreement in Danish. There is often a general preference for agreeing assessments, but this is not the case for certain types, such as compliments (Pomerantz Reference Pomerantz and Schenkein1978). Assessments can take different forms, most importantly copula clauses such as pronoun + copula + assessment term, an assessment construction also found in Danish (Garly Reference Garly2019).
The combination of an interactional function and a turn format is sometimes called a social action format (Fox Reference Fox2007) or practice (Heritage Reference Heritage and Silverman2011). Here, they are considered constructions, including also the sequential context (Imo Reference Imo2015). Constructions, in the sense of multi-word units, syntactic patterns, or combinations of a word in a pattern, may also be borrowed (Zenner et al. Reference Zenner, Heylen and Van de Velde2018, De Pascale et al. Reference De Pascale, Pijpops, Van de Velde and Zenner2022), particularly in the case of swearing (Andersen Reference Andersen2014, Zenner et al. Reference Zenner, Ruette, Devriendt, Beers Fägersten and Stapleton2017). The swearword fuck appears in many constructions or idioms (Love & Stenström Reference Love and Stenström2023).
2.3 Fuck in Danish
Fuck has become the most common swearword among the Danish youth (Heidemann Andersen & Rathje Reference Heidemann Andersen and Rathje2021). Among the youth, fucking and fuck are the most common borrowings from English when excluding borrowings from before 1945 such as okay (Heidemann Andersen Reference Heidemann Andersen, Goldshtein, Schoonderbeek Hansen and Thode Hougaard2021). The dictionary Nye ord i dansk (‘New words in Danish’) dates fuck in Danish to 1990, fucking to 1989, and motherfucker to 1980 (Danish Language Council 2024), but Fjeld et al. (Reference Fjeld, Kristiansen, Rathje, Oskarsson, Konstaninovskaia, Gill and Menuta2019) provide an example from the collections of the Danish Language Council dating back to 1971, with the noun fucker. Danish youth consider fuck the strongest swearword in Danish (Rathje Reference Rathje and Rathje2014).
In Den Danske Ordbog ‘The Danish Dictionary’, fuck is described as an interjection used ‘to express anger, contempt, surprise or another emotion’, with a derived nominal use to refer to something bad, and as a verb used ‘to show strong contempt’, also used with verb particles in fucke af ‘scram’, fucke med ‘mess with’, and fucke op ‘mess up’ (Den Danske Ordbog 2024a, 2024b). Unlike in English, fuck does not refer to sexual activities.
Fucking is given the same glosses except for surprise (Den Danske Ordbog 2024c). The -ing-form of fucking marks it as a borrowing, since -ing as a suffix in Danish is an allomorph of the nominalizing suffix -ning and only occurs after /n/, /l/, or /r/, except in English borrowings like camping, ranking, or ghosting (compare klipning ‘cutting’, tænkning ‘thinking’, and flytning ‘moving’). The insertion of fucking into another word has been documented as rare, e.g. abso-fucking-lut ‘abso-fucking-lutely’ (Jensen Reference Jensen2005, Heidemann Andersen Reference Heidemann Andersen, Goldshtein, Schoonderbeek Hansen and Thode Hougaard2021, whose example is between two nouns in a compound).
In Danish, the pronunciation closely resembles the English source forms. Fuck is pronounced [ˈfʌk] and fucking is pronounced [ˈfʌkɪŋ] (with some variation in the vowel of -ing). Note that [k] is (usually) not aspirated finally or before weak vowels, which means that the [k] may be less aspirated than in English.
One study that addresses fuck and fucking in Danish is Garly (Reference Garly2019:37–39) on assessments in Danish, finding that fuck functions as a preface marking the turn as an assessment. It occurs in first assessments but more frequently in second assessments (Garly Reference Garly2019:39). In second assessments, it performs upgraded assessment with a following phrase like hvor lækkert ‘how delicious’ (Garly Reference Garly2019:66). Additionally, fucking is used as a modifier in copula clause assessments (Garly Reference Garly2019:71) and what the fuck as a phrasal, freestanding format for first assessments (Garly Reference Garly2019:44).
3. Data and method
This study uses Interactional Linguistics (Couper-Kuhlen & Selting Reference Couper-Kuhlen and Selting2018) as a method to study the interactional functions of constructions containing forms of the word fuck in Danish. It builds on Conversation Analysis by describing the phenomena under investigation through reference to the conversational context and treatment of the phenomena by the participants in the interaction, and the understanding displayed by the orientation to the studied constructions (Sacks et al. Reference Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson1974). The unproblematic mutuality of understanding underscores the generic nature of the constructions studied. The details given in the analyses matter for treating meaning as attributed by the speakers in the data rather than a researcher.
The data are a collection of cases (Hoey & Kendrick Reference Hoey, Kendrick, de Groot and Hagoort2018) gathered from the AULing corpus (Samtalegrammatik.dk 2024a) consisting of conversations in Danish (recorded between the 1990s and 2019), most of which take place in informal, everyday situations. Information on the exact age of the participants is not available, but most of them are in their twenties. Participants have given informed consent, and any potentially identifying information is anonymized. Across 10 and a half hours of data covering 30 interactions – almost all with video – all cases of the word fuck or related forms were gathered.Footnote 2 This resulted in 76 cases. Half of the interactions considered (forming only slightly more than three hours of the data) contained no instances of fuck or fucking. In total, there are more than 80 participants across all interactions, of which 45 participate in interactions that contain instances of fuck or fucking. These instances were uttered by 23 individuals. The earliest recorded instances of fuck and fucking in this collection date to 2010. The forms and constructions were categorized, including determining that some are unanalyzable. One case where the whole utterance was in English (fuck you mom) was excluded. The resulting collection contains 27 cases of fuck and 17 cases of fucking.
Transcriptions follow the conventions of Samtalegrammatik.dk (2024b) for Danish, based on Jefferson (Reference Jefferson and Lerner2004). A translation to English that is close to the original Danish is provided in a separate line, except for untranslatable vocal conduct like laughter or turns completely in English.Footnote 3
The constructions in focus have been chosen partly based on their frequencies. Table 1 lists the collected constructions and the number of occurrences.
Distribution of occurrences
While there are more cases of fuck than fucking, the most frequent construction is fucking in the predicate phrase of a copula clause, modifying an adjective or noun (13 cases), closely followed by fuck as a freestanding or prefacing reactive interjection (12). Fuck prefacing a declarative copula clause (4) functions differently than when prefacing other clause types. Another prefacing fuck occurs with a phrasal turn with hvor ‘how’ and an adjective (7). The ‘curse’ use of fuck and a pronoun (e.g. fuck dig ‘fuck you’) was somewhat rare, with three cases. Fucking occurs in a noun phrase in four cases.
Cases counted as quoted are those framed as reported or imagined speech or thought, or otherwise participating in a different interaction. They are kept separate because quotative use may have specific (side-)functions (Sørensen et al. Reference Sørensen and Steensig2025) and are outside the scope of this study. Unanalyzable cases are those where the interaction cannot be understood enough to make an analysis. This may be due to the context being inaudible or otherwise unavailable, such as cases that occur as the very first or last part of a recording, thus lacking context.
Other constructions include what the fuck (4 cases), motherfucker (1), fuck mand ‘fuck man’ (2), the verbal expression række fuck ‘give the finger’ (2), the form fucked (1), and as a noun in din fuck ‘you fuck’ (1). One case of fucking modifying a verb (du skal fucking ikke stille dig foran ‘you should fucking not stand in front’)Footnote 4 was found only among the quoted cases.
4. Analysis
The analysis is divided into parts on fuck (Section 4.1) and fucking (Section 4.2), further subdivided into the different functions. They include fuck as a reactive interjection (Section 4.1.1), fuck upgrading something to an assessment when followed by a copula clause (Section 4.1.2), agreeing second assessments with fuck hvor followed by an adjective (Section 4.1.3) and questions (Section 4.1.4). Fucking is divided into copula constructions doing first assessments (Section 4.2.1) and fucking in noun phrases not eliciting a response (Section 4.2.2). Afterwards, the interactional functions are summarized (Section 4.3).
4.1 Uses of fuck
4.1.1 Fuck as a reactive interjection
Fuck can be used by itself as a freestanding unit to express an assessment, functioning as a reactive expletive interjection (Ljung Reference Ljung2011:84), reacting to something that has just happened. Fuck can be followed by a clause that could constitute its own turn but clarifies the object of assessment or elaborates some aspect of the cause. The clauses that follow do not take the shape of declarative copula clauses, as they instead upgrade a description to assessment (Section 4.1.2).
As a reactive interjection, fuck usually expresses a negative assessment, but the exact evaluation may range from negative to neutral or exist in the area of surprise or astonishment. In some cases, it is used to display empathy with negative situations. The cases are responsive in the sense that they may be uttered as reactions to informings by other speakers or assess a non-verbal event. This includes noticings or (sudden) realizations by the speaker. However, they are first assessments in the sense that they do not respond to existing assessments and may be responded to with second assessments.
In (1), fuck is used as a reaction immediately after losing a card game between four people:
In L01,Footnote 5 Liv formulates a guess about another player’s card with så er du ‘then you are’, drawing out the final vowel while thinking. By guessing correctly (L02), she causes Torben to lose the round. In response, Torben exclaims fuck and throws his cards on the table (L04–05). In this case, fuck is a response to an event – the loss of the game – that occurred immediately before and is conventionally considered a negative outcome, like an outcry of pain.
A negative event may also stem from the speaker. In (2), Agnes is talking about her studies, until she is struck by a sudden realization:
In L02, Agnes mentions a presentation task with an approaching deadline as part of a discussion of demands from her education. During this turn, she realizes that she had forgotten about it until now, as stated afterwards (L03). The word fuck interrupts the production of the word præsentation ‘presentation’ before its last syllable, showing the sudden character of the recollection. Her frustration over the newly realized situation is seen in her use of argh ‘ugh’ (L06). In this case, fuck does not respond to an immediately preceding turn or event but assesses the forgetting of something she became reminded of as she mentioned it, which only involves the current speaker.
Fuck can also be used to display empathy towards a person (present or not) in a negative situation. In (3), Astrid is talking about a conflict between Alfred and another person:
In L01, Astrid is finalizing her description of a situation where Alfred and the other person were in conflict and trash-talked each other. Afterwards, she concludes that it led to a situation where ‘he has just hated him for the rest of the year’. The delivery is marked prosodically with a constrained and smiling voice quality on the last phrase resten af året ‘rest of the year’ (L03), which also starts higher in pitch than the preceding talk and functions as an extreme case formulation (Pomerantz Reference Pomerantz1986). The word hadet ‘hated’ (L02) is also heavily stressed and frames Alfred as being in a negative situation. The delivery of resten af året and hadet makes a more involved response relevant. Britt starts speaking during the last word året ‘the year’ by producing a prolonged [f] sound with some laughter and then follows up with fuck produced with slight laughter. Astrid’s continuation in L06 treats Britt’s fuck as an appropriate reaction. The choice of fuck can be seen to acknowledge the negativity in the situation of the non-present people described (in line with Norrick Reference Norrick2013:17), while the laughter tokens match the entertaining tone of the story provided by Astrid.
4.1.2 Upgrading description to assessment
Fuck can also be used by a speaker after describing an event, often as part of a story, where it upgrades the description to an explicit assessment eliciting a response. This is achieved by fuck followed by a declarative copula clause. This function follows talk by the same speaker, which makes it different from fuck as a reactive interjection (Section 4.1.1).
An example is shown in (4), where it is used to end a story and highlight its climax:
In L01–02, Britt is telling a story about someone who, after having proposed a location for her to urinate, took pictures of her and then ran away. Astrid responds with a surprised nej ‘no’, displaying disbelief and surprise at the situation (Heinemann Reference Heinemann2015:126). Britt adds that she was then abandoned while urinating (L04–06). Astrid responds with weak laughter. After a short pause, Britt then assesses the situation with fuck followed by the copula clause det var træls ‘that was annoying’ (L10). After half a second of silence, Astrid provides an assessment of the travel destination of the trip where the story took place, thereby moving to a new topic. This way, the turn with fuck becomes a summary of or final comment on Britt’s telling. Rather than responding, it builds on the speaker’s own prior talk, pursuing further response from the listener (Kjærbeck & Asmuß Reference Kjærbeck and Asmuß2005).
Three of the four cases of fuck + copula clause proceed this way, with fuck following talk by the same speaker. In the exception, someone comments fuck hun er sexet ‘fuck she is sexy’ on a music video they have been watching without talking for some time. It differs by using the pronoun hun ‘she’ rather than det ‘it, that’. Possibly, the pronoun det or its reference to preceding talk (‘broad scope’ in Puggaard Reference Puggaard2019) is part of the construction. In any case, this analysis suggests that fuck + copula clause is a category distinct from (though related to) freestanding and prefacing fuck as a reactive interjection.
4.1.3 Agreeing second assessments
A common assessment construction in Danish contains hvor modifying an adjective, e.g. hvor dejligt ‘how nice’ (Garly Reference Garly2019:44). When prefaced with fuck, this construction is used as a second assessment agreeing with a previous speaker’s assessment. Sequentially, it is often followed by the speaker continuing the sequence or moving it forward. Hvor ‘how’ is the quantificational question word. It is used in exclamatives, and in spoken language, phrasal exclamatives are likely more frequent than clausal ones (Sørensen Reference Sørensen2023; some clausal cases can be found in Garly Reference Garly2019). There is usually no pause between fuck, hvor, and the following adjective, as they form one turn.
In (5), Britt is talking about local events positively:
At the end of Britt’s description, she initiates the positive assessment det megahyggeligt ‘it’s super cozy’ (L03). As Britt is saying megahyggeligt ‘super cozy’, Astrid begins responding with fuck hvor nice ‘fuck how nice’, using the positive term nice in combination with fuck hvor, thereby agreeing with the first assessment. Astrid immediately follows up by asking if the event will also take place the coming Wednesday.
Similar to (5), (6) shows a speaker using fuck hvor in a second assessment continuing afterwards, here elaborating the assessment:
In L01–03, Yda informs Rie about having received some food. In response, Rie delivers an ej, a common assessment interjection (Tholstrup Reference Tholstrup2014). At the same time, Yda elaborates with her plans for the food (L06). With the word yay, an assessment particle, followed by laughter (L07), she produces a positive first assessment of those plans. Rie responds with fuck hvor lækkert ‘fuck how delicious’, which agrees using the positive adjective lækkert ‘delicious’, followed by the observation du skal have kød ‘you’re having meat’. The observation is confirmed by Yda with ja ‘yes’, but Rie immediately elaborates with a generalized statement based on the information provided by Yda, saying ‘then one really has something good for dinner’, which incorporates the positive assessment by framing the food as noget godt ‘something good’.
The case in (6) thus illustrates the same structure as in (5) – fuck hvor + adjective as an agreeing second assessment – but with a different formulation of the first assessment and a different kind of continuation (elaboration rather than question) by the participant uttering fuck. (7) contains a deviant case in the sense that no explicit assessment was made before the turn with fuck hvor, and that the assessment turns out not to agree with the evaluation that the previous speaker was working towards. Britt is telling a second story after a story about someone with a weed plant (which explains why L01 is about weed):
In L01, Britt informs Astrid that her grandmother grew weed in the past. Astrid reacts with disbelief by saying seriøst ‘seriously’, which receives confirmation by Britt. The confirmation is receipted by Astrid who assesses it as surprising with fuck as a reactive interjection (Section 4.1.1). Britt then adds that the grandmother collaborated with Britt’s uncle (L07–09), then clarifies that her uncle is her grandmother’s son. After this, both Britt and Astrid produce low laughter tokens. Then Astrid utters fuck hvor fedt ‘fuck how awesome’ (L15), providing an assessment using the format fuck hvor followed by the positive adjective fedt ‘awesome’. Britt responds with more laughter followed by nodding, but not long after that, she starts shaking her head and says det ved jeg ikke lige ‘I don’t know’. Although Britt initially seems to display agreement (Pomerantz Reference Pomerantz, Maxwell Atkinson and Heritage1984:72), her later actions show that she does not agree with Astrid’s positive assessment, but more likely considers the illegal family activity negative.
In this case, the turn with fuck hvor does not follow a first assessment. However, it picks up on the fact that Britt’s informing contains an evaluation or builds towards making an assessing response relevant. Britt’s later withdrawal of agreement makes it clear that an assessment is a relevant response, but that the valence of Astrid’s assessment – using the unequivocally positive word fedt rather than something displaying surprise or astonishment – does not agree with the assessment that Britt was building up to. That Britt withholds the naming of the subject as weed (L01) also indicates that she does not perceive the situation she describes as primarily positive. This analysis thus shows a deviant case where fuck hvor + adjective picks up on an implied or not yet fully elaborated assessment (i.e. a description not upgraded to an assessment; see Section 4.1.2) but fails to agree with it, prompting reaction from the informer.
The construction consisting of fuck, hvor, and an adjective is thus used to deliver an agreeing second assessment in response to another speaker’s assessment or other evaluating activity. An assessment with fuck hvor + adjective is followed by further, topic-continuing talk by the same speaker.
4.1.4 Questions
Some swearwords are known to be used after a question word (Jespersen Reference Jespersen1911). The collection contains one case of hvad fuck ‘what the fuck’ being used as part of a question:
In this case, fuck is used after hvad ‘what’ in the formulation hvad hedder den ‘what is it called’ (L4), which is regularly used to initiate word search (Clausen & Pedersen Reference Clausen and Pedersen2017). The initiation of word search is different from the use of swearing to initiate self-repair (Ljung Reference Ljung2011:88), as self-repair reacts to an error made by the speaker, while word search is a display of non-retrieval of a term or, in this case, the title of a song (just like questions are requests for information usually unknown to the speaker). In this case, the word search is solved by another speaker. Since there is only one case, it is unclear if this function is limited to word search or may appear in other formats using question words.
4.2 Uses of fucking
4.2.1 First assessments
Copula constructions with fucking in the predicate phrase (though never by itself) are used for first assessments that other participants are expected to respond to. The copula verb in Danish is være ‘be’, but other verbs are also copulative, such as se ud ‘look (like)’ and blive ‘become’, which are included here. The present form of være, i.e. er ‘is, am, are’, may be phonetically reduced to the point of being inaudible (Sørensen Reference Sørensen and Steensig2025). Copula clauses in this category may exhibit both declarative and interrogative word order.
In (9), Arthur and Melissa are seated around a table, engaging in separate creative projects. Earlier in the interaction, Melissa presented an object she worked on with a critical assessment, followed by a longer discussion with feedback and about tools that may help. Arthur then seems to mirror Melissa’s presentation:
In L02, Arthur announces that he has made or used an object, which he is holding up, and then adds the copula clause det bare fucking skævt ‘it’s just fucking uneven’ (L03). This is an assessment because it identifies a flaw with the object by describing it as skævt ‘uneven’ modified by fucking and the adverb bare ‘just’. It is also delivered during an interaction in which presenting an object for the purpose of assessment has been done before. After a short pause, Arthur and Melissa start laughing, which also shows the subjective nature of his statement. Arthur then provides another assessment of the object, describing it as helt shit ‘completely shit’ in appearance. Following some silence in which Arthur puts down the object, Melissa says det: gratis ‘it’s free’, seemingly agreeing through rephrasing Arthur’s negative evaluations in terms of monetary value.
In this case, Arthur’s delivery of another assessment of the object and waiting for a response suggest it was designed to receive a more involved response than laughter. For this reason, fucking in a copula clause functions as a first assessment that makes another utterance relating to the assessment relevant.
A different kind of agreeing response is seen in (10). Britt is in the middle of telling a story about choosing clothes for a party:
In L01–L03, Britt concludes the part of the story about how she heard her ex-boyfriend would participate. This serves as an argument for wanting to look good at the party, which she formulates in L05–08 as så jeg gad jo ikke ligne noget der var, altså, var fucking løgn ‘so I didn’t want to look (like something that was) awful’. She uses the fixed expression ligne noget der er løgn, which means ‘look awful/bad’, with the literal translation ‘look like something that is lie’. Britt uses fucking to modify the noun løgn ‘lie’. It is the only case in the collection of fucking modifying a noun (rather than an adjective) in a predicate phrase, though løgn without an article is somewhat adjective-like. The evaluative nature of the turn is also evident in Britt’s following laughter and the laughed pronunciation of løgn, and the framing of it as unwanted. In overlap with Britt’s laughter, Astrid displays agreement with a nej ‘no’ (L09) followed by laughter tokens, matching the negation in gad ikke ‘didn’t want to’ (Heinemann Reference Heinemann2015). After some silence and the word så ‘so, then’, Britt continues her storytelling.
In this case, the sequence occurs within a telling where an assessment containing fucking makes it relevant for the listener to display agreement, after which the telling continues.
In (11), fucking is used in a copula clause with interrogative word order, as part of a question. It is the only case with this word order. Rie has just been talking about movie discussions she had with someone else:
In L01–02, Yda mentions the previous topic of watching movies together. This is followed by her mentioning a previous movie proposal (L02–05). Rie responds positively with åhr jaer ‘oh yeah’, after which Yda asks kunne det ikke være fucking nice ‘wouldn’t that be fucking nice’. This turn is a yes/no-question through its interrogative word order and a copula clause formulated with the modal verb kunne ‘can, could’ as the finite verb. The predicate phrase consists of nice modified by fucking. As a yes/no-question, the turn requests confirmation of an assessment but may also be treated as a proposal since the activity involves both speakers.
Immediately after fucking and thus in overlap with nice, Rie starts responding with jo ‘yes’ (mismatching the negation in the question, Heinemann Reference Heinemann2015), displaying agreement with the proposal being nice. The repetition of jo with stressed delivery on all repeats and the addition of vi skal ‘we have to’ display strong agreement. After the response, Yda provides an assessment of the movie as another argument (L11). The use of fucking in a question-formatted turn underlines that it is a first assessment making a response relevant.
This analysis shows that fucking is used as part of first assessments, making agreement a relevant next action, and that this sequence may occur within storytelling or other extended activities.
4.2.2 No response elicitation
A turn with fucking within a noun phrase is not designed to receive a response. Fucking may modify the head, which in two cases is a noun and in one case a nominalized adjective (de der fucking naturvidenskabelige ‘those fucking natural-scientific ((ones))’, i.e. STEM students). It may also modify an adjective within the noun phrase, as in the case en fucking lang tid ‘a fucking long time’. Two of the in total four cases point towards the construction not making a response relevant, thereby not having a particularly interactional function, while the remaining two do not contradict this description.
The absence of any response after fucking in a noun phrase is seen in (12), where Casper is telling about how he and Meyer acquired a mannequin leg from a bookstore:
In L01–05, he sets the scene and then details how he saw the leg, which is formulated as det der fucking ben ‘that fucking leg’ (L06). This is immediately followed by him conveying his thoughts from that moment through a quote (L07–10), which prompts a response in the form of a slight laugh from Benjamin. In this case, the turn construction unit with fucking neither receives nor appears to invite a response, as the speaker continues without making space for one at this point in the telling. However, the referent of the noun phrase containing fucking is the focus of the story and is assessed in the quote in L09–10, which receives (some) response.
The two cases where something else happens include one case where the story containing fucking is sidetracked by several questions from another speaker, and one case where the noun phrase is postposed turn-finally, in the utterance det er det det betyder, det fucking ord ‘that’s what it means, that fucking word’. The postposed use may constitute a different construction, but like the noun phrases in the three other cases, it is at the end of a turn. The claims based on (12) are also supported by cases in Heidemann Andersen & Rathje (Reference Heidemann Andersen and Rathje2021) where fucking in a noun phrase is placed towards the end of a turn that forms part of a multi-unit utterance.
4.3 Summary
The constructions studied in this paper serve functions related to assessing. Fuck appears early in constructions, either initially or right after a question word, while fucking is usually placed later in a turn. Some functions were backed up by deviant cases demonstrating that the function is normative and that deviations will be perceived as such. The distinctive trajectories of these sequences also show that speakers treat them as different from each other, as they do not compete for the turn. Because of this, the functions should be expected to be recurrent practices and occur among other speakers than those in the studied data, keeping in mind the limited size of the data and that swearing is subject to individual variation.
The functions examined here are part of or related to assessments in various ways and vary in sequential position (first vs. second assessment) and sequential context before and after. The valency may be either positive or negative, though freestanding fuck as a reactive interjection tends to be in negative (or surprised) assessments. The details are summarized in Table 2 (simplifying some aspects of the type of continuation).
Summary of interactional functions of fuck and fucking in the studied data
The differences indicate the importance of looking at what follows fuck, and the overall clause that fucking is part of.
5. Discussion
Based on the description offered in the analysis, I discuss what is added by describing the interactional functions of fuck and fucking. I will attempt to contrast the description with previous descriptions of the same words in other languages, to the extent possible, and with comparable words in Danish. The aim is to discuss how fuck and fucking have gained or changed pragmatic features or constructional possibilities in the adaption from English to Danish. I also address limitations and future perspectives.
5.1 Contributions to the description of Danish
Garly (Reference Garly2019) describes assessments in Danish and analyzes some cases with fuck but without a collection dedicated to it. Garly finds that fuck hvor + adjective is used in phrasal second assessments. This study adds detail to that description by showing that the speaker continues speaking afterwards, and that an initial element like fuck should be understood as part of a construction including the type of what follows. Garly’s description of copula clauses as first assessments is also in line with copula clauses with fucking as first assessments, suggesting future research on the exact interactional contribution of fucking as an intensifier in assessments. This study’s finding that fucking in noun phrases are non-interactive illustrates that not all constructions with fucking share the same interactional function. The study provides a point of comparison for other studies of intensifiers and related constructions as part of understanding the functions of constructions and their elements. The examined forms and interactional functions also inform aspects of the assessment system, i.e. how different types are marked and distinctive in which contexts.
One limitation is that this study and Garly (Reference Garly2019) use the same corpus: five of Garly’s seven conversations are part of the 30 interactions forming the data for this study. This suggests the need for more sources of data in the future, ideally with more metadata for judging representativity.
Regarding other swearwords, constructions with fanden have been noted as similar to fuck or fucking (Fjeld et al. Reference Fjeld, Kristiansen, Rathje, Oskarsson, Konstaninovskaia, Gill and Menuta2019). Fanden is a swearword referring to the Devil (also in the form fandme ‘Devil take me, damn’) with a range of interactional functions (Sørensen et al. Reference Sørensen and Steensig2025).
The use of fuck as a reactive interjection corresponds to the phrase for fanden ‘for the devil, damn’ and possibly the freestanding use of the genitive form fandens ‘the devil’s’. Fanden is used with a question word in hvad fanden ‘what the devil’, which is used to initiate other-repair, word search, or request information while expressing a negative evaluation (e.g. frustration) of a referent or situation. The only case of hvad fuck in this study was also used for word search, displaying similarity in function. The frequency of question word constructions possibly differs, as hvad fuck was among the rare constructions in this study, yet hvad fanden is the most frequent use of fanden. Hvad fanden may be more functionally equivalent to English what the fuck in questions than hvad fuck in Danish. Fandme could have interactional functions comparable to fucking since they share some (but not all) syntactic properties, but detailed interactional studies are needed to establish this (Sørensen et al. Reference Sørensen and Steensig2025). The distribution of interactional functions between forms sharing a root, such as fuck vs. fucking and fanden vs. fandme vs. fandens is thus not uniform. These features of the borrowing were not adapted, and fuck or fucking do not seem to be mirroring fanden more than any other swearword.
5.2 Fuck as a borrowing
This section discusses how the use in the studied data reflects that of other languages, particularly English. In English, fuck has the interactional function of pursuing a response while treating something prior as inappropriate, particularly as part of constructions with the fuck following question words, and it can be seen as upgrading a prior action such as a question (Hoey et al. Reference Hoey, Paul Hömke, Neumann, Schuerman and Kendrick2021). The use of hvad fuck may have similar functions, as word search can be a type of question (see Sørensen et al. Reference Sørensen and Steensig2025), but the one case in this study is not as disaffiliating or conflictual as the examples in Hoey et al. (Reference Hoey, Paul Hömke, Neumann, Schuerman and Kendrick2021). This difference may be partly due to their data having a better representation of conflicts than the corpus of this study where no clear cases of disagreeing assessments were found. Their account of English does not distinguish constructions with fuck from those with fucking and excludes fuck as a reactive interjection. First assessments with fucking in the data of this study do not fit well into their account of upgrading. Fuck as a reactive interjection or followed by clauses exist in English (e.g. Ljung Reference Ljung2011:87), just as noun phrases and copula clauses containing fucking. Other relevant interactional functions in English need to be further studied before a better comparison can be made.
English does not seem to have an equivalent of fuck hvor ‘fuck how’. Searches in the Corpus of Contemporary American English and the British National Corpus (Davies Reference Davies2008a, Davies Reference Davies2008b) only return cases of clausal structures starting with fuck how as results of other constructions, such as give a fuck followed by a complement clause introduced by how, or fuck as a ‘curse’ directed at a complement clause instead of a pronoun. This occurs even though how + adjective may form a phrasal turn, such as how nice.
Other languages have also borrowed fuck and given it interactional functions, some equivalent to those found in the studied data. For instance, the use of fucking in a case from the Swedish movie Fucking Åmål discussed by Beers Fägersten (Reference Beers Fägersten and Stapleton2017) is comparable to (11), and a Dutch case with waar de fuck from Zenner et al. (Reference Zenner, Ruette, Devriendt, Beers Fägersten and Stapleton2017) is similar to the use in questions in (8). However, a thorough comparison requires interactional data for a detailed description of comparable functions to discuss whether the interactional adaptation of fuck is similar across different target languages.
As a borrowing, fuck seems to have adapted to Danish. The use of fuck with hvor in Danish is functional broadening (Andersen Reference Andersen2014) and may be unique to Danish. The adaptation includes occurring in functions and constructions already existing in the source language, such as interjectional use and modification of question words. It also shares similarities with another swearword, fanden, possibly differing in frequency, though the partial similarity suggests that it is not simply replacing or copying fanden.
These aspects become clearer when considering syntax in the context of constructions. The interactional function must be understood as a feature of the turn as a construction. While the constructions attested are not surprising given the syntactic properties of the words examined, the similarity between source and target language is better understood when seeing the use in context, such as copula clause assessments and questions.
5.3 Future perspectives
This study advances the description of interactional functions and how they matter in understanding the pragmatic functions of borrowings and swearwords. The sequential perspective employed adds further details compared to accounts of discourse context and social distance and may be incorporated in future accounts of related phenomena.
For swearwords, one implication, among others, may be that prefacing reactive interjections can be further subdivided based on following elements (e.g. clause or phrase type) as part of the different possible constructions, and in elaborating notions like stand-alone and intensifying functions. Future studies could incorporate other aspects, such as prosody (Cantarutti Reference Cantarutti, Skarnitzl and Volín2023).
The interactional functions of borrowings, swearwords, and their sociolinguistic status, could perhaps also be illuminated together with other aspects of social interaction, e.g. in negotiating a relation in terms of in- or outgroup (Zenner & Van De Mieroop Reference Zenner and Van De Mieroop2017) and through the strength of assessments as first or second assessments. The data of this study contain limited speaker information.
6. Conclusion
This study described the interactional functions of the words fuck and fucking in Danish interaction, with a focus on the sequential properties of constructions involving them. The interactional functions were demonstrated to differ in terms of sequence and turn taking, in performing assessments. While there are similarities to the use of fuck in English and the heritage word fanden ‘the devil, damn’ in Danish, the words and their constructions are not directly transferred from one language to another but instead adapt to the context of existing constructions used with assessments and/or swearwords. The adaptations, including the observation that there may be differences in frequency, suggest that borrowed swearwords are not simply replacing traditional ones in comparable constructions but acquire interactional functions through a more complex pathway.
Methodically, the study underlines the benefits of researching borrowing and swearing from an interactional perspective with attention to syntactic constructions.
This article supports the proposal that borrowings should be studied beyond the individual word (Andersen Reference Andersen2014, Zenner & Kristiansen Reference Zenner, Kristiansen, Zenner and Kristiansen2014) and shows how pragmatic functions, particularly as they relate to swearing, manifest as interactional functions in spoken interaction. Future studies may be able to explore the taboo status of swearing in relation to its use in assessments.
Acknowledgments
I want to thank the three anonymous reviewers for their comments as important improvements came out of them. I am also thankful for the editors’ support through this process. The paper also benefited from the discussions and enthusiasm I experienced at the workshops of the project Pragmatic Borrowing in the Nordic Languages and various other occasions. Last, but not least, I am grateful to Sandra Wójcik for being able to perform a language check.
Open access
