The present paper reports a study of conversational acts in dialogical interaction. Conversation in which the use of a vulgar term [à la bieb żobbi] in the Maltese language was used was recorded and analysed for the present purpose. The term is demonstrated to serve social psychological functions. We documented three modes governing its use in conversation, that is, (a) as a personality descriptor, (b) as a strategy for shutting down an alternative view, and (c) as a strategy for shifting (...) dialogue to more neutral and less threatening grounds for the subject. We further document a number of modalities that govern justifications for using the vulgar term in conversation. We argue that the use of vulgarity can serve to achieve semantic barriers in dialogue and that these apply to internal conversations as much as they do to dialogical engagement with another. We further argue that semantic barriers can be overcome in ways that shift conversation to less threatening grounds. (shrink)

In the field of the central core theory of social representations, research which has focused on the normative aspects is relatively recent as it dates back little more than ten years. The theory of conditionality which developed from research into the periphery of representation results from this. It is a particularly fruitful theory to explain “normative latitudes” and the behaviour accruing to them. One of the particularities of these works stresses the importance of linking the normative aspects with specific methods (...) and/or analyses. In this paper, we will illustrate it via a specific tool developed in the field of traffic psychology: the Conditional Script Questionnaire (CSQ). This approach makes it possible to highlight the interactions between two systems of norms: the legal system and the social system. The implication of norms is fundamental in different processes already studied such as social influence or identity processes, and this article can be considered as an illustration of the place of norms in the field of social thinking. (shrink)