Wajnryb, Ruth 1946–

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Wajnryb, Ruth 1946–

PERSONAL: Born September 13, 1946, in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Education: University of Sydney, B.A., M.A., Dip.Ed.; Macquarie University, Ph.D.

ADDRESSES: Office—LARA Consultancy, P.O. Box 8, Waverley, New South Wales 2024, Australia. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Anaheim University, Waverly, New South Wales, Australia, associate dean of graduate school of education; head and key consultant of LARA Consultancy; has also worked as head of TESOL teacher education at Institute of Language, University of New South Wales, Australia.

AWARDS, HONORS: Cambridge University Press/Duke of Edinburgh Book Award, 1993, for Classroom Observation Tasks; New South Wales Institute for Educational Research Award for Outstanding Educational Research, 1995; Premier's History Award, 2002, for Silence: How Tragedy Shapes Talk.

WRITINGS:

Grammar Dictation ("Resource Books for Teachers" series), Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1990.

Classroom Observation Tasks: A Resource Book for Language Teachers and Trainers, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1992.

Silence: How Tragedy Shapes Talk, Allen & Unwin (Crows Nest, New South Wales, Australia), 2001.

Stories, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 2003.

Expletive Deleted: A Good Look at Bad Language, Free Press (New York, NY), 2005, published as C U Next Tuesday: A Good Look at Bad Language, Aurum Press (London, England), 2005.

Columnist for the Sydney Morning Herald.

SIDELIGHTS: Linguist Ruth Wajnryb is an educator who specializes in training teachers and in writing training and educational materials. She has worked as a director of teacher training and professional development at several colleges and educational institutions in and around Sydney, Australia. In addition, she has worked in adult education in Australia as well as in Israel, England, and South America. The daughter of Holocaust survivors, Wajnryb developed an interest in language at an early age, especially language considered uncomfortable or taboo. As an applied linguist, she studies how people actually use language in a variety of personal and professional settings, and what they seek to achieve in their use of language.

Among those everyday uses of languages examined by Wajnryb are those classified by some as "bad words"—swear words and other forms of invective and cursing that are often considered rude or vulgar. In Expletive Deleted: A Good Look at Bad Language Wajnryb looks closely at the most common swear words in English and analyzes their purpose. She differentiates between abusive swearing, cathartic swearing, and social swearing, and defines the role language takes in each type of situation. Wajnryb notes that "about a dozen words fulfill all these functions in English," reported Marta Salij in the Detroit Free Press. "There must be something interesting going on cognitively, that swearing is such a wonderfully flexible form of expression."

Wajnryb also explains many of the grammatical and usage elements of swearing. She differentiates between cursing and blasphemy, explains what expletives and epithets are, makes a sharp distinction between the obscene and the profane, considers swearing in popular culture, and offers scholarly discourse on the most common swear words in the language. She comments, furthermore, on the various reactions that such words can engender, from embarrassment to amusement. She also delves deeply into euphemisms and other words that are often used as substitutes for words that are perceived as more shocking or inappropriate. For Wajnryb, cursing does constitute meaningful verbal behavior, individually and in the wider scope of society. Finally, she explains how attempts to censor or suppress "bad language" are doomed to failure and how such efforts often lead to the opposite result.

Wajnryb's book is "a classy drive through the streets and byways of swearing," noted a Kirkus Reviews contributor, who concluded, "Wajnryb is the grammarian you always wanted: wise, wearing her erudition lightly and enlivening it with sly, exegetic humor."