1887
Volume 9, Issue 1
  • ISSN 2213-1272
  • E-ISSN: 2213-1280
USD
Buy:$35.00 + Taxes

Abstract

Abstract

According to news media outlets, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), the newly-elected Democratic representative from New York, has stirred up conflicting feelings among Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill, attracting criticism, mockery and disapproval from both parties. The overarching aim of this study is to explore the extent to which these attitudes are acts of verbal aggression often dissimulated as patronizing warnings or manifestations of an opinion (Ramirez and Andreu 2003Wodak 2015). In particular, by analyzing a corpus of headlines regarding AOC’s political persona and activism collected from six major conservative and liberal newspapers circulating in the US, the study aims to detect linguistic markers associated with aggression and verify their level of toxicity (Musolff 2012). To this purpose, both quantitative and qualitative methodological approaches are used with particular reference to Corpus Linguistics (Baker et al. 2008Kilgariff et al. 2014) and the Discourse-Historical Approach (Reisigl and Wodak 20012016). Findings show that biased mediatized political discourse can influence attitudes toward aggressive speech behavior, and, therefore, intensify the devious nature of aggressive acts.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1075/jlac.00057.ras
2021-03-04
2023-09-30
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Aiello, Giorgia , and Katy Parry
    2020Visual Communication. Understanding Images in Media Culture. London: Sage.
    [Google Scholar]
  2. American Association of University Women
    American Association of University Women 2017 “Barriers and Bias.” Last accessedSeptember 3, 2019. https://www.ncgs.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Barriers-and-Bias-The-Status-of-Women-in-Leadership.pdf
  3. Baker, Paul , Costa Gabrielatos , Majid KhosraviNik , Anthony M. McEnery , and Ruth Wodak
    2008 “A Useful Methodological Synergy? Combining Critical Discourse Analysis and Corpus Linguistics to Examine Discourses of Refugees and Asylum Seekers in the UK Press.” Discourse and Society19(3): 273–306. 10.1177/0957926508088962
    https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926508088962 [Google Scholar]
  4. Bandura, Albert
    1983 “Psychological Mechanism of Aggression.” Aggression: Theoretical and Empirical Reviews1:1–40. New York: Academic Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Beck, Christina S.
    2009 “Editor’s Introduction.” InCommunication Yearbook 33, edited by Christina S. Beck , xv–xix. New York: Routledge.
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Ben Garrison Cartoons
    Ben Garrison Cartoons 2018 “Socialist Democrats’ Brave New World.” Grrrgraphics.com. Last accessedJuly 29, 2019. https://grrrgraphics.com/democrat-socialistss-bray-ve-new-world
    [Google Scholar]
  7. Ben-David, Anat , and Ariadna Matamoros-Fernández
    2016 “Hate Speech and Covert Discrimination on Social Media: Monitoring the Facebook Pages of Extreme-right Political Parties in Spain.” International Journal of Communication10: 1167–1193.
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Blommaert, Jan
    2018 “Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: The Next Level of Political Digital Culture.” Diggit Magazine, January23.
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Bou-Franch, Patricia , and Pilar Garcés-Conejos Blitvich
    2016 “Gender Ideology and Social Identity Processes in Online Language Aggression against Women.” InExploring Language Aggression against Women, edited by Patricia Bou-Franch , 59–81. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 10.1075/bct.86.03bou
    https://doi.org/10.1075/bct.86.03bou [Google Scholar]
  10. Bough, Jill
    2010 “The Mirror has two Faces: Contradictory Reflections of Donkeys in Western Literature from Lucius to Balthazar.” Animals1: 56–68. 10.3390/ani1010056
    https://doi.org/10.3390/ani1010056 [Google Scholar]
  11. Brenan, Megan
    2018 “Democrats Favor more Moderate Party; GOP, More Conservative.” Gallup, December18.
    [Google Scholar]
  12. Brown, Rachel
    2016 “Defusing Hate: A Strategic Communication Guide to Counteract Dangerous Speech.” Last accessedAugust 3 2020: https://www.ushmm.org/m/pdfs/20160229-Defusing-Hate-Guide.pdf
  13. Carli, Linda L.
    2004 “Gender Effects on Social Influence.” InPerspectives on Persuasion, Social Influence, and Compliance Gaining, edited by Robert H. Gass and John S. Seiter , 133–148. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Chávez, Aída , and Ryan Grim
    2018 “A Primary against the Machine: A Bronx Activist Looks to Dethrone Joseph Crowley, the King of Queens.” The Intercept, May22.
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Chung, Cindy K. , Clinton Jones , Alexander Liu , and James W. Pennebaker
    2008 “Predicting Success and Failure in Weight Loss Blogs through Natural Language Use.” InProceedings of the 2008 International Conference on Weblogs and Social Media (ICWSM). Seattle, WA, March30–April2.
    [Google Scholar]
  16. Cillizza, Chris
    2019 “Nancy Pelosi just Threw some Serious Shade at Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s ‘Green New Deal’.” Cnn.com, February19.
    [Google Scholar]
  17. Cochrane, Emily
    2019 “Justice Democrats Helped Make Ocasio-Cortez. They’re already Eyeing their Next Targets.” The New York Times, February23.
    [Google Scholar]
  18. Cooke, Charles
    2018 “The Unserious Face of an Unserious Movement.” The National Review, July30.
    [Google Scholar]
  19. Coyne, Sarah , and John Archer
    2004 “Indirect Aggression in the Media: A Content Analysis of British Television Programs.” Aggressive Behavior30(3): 254–271. 10.1002/ab.20022
    https://doi.org/10.1002/ab.20022 [Google Scholar]
  20. Dowd, Maureen
    2019 “It’s Nancy Pelosi’s Parade”. The New York Times, July6.
    [Google Scholar]
  21. Ekman, Paul
    1992 “Are There Basic Emotions?” Psychological Review99: 550–553. 10.1037/0033‑295X.99.3.550
    https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.99.3.550 [Google Scholar]
  22. Esposito, Eleonora
    2021 “Introduction: Critical Perspectives on Gender, Politics and Violence.” Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict: Special Issue on Critical Perspectives on Gender, Politics and Violence. 10.1075/jlac.00051.int
    https://doi.org/10.1075/jlac.00051.int [Google Scholar]
  23. Fairclough, Norman , and Ruth Wodak
    1997 “Critical Discourse Analysis.” InDiscourse Studies: A Multidisciplinary Introduction, edited by Teun A. van Dijk , 2: 258–284. London: Sage.
    [Google Scholar]
  24. Feldman, Ronen
    2013 “Techniques and Applications for Sentiment Analysis”. Communications of the ACM56(4): 82–89. 10.1145/2436256.2436274
    https://doi.org/10.1145/2436256.2436274 [Google Scholar]
  25. Fersini, Elisabetta , Federico A. Pozzi , and Enza Messina
    2017 “Approval Network: A Novel Approach for Sentiment Analysis in Social Networks”. World Wide Web20(4): 831–854. 10.1007/s11280‑016‑0419‑8
    https://doi.org/10.1007/s11280-016-0419-8 [Google Scholar]
  26. Flowerdew, John , and John E. Richardson
    2017 “Introduction.” InThe Routledge Handbook of Critical Discourse Studies, edited by John Flowerdew and John E. Richardson , 1–10. New York: Routledge. 10.4324/9781315739342‑1
    https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315739342-1 [Google Scholar]
  27. Fredrickson, Caroline
    2020The AOC Way: The Secrets of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Success (Women in Power). New York: Skyhorse Publishing.
    [Google Scholar]
  28. Gambino, Lauren
    2019 “We’re here to Win: US Democratic Socialists Move to Center Stage.” The Guardian, August6.
    [Google Scholar]
  29. Gass, Robert H. , and John Seiter
    2014Persuasion, Social Influence, and Compliance Gaining. Boston: Pearson/Allyn & Bacon.
    [Google Scholar]
  30. Gibson, James L.
    2006 “Do Strong Group Identities Fuel Intolerance? Evidence from the South African Case.” Political Psychology27(5): 665–705. 10.1111/j.1467‑9221.2006.00528.x
    https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9221.2006.00528.x [Google Scholar]
  31. Goffman, Erving
    1971Relations in Public: Microstudies of the Public Order. New York: Basic.
    [Google Scholar]
  32. Goldmacher, Shane , and Jonathan Martin
    2018 “AOC beats J. Crowley.” The New York Times, June26.
    [Google Scholar]
  33. Greenberg, Maxwell Ezra , and Max Modiano Daniel
    2019 “Ocasio-Cortez’s Jewish Heritage Isn’t About You”. Jewish Currents, January18. https://www.wfd.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Violence-Against-Women-in-Politics-Global-Perspectives-of-a-Global-Issue.pdf
    [Google Scholar]
  34. Infante, Dominic A.
    1987 “Aggressiveness.” InPersonality and Interpersonal Communication, edited by James C. McCroskey and John A. Daly , 157–192. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
    [Google Scholar]
  35. Infante, Dominic A. , and Charles J. Wigley
    1986 “Verbal Aggressiveness: An Interpersonal Model and Measure.” Communication Monographs53: 61–69. 10.1080/03637758609376126
    https://doi.org/10.1080/03637758609376126 [Google Scholar]
  36. Jamieson, Kathleen H.
    1995Beyond the Double Bind: Women and Leadership. New York: Oxford University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  37. Jane, Emma A.
    2014 “Your a Ugly, Whorish, Slut’: Understanding E-bile.” Feminist Media Studies144: 531–546. doi:  10.1080/14680777.2012.741073
    https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2012.741073 [Google Scholar]
  38. Kelly, Jesse
    2019 “The Federalist’s Jesse Kelly fantasizes about dating Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: ‘A Little Bit of Crazy Can be Fun. I’m not Talking about Marrying her, I’m just Talking about a Date or Two’.” Media Matters, April1.
    [Google Scholar]
  39. KhosraviNik, Majid , and Eleonora Esposito
    2018 “Online Hate, Digital Discourse and Critique: Exploring Digitally-mediated Discursive Practices of Gender-based Hostility.” Łodz Papers in Pragmatics14(1): 45–68. 10.1515/lpp‑2018‑0003
    https://doi.org/10.1515/lpp-2018-0003 [Google Scholar]
  40. Kilgarriff, Adam , Vít Baisa , Jan Bušta , Miloš Jakubíček , Vojtěch Kovář , Jan Michelfeit , Pavel Rychlý , and Vít Suchomel
    2014 “The Sketch Engine: Ten Years on.” Lexicography1: 7–36. 10.1007/s40607‑014‑0009‑9
    https://doi.org/10.1007/s40607-014-0009-9 [Google Scholar]
  41. Kogan, Seffi
    2019 “Why is AOC Tokenizing a Fringe Jewish Group?.” AJC Global Jewish Advocacy, August2.
    [Google Scholar]
  42. Kopytowska, Monika
    2021 “Xenophobia, Misogyny and Rape Culture: Targeting Women in Cyberspace.” Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict: Special Issue on Critical Perspectives on Gender, Politics and Violence. 10.1075/jlac.00054.kop
    https://doi.org/10.1075/jlac.00054.kop [Google Scholar]
  43. Kuperberg, Rebecca
    2021 “Incongruous and Illegitimate: Antisemitic and Islamophobic Semiotic Violence against Women in Politics in the United Kingdom” Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict: Special Issue on Critical Perspectives on Gender, Politics and Violence. 10.1075/jlac.00055.kup
    https://doi.org/10.1075/jlac.00055.kup [Google Scholar]
  44. Liu, Bing
    2015Sentiment Analysis: Mining Opinions, Sentiments, and Emotions. UK: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9781139084789
    https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139084789 [Google Scholar]
  45. McGarrity, Laura
    2016 “What Sentiment Analysis can Do for your Brand.” MarketingProfs, April5.
    [Google Scholar]
  46. Media Fact Check
    Media Fact Check 2018Media Bias / Fact Check. Last accessedJuly 2 2019: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com
    [Google Scholar]
  47. Minority Rights Group International
    Minority Rights Group International 2017 “No Escape from Discrimination: Minorities, Indigenous Peoples and the Crisis of Displacement.” Last accessedJune 24 2019https://minorityrights.org/publications/no-escape-discrimination-minorities-indigenous-peoples-crisis-displacement/
  48. Musolff, Andreas
    2012 “The Study of Metaphor as Part of Critical Discourse Analysis.” Critical Discourse Studies9(3): 301–310. 10.1080/17405904.2012.688300
    https://doi.org/10.1080/17405904.2012.688300 [Google Scholar]
  49. National Democratic Institute
    National Democratic Institute 2018 “No Party to Violence: Analyzing Violence against Women in Political Parties.” Last accessedDecember 8 2019https://www.ndi.org/publications/no-party-violence-analyzing-violence-against-women-political-parties
  50. Nichols, John
    2018 “The Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Effect.” The Nation, August15.
    [Google Scholar]
  51. Nilsen, Ella
    2018 “It’s Official: Democrats will Control the House.” Vox.com. November6 2018 Last accessedJune 29, 2019: https://www.vox.com/2018/11/6/18024818/election-results-democrats-control-house
    [Google Scholar]
  52. NowThis News
    NowThis News 2019 “Why Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is Willing to Break the Mold.” March2. YouTube video, 3:02. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3cRp6BaD0o
  53. Ocasio-Cortez, Alexandria
    2018 “The Courage to Change.” May30. YouTube video, 2:08. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rq3QXIVR0bs
  54. (@AOC) 2019 “I don’t even get to see all of them. Just the ones that have been flagged as particularly troubling. It happens whenever Fox gets particularly aggressive + hateful, too. Young interns have to constantly hear hateful messages (far beyond disagreement) from ppl we don’t even rep.” Twitter, May29, 12:03 a.m.https://twitter.com/aoc/status/1133494055923589123
    [Google Scholar]
  55. Pang, Bo , and Lillian Lee
    2008 “Opinion Mining and Sentiment Analysis.” Foundations and Trends in Information Retrieval2 (1–2): 1–135. 10.1561/1500000011
    https://doi.org/10.1561/1500000011 [Google Scholar]
  56. Pennebaker, James W. , Richard B. Slatcher , and Cindy K. Chung
    2005 “Linguistic Markers of Psychological State through Media Interviews: John Kerry and John Edwards in 2004, Al Gore in 2000.” Analysis of Social and Public Policy5: 1–9.
    [Google Scholar]
  57. Pennebaker, James W. , Ryan L. Boyd , Kayla K. Jordan , and Kate Blackburn
    2015The Development and Psychometric Properties of LIWC2015. Austin, TX: University of Texas at Austin.
    [Google Scholar]
  58. Progovac, Ljiljana , and Antonio Benitez-Buccaco
    2019 “From Physical Aggression to Verbal Behavior: Language Evolution and Self-Domestication Feedback Loop.” Frontiers in Psychology10. doi:  10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02807
    https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02807 [Google Scholar]
  59. Ramirez, Martin J. , and Jose Manuel Andreu
    2003 “Aggression’s Typologies.” Revue Internationale de Psychologie Sociale IRSP16(3): 125–141.
    [Google Scholar]
  60. Rancer, Andrew S. , and Theodore A. Avtgis
    2014Argumentative and Aggressive Communication: Theory, Research, and Application. New York: Peter Lang.
    [Google Scholar]
  61. Re, Gregg
    2018 “As Upstart Ocasio-Cortez Hits Cam paign Trail with Bernie Sanders, High Profile Spurs Fears of Dem Rift.” Fox News, July19.
    [Google Scholar]
  62. Rego, Richard
    2018 “Changing Forms and Platforms of Misogyny: Sexual Harassment of Women Journalists on Twitter.” Media Watch9(3): 472–485.
    [Google Scholar]
  63. Reich, John W. , Alex J. Zautra , and Mary Davis
    2003 “Dimensions of Affect Relationships: Models and their Integrative Implications.” Review of General Psychology7(1): 66–83. 10.1037/1089‑2680.7.1.66
    https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.7.1.66 [Google Scholar]
  64. Reisigl, Martin , and Ruth Wodak
    2001Discourse and Discrimination: Rhetorics of Racism and Antisemitism. New York: Routledge.
    [Google Scholar]
  65. 2016 “The Discourse-Historical Approach.” InMethods of Critical Discourse Studies, edited by Ruth Wodak and Michael Meyer , Third Edition, 23–61. London/CA/New Delhi: Sage.
    [Google Scholar]
  66. Saville Roberts, Liz
    2018 “Foreword.” InViolence against Women in Politics: Global Perspectives of a Global Issue, report prepared by Shannon O’Connell and Graeme Ramshaw . Westminster Foundation for Democracy.
    [Google Scholar]
  67. Schein, Virginia E.
    2001 “A Global Look at Psychological Barriers to Women’s Progress in Management.” Journal of Social Issues. Gender, Hierarchy and Leadership57(4): 675–688.
    [Google Scholar]
  68. Schwab, Nikki
    2019 “Ocasio-Cortez Says she once Acted like a “White Dude” to Fit in.” New York Post, February27.
    [Google Scholar]
  69. Shuman, Vera , Elizabeth Clark-Polnera , Ben Meuleman , David Sander , and Klaus R. Scherer
    2015 “Emotion Perception from a Componential Perspective.” Cognition & Emotion37(1): 47–56. 10.1080/02699931.2015.1075964
    https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2015.1075964 [Google Scholar]
  70. Singman, Brooke
    2018 “Ocasio-Cortez Wins House Seat, Becoming Youngest Woman Elected to Congress.” Fox News, November6.
    [Google Scholar]
  71. Stickles, Nisha , and Barbara Corbellini Duarte
    2019 “Exclusive: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez explains what democratic socialism means to her.” Business Insider, March4.
    [Google Scholar]
  72. Strachan, Cherie , Lori Poloni-Staudinger , Shannon Jenkins , and Candice Ortbals
    2020Why don’t Women Rule the World? Understanding Women’s Civic and Political Choices. London: Sage.
    [Google Scholar]
  73. Tarlo, Shira
    2018 “Fox News is freaking out over Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s victory.” Salon. June28.
    [Google Scholar]
  74. Taylor, Sarah
    2018 “Obama sends out official endorsement list – and one socialist sweetheart in particular is missing.” The Blaze, August1.
    [Google Scholar]
  75. The Women Candidate Tracker
    The Women Candidate Tracker 2018 “One hundred twenty-five were elected to office.” Politico.com. November28.
    [Google Scholar]
  76. Thelwall, Mike , Kevan Buckley , and Georgios Paltoglou
    2012 “Sentiment Strength Detection for the Social Web.” Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology63(1): 163–173. 10.1002/asi.21662
    https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.21662 [Google Scholar]
  77. Tremblay, Manon
    2007 “Democracy, Representation, and Women: A Comparative Analysis.” Democratization14(4): 533–553. 10.1080/13510340701398261
    https://doi.org/10.1080/13510340701398261 [Google Scholar]
  78. United Nations Women
    United Nations Women 2018 “Violence against Women in Politics: Expert Group Meeting Report and Recommendations.” March8–9. Last accessedMay 8 2019: https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Women/ViolenceAgainstWomeninPoliticsReport.pdf
  79. United States House of Representatives
    United States House of Representatives 2019 Proposal 109 introduced by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “Recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal.” Last accessedJuly 29, 2019. https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-resolution/109/text
  80. Unites States Senate
    Unites States Senate 2019 Proposal 1129. Introduced April 10, 2019 by S. Bernie Sanders. “Medicare for All Act of 2019”. Last accessedJuly 29, 2019. https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/1129/text
  81. van Leeuwen, Theo
    2008Discourse and Practice. New Tools for Critical Discourse Analysis. Oxford University Press. 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195323306.001.0001
    https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195323306.001.0001 [Google Scholar]
  82. Wehner, Peter
    2015 “Have Democrats Pulled too Far Left?” New York Times, May27.
    [Google Scholar]
  83. Wodak, Ruth
    2009 “Critical Discourse Analysis: History, Agenda, Theory and Methodology.” InMethods for Critical Discourse Analysis, Second Revised Edition, edited by Ruth Wodak and Michael Meyer , 1–33. London: Sage.
    [Google Scholar]
  84. 2011The Discourse of Politics in Action: Politics as Usual, Second Edition. UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
    [Google Scholar]
  85. 2013Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Sage. 10.4135/9781446286289
    https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446286289 [Google Scholar]
  86. 2015The Politics of Fear. What Right-Wing Populist Discourses Mean. London: Sage. 10.4135/9781446270073
    https://doi.org/10.4135/9781446270073 [Google Scholar]
  87. Wolfson, Nessa
    1986 “The Bulge: A Theory of Speech Behavior and Social Distance.” WPEL Working Papers in Educational Linguistics2(1): 55–83.
    [Google Scholar]
  88. Wu, Nicholas
    2019 “Passive Aggression. It’s a Lifestyle: Ocasio-Cortez Responds to a GOP Congressional Critic.” USA Today, July30.
    [Google Scholar]
  89. Xiang, Zheng , Zvi Schwartz , John H. Gerdes , and Muzaffer, Uysal M.
    2015 “What can Big Data and Text Analytics Tell us about Hotel Guest Experience and Satisfaction?” International Journal of Hospitality Management44: 120–130. 10.1016/j.ijhm.2014.10.013
    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2014.10.013 [Google Scholar]
http://instance.metastore.ingenta.com/content/journals/10.1075/jlac.00057.ras
Loading
/content/journals/10.1075/jlac.00057.ras
Loading

Data & Media loading...

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was successful
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error