Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict - Volume 13, Issue 2, 2025

The main purpose of this corpus-based study is to examine the different types of sexist language women are subjected to in their daily interactions with men, together with their hidden ideologies. To this end, we analysed a total of 1,118 English tweets posted on the hashtag #everydaysexism on Twitter over a year. Results indicate that women experience both overt and indirect verbal aggression in different domains of life, expressed through a range of sexist linguistic markers, and that such aggressions often reflect the users’ beliefs and values about men and women. By using a category-based model to examine a feminist narrative hashtag where women’s experiences of sexism are shared, our study offers a robust and principled approach to conducting a corpus-based, cross-domain discourse analysis of sexism in daily communication.

Media discourse around particular subjects comes to shape people’s understanding of that topic. In particular, the words used to describe situations of violence and conflict may colour public perceptions. This paper identifies the main words used to describe the Russia-Ukraine conflict by three international media outlets, Al Jazeera, Euronews and CGTN, from February to May 2022. Following the methodology of corpus-assisted discourse studies, it analyses the nouns used and their most frequent collocates, showing how these reveal the different ways the war was represented in these three media. The results are discussed in the light of differing theories concerning Chinese and Western stances to the conflict, illustrating media roles in the shaping and reproduction of dominant discourses.

Disparaging humour may take numerous forms and despite the emotional ambivalence it may occasionally cause, it may prove a valuable quality of an ad. While investigating one hundred multimodal press ads in English that simultaneously make use of metaphor and humour based on an incongruity-resolution mechanism, it was discovered that one-third thereof employed aggressive humour as well (Stwora 2023). Given the high incidence of the aggressive function in these ads, this paper explores this disparaging dimension in more detail to show that various shades of aggressiveness may be perceived as a virtue when used in advertising discourse. The paper advocates a need to consider further sub-categorisations of the aggressive function of humour when applied in advertising to reflect different hostility levels.

The Venezuelan Presidential Crisis emerged as a unique polarising political scenario in January 2019, when Juan Guaidó, president of the National Assembly, proclaimed himself interim president of the country, despite the victory obtained by Nicolás Maduro in the May 2018 presidential elections. Considering this context and the role of social media in the spread of polarisation, the present manuscript examines how metaphors and social actor representations act as divisive discursive tools in the tweets of Maduro and Guaidó. To do so, a corpus of tweets posted by these politicians during the first year of the conflict (2019–2020) is analysed, adopting a target-based approach (Stefanowitsch and Gries 2006) to identify the polarising metaphors and a socio-cognitive framework (Darics and Koller 2019; van Leeuwen 2008) to study the social actor representations. The results reveal that these discursive devices help both leaders to construct their social identities, legitimise themselves, delegitimise the other and reproduce their polarising ideological schemas.

Recent years have seen a surge in Chinese grassroots nationalism. Based on the public discussion on Weibo, the largest social media platform in China, this study investigated the cybernationalism (re)produced during the People’s Republic of China’s release of the Regulations on the Administration of Permanent Residence of Foreigners in early 2020. Deploying a synergy of thematic analysis and the discourse-historical approach (Reisigl and Wodak 2005, 2016), especially its argumentative perspectives, it examined the articulation of bottom-up cybernationalism and how this nationalism, boosted by the party-state, turns against the party-state when it fails to uphold its own nationalistic rhetorics, thereby influencing the government’s immigration policymaking. The results revealed that the discursive construction of a dichotomy between “derogatory foreigners” and “dignified Chinese” prevents the implementation of the regulation; the foregrounded anti-Black sentiment reflects a (re)appreciation of the global hierarchy of race in China based on orientalistic views; the discursive representations of humiliated history vitally motivates nationalism.

This study examines how politicians navigate the challenge of publicly condemning transgressions committed by members of their in-group. Examining ten transgressions committed by Israeli political actors which attracted public attention, the study engages in a discourse analysis of politicians’ posts, illustrating eight discursive strategies for coping with this challenge. It utilizes Du Bois’ stance triangle to illustrate how politicians navigate conflicting affiliations to their in-group and to public values. While certain types of in-group condemnations illustrate an adherence to public values at the expense of group cohesion, other types of downgraded condemnations demonstrate how group affiliation trumps value-affiliation. The study illustrates that the prevalence of downgraded in-group condemnations is indicative of extreme polarization at the expense of “statism”–an increasing trend in Israel in recent years.

This paper aims to unveil the most frequent discursive practices of aggressive language addressed at three female Spanish politicians on X (formerly Twitter) and the themes around which these practices revolve. Isabel Díaz-Ayuso, Irene Montero, and Yolanda Díaz were selected for analysis. A mixed-methods analysis of 1,500 randomly retrieved posts was conducted. Aggressive language aimed at delegitimizing the politicians was manually coded based on existing taxonomies. A data-driven taxonomy was obtained with the most frequently involved themes to assess gender-based representations. Quantitative findings pointed to interindividual differences that were qualitatively analyzed. Aggression towards Yolanda Díaz was conveyed through insults and negative comments questioning her intelligence, physical appearance, and political affiliation. Replies to Isabel Díaz-Ayuso questioned the morality of her decisions regarding social issues. At the same time, Irene Montero received more insults and sexist negative comments focusing on her sexuality and subordination to male figures.