Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict - Online First

Previous research on extremist discourse has revealed that racism is linguistically shaped by its socio-cultural context. For instance, a comparison between Greek Cypriot and Greek online data indicated that the two communities use different linguistic means and strategies to express their aversion to the Other, and that Greek comments are more overtly insulting than Greek Cypriot comments ( Baider and Constantinou 2017a ; Assimakopoulos and Baider 2019 ). The present study focuses on how irony is used to disseminate hate speech, albeit covertly. Our dataset comprises online Greek and Greek Cypriot comments posted on social media and collected during the same period of time (2015- 2016) within an EU project. We use concepts such as verisimilitude and overt untruthfulness to deconstruct ironic racist comments. We conclude that irony in both datasets fulfils three socio-pragmatic functions: it serves to insult or humiliate members of groups targeted for their ethnic identity; it creates or reinforces negative feelings against such groups; it promotes beliefs that could be used to legitimate their mistreatment. Regarding socio-cultural differences, it emerges that the use of the Greek Cypriot vernacular and the appeal to indigenous in-group social stereotypes influence the way irony shapes racist comments and reinforces in-group membership.

In the context of the Greek economic crisis during the years 2009–2019, the aim of the present study is to discuss language aggression and derogatory forms of speech attested in user polylogues commenting on instances of parliamentary discourse uploaded to computer mediated communication networks. Within the framework of (im)politeness research ( Culpeper 2005 , 2011 ; Garcés-Conejos Blitvich 2010a ; Haugh 2013 ; Lorenzo-Dus, et al. 2011 ; Mitchell and Haugh 2015 ), we investigate the correlation between impoliteness and abusive verbal discourse in both domains, i.e. parliamentary sittings and social media commentary. We explore their potential to establish a common ground in viewing political issues and determining ideological polarizations. We also attempt a preliminary analysis of swear words and derogatory references to Greek political personnel and their instrumentalisation for the division of the readership into those who support and those who oppose different political agendas.

Offence is a central concept in impoliteness, aggression and conflict research, yet has received only passing mention in definitions of impoliteness and related concepts. Janicki (2017) argues that impoliteness and language aggression scholars are needlessly worried about definitions. We use Janicki’s (2017) work as a springboard into a discussion of definitions of impolite or taboo language, airing potential problems and suggesting that the study of metalanguage offers at least a partial solution. We report a study of the metalanguage of offence in British English, and briefly examine whether there are any differences in Australian English, using SketchEngine to interrogate data in the two-billion word Oxford English Corpus. In so doing, we tease out different uses of the term offensive, and show that concepts such as offence are coloured by the specific linguistic and cultural contexts in which they appear. We conclude that while corpus-based metalinguistic analyses cannot completely eliminate the problem of definitional infinite regress, they do, however, offer an empirically grounded way of defining words that allows us to move beyond the intuitions of individual researchers.

On October 9, 2012 Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani schoolgirl, was severely wounded by a Taliban assassin’s bullet. This was the culmination of a history of conflict in the Swat valley region of north-western Pakistan. The historical, ethnic, political and religious reasons for this conflict are manifold. After several surgeries in Pakistan and Great Britain, Malala Yousafzai miraculously recovered from her serious injuries and was even able to give a speech at the United Nations Youth Assembly on her 16th birthday on July 12, 2013 .

In this paper, Malala Yousafzai’s speech will be analysed in some detail regarding her main arguments and verbal presentation strategies. Furthermore, I will focus on the way Malala Yousafzai deals with both the verbal and non-verbal aggression of the Taliban. I would also like to show how determined she is to argue against the Taliban’s escalation of the conflict without letting herself getting entangled in a spiral of verbal violence.

The theoretical framework for this analysis and the critical evaluation of the speech will be the concept of “strategic maneuvering” as developed by van Eemeren ( 2010 , 2018 ) within his framework of Pragma-Dialectics. This concept has frequently been applied to the analysis of political discourse (see e.g. Kienpointner 2013 , 2017 ).