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Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict - Online First
Online First articles are the published Version of Record, made available as soon as they are finalized and formatted. They are in general accessible to current subscribers, until they have been included in an issue, which is accessible to subscribers to the relevant volume
1 - 20 of 28 results
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“It’s the National Assembly here, Madam!” : Managing discursive conflicts through forms of address in interruptions and reactions in Finnish, French, and German parliamentary debates
Available online: 15 May 2025More LessAbstractParliamentary debates are adversarial in nature (Ilie 2003). This paper focuses on interruptions, which have been described as a means by which to disturb the speech of an authorised speaker (Truan 2016a), and their subsequent reactions. Herein, we aim to examine the link between the use of address forms and the conflictual nature of parliamentary debates. Drawing on cross-cultural pragmatics, our study compares data from the Finnish Eduskunta, the French Assemblée nationale, and the German Bundestag. Cross-cultural differences were found in the frequency of address forms (31% in German, 20% in French, and 10% in Finnish), although pronominal and verbal address forms were more frequent than nominal forms of address (NFAs). Beyond the default V forms, T forms challenging institutional norms were also found. Pragmatically, NFAs served as markers of “courteous attacks” (Fracchiolla and Romain 2015), resulting in a contrast between the courteous forms used and the conflictual nature of the exchange. Overall, address forms were important means for identifying the person(s) targeted by confrontational interruptions and their reactions to them.
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Flipping the script : The banal nationalism of bankomats in the Balkans
Author(s): Kevin KenjarAvailable online: 15 May 2025More LessAbstractThis is a linguistic anthropological study on quotidian human-artifact interaction and language ideology manifest on ATM language selection screens. It is a comparative study conducted in a small region in the former Yugoslavia at the meeting point of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, and Montenegro, where the linguistic differences are minimal, and the political, ideological, state, and institutional distinctions are pronounced. This article aims to use the specificities of this linguistic landscape to make visible an ideological layer that is present (yet invisible) elsewhere in the world, drawing attention to political, ideological, and territorial aspects of everyday language identification that are already common knowledge to many people in the former Yugoslavia, particularly in post-war Bosnia-Herzegovina, yet go unnoticed elsewhere.
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Semantic conflict in online discussions : Negotiating the meaning of lying
Author(s): Jenny Myrendal and Staffan LarssonAvailable online: 15 May 2025More LessAbstractThis article presents a study on the negotiation of word meaning in the context of semantic conflict. Focusing on online discussions about whether it is acceptable to deceive children about the existence of Santa Claus, we analyse the linguistic dynamics observed in an online Swedish discussion forum. We explore how participants negotiate the meaning and appropriateness of the word ljuga (‘lying’). Our findings reveal that positioning oneself in relation to the contested word is central to the negotiation process, as participants use meta-linguistic objections and comments for negotiating word meanings, employing strategies of contrasting, explicating, and implying. Key constructions used include “x-and-x” to disqualify associated meanings, and “x-is-x” to assert inherent meanings. This research provides insights into the mechanics of semantic negotiation, demonstrating how participants manage disagreement and conflict through language in online interactions. We also show how word meaning negotiations can be used to map out the meaning potential of the negotiated word, in this case ‘lying’.
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Discourses of discrimination against sex workers : Analysing (banal) whorephobia through stancetaking in YouTube comments
Author(s): Christos Sagredos and Evelin NikolovaAvailable online: 06 March 2025More LessAbstractThis paper explores how discourses of discrimination against sex workers are discursively reproduced or challenged in polylogal (multi-participant) interactions in digital environments such as YouTube. Drawing on stancetaking (Du Bois 2007) and the stance dimensions of evaluation and alignment (Kiesling 2018, 2021), we analyze how commenters’ stances towards sex work can be linked to (banal) whorephobia — i.e., the discursive manifestation of discriminations against sex workers. Focusing on two threads of comments found under a YouTube video, we suggest that whorephobia operates along a scalar continuum, with aggression against sex work/ers ranging from explicitly negative stances to more subtle and banalized ones that may even go unnoticed. In our data, (banal) whorephobia was traced in stances that indexed: (a) low evaluation of/low alignment with participants expressing sex-positive views or supporting that sex workers’ rights advocacy can be compatible with feminist agendas; and/or (b) high evaluation of/high alignment with participants who view sex work as inherently immoral or exploitative in line with Christian conservative or radical feminist discourses. We conclude that what makes banal whorephobia particularly concerning is that it manifests through stances that, though not explicitly hostile, may still reinforce sex workers’ stigmatization and social exclusions, often in ways that may seem socially acceptable or well justified.
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Conventionalized impoliteness formulae in third-party assessments : Uniting offenders against (national) others
Author(s): Angeliki AlvanoudiAvailable online: 22 October 2024More LessAbstractThe paper examines the ideological work accomplished by the use of conventionalized impoliteness formulae in third person reference, when the person being criticized or brought into disrepute is not present in the here-and-now of interaction. Drawing on Interactional Linguistics and data from audio-recorded informal face-to-face Greek conversations, the study shows that speakers mobilize conventionalized impoliteness formulae, along with other linguistic resources, in the course of third-party assessments to evaluate sociocultural experience, and establish interlocutors’ shared negative affective stance toward the third party picked on due to their national group membership. This practice reproduces everyday nationalism that unites offenders against national ‘others’. The study enhances our understanding of the recontextualization of conventionalized impoliteness formulae in talk-in-interaction, and the role of affective stance in the discursive formation of (national) identities.
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Excluding the migrant Other via resistance and inclusion : The case of the Greek anti-racist short film Jafar
Author(s): Rania KarachaliouAvailable online: 17 October 2024More LessAbstractIn the present study, I investigate the construction of otherness in the Greek anti-racist short film Jafar. Drawing on Critical Discourse Studies, I argue that although the film appears to combat racism, it simultaneously reproduces practices of discrimination. This contradiction is achieved via liquid racism, namely a multi-layered and, thus, difficult to detect form of racism (Weaver 2011, 2016). More specifically, by combining Kress and van Leeuwen’s (2006) grammar of visual design with Bucholtz and Hall’s (2005) model for identities-in-interaction, I show that the film allows two different representations of otherness: (i) the caring Other, which resists the stereotype of the criminal migrant (anti-racist positioning) and (ii) the useful Other, which regulates migrant inclusion via eligibility criteria of usefulness (racist positioning).
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Anti-genderism in the Spanish radical right’s propaganda discourses : Vox’s Parental Pin against “gender ideology”
Author(s): Sara Rebollo-BuenoAvailable online: 01 October 2024More LessAbstractAnti-genderism discourses emerge in response to new public policies resulting from the Fourth Feminist Wave. In the case of Spain, the radical right political party Vox not only articulates an anti-genderism discourse but has also proposed the so-called Parental Pin as an alternative to feminist education. In this light, this study aims to analyse the propagandistic messages of the aforementioned party on social networks, focusing on the Parental Pin as the main theme. Furthermore, it examines the favourable feedback received from its followers. The application of Critical Discourse Analysis revealed that polarisation constitutes a fundamental resource for understanding the communicative and political strategy of the party. Results also revealed that the party conveys an image of itself as guardians of parental freedom and national values, while strategically portraying the left and feminists as adversaries.
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“I’ll throw acid on your pretty little face […], so wrote a genteel fanatic antifeminist” : The discursive management of male gender‑driven aggression by eminent Greek female autobiographers of the 19th and early and mid‑20th century
Author(s): Ourania HatzidakiAvailable online: 27 September 2024More LessAbstractThis paper examines autobiographical reports of acts of (non-)verbal aggression against four Greek women pioneers in education, medicine, art and dance. These aggressive acts had been launched by some of their male contemporaries against the women’s efforts to occupy authority or elite positions. The analysis, which falls within the scope of historical (im)politeness research (Kádár and Culpeper 2010), focuses specifically on the rarely addressed issue of how the autobiographers discursively deal with the narrated incidents. The four women’s real-time reactions to, and post hoc appraisals of, the aggressive acts are categorized and discussed by applying and extending Bousfield’s (2007) model of responses to impoliteness. Furthermore, contemporary witness and third-party contributions, offensive and defensive, are analysed in the light of relevant models (Dobs and Garcés-Conejos Blitvich 2013; Bou-Franch and Garcés-Conejos Blitvich 2014). It is found that all four women take a dignified and defiant stance towards the recorded female-exclusionary behaviours, evidencing a common, diachronically/intergenerationally consistent self-heroizing disposition.
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A cyberterrorist behind the keyboard : An automated text analysis for psycholinguistic profiling and threat assessment
Author(s): Awni Etaywe, Kate Macfarlane and Mamoun AlazabAvailable online: 03 September 2024More LessAbstractGiven the diverse backgrounds of people living in modern societies as well as the international nature of cyber-terrorist threats, profiling the type of person behind cyber-mediated crimes has become a norm in terrorist profiling practice. This study contributes to timely efficient terrorist profiling and threat assessment by showcasing an automated content analysis of cyber-mediated terrorist texts, using natural language processing technology and AI-assisted analysis. To characterise the terrorist type of texts and provide clues to threats, the study employs a ‘psycholinguistic profiling’ approach to authorship analysis (Grant 2008). That is, it seeks to describe the likelihood of an author’s engagement in violent extremist activity, identify motives for violence, and provide clues vis-a-vis would-be and actual violent behaviours. The study takes twenty texts produced by international terrorists involved in jihadism and far-right violent extremism as a case study. The findings reveal the investigative value of automated psycholinguistic profiling for security and intelligence practitioners, with the semantic patterns yielding helpful information for an understanding of the criminal nature of terrorist language. Also revealed is the attentional pattern of extremists and their discourse together with clues-based conclusions about text type, as well as ‘warning’ behaviours and motives for aggression which vary according to the authors’ ideological differences.
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Contesting spaces : An examination of the prepositional phrases v/na Ukraine and iz/s Ukraine in Russian X discourse
Author(s): Frances Junnier and Galina ShleykinaAvailable online: 27 August 2024More LessAbstractIn this study, we investigate the use of two pairs of Russian prepositions—v/na (‘in/on’) and iz/s (‘from’) with the noun Ukraine in X discourse. Since Ukrainian independence in 1991, v Ukraine and iz Ukraine have been used to indicate Ukrainian sovereignty and na and s used as their unmarked counterparts as defined by Russian linguistic tradition. Using a web-based set of tools called TWIG, we examine how posts containing the prepositional phrases construct stances toward the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Specifically, we examine the frequency of the prepositional phrases, their collocations, and the semantics conveyed by the collocational patterns. Our findings show notable differences in the collocational patterns of posts using v Ukraine versus na Ukraine. Analysis of these collocations suggests that posts using v Ukraine have a proximation effect to the conflict, while those using na Ukraine have a distancing effect.
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Review of Ilie (2024): Manufacturing Dissent: Manipulation and Counter-manipulation in Times of Crisis
Author(s): Liliana HoinărescuAvailable online: 27 August 2024More Less
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Microaggressions and impoliteness at the crossroads : EU academics in the UK facing hostility in the Brexit age
Author(s): Caterina Guardamagna, Jessica Hampton, Mariana Roccia and Djordje SredanovicAvailable online: 13 August 2024More LessAbstractThe Brexit process created a loss of rights and heightened hostility towards EU migrants within the UK, even among groups previously shielded from such animosity, notably EU academics. This paper is based on 24 clear instances of microaggressions, and two bordering hate speech involving EU academics in England and synthetises the psychology/philosophy literature on microaggressions with linguistic frameworks of “rapport management” and “impoliteness triggers” leading to a novel understanding of the phenomenon. Microaggressions are defined as a specific type of impoliteness “of the mild kind”, characterised by repetition at the individual and/or the collective level, which produces feelings of annoyance, irritation and shock. This study shows that Brexit-microaggressions usually involve social identity face and the breach of equity/association sociality rights. They mostly take the shape of formulae echoing slogans entrenched in the discourses of Brexit and arise out of a mismatch between pro-Brexit comments uttered in the presence of an EU migrant.
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The shadow drama : Metaphor, affect, and discursive polarization in Norwegian extreme-right representations
Author(s): Søren Mosgaard AndreasenAvailable online: 05 August 2024More LessAbstractThis study examines how discursive polarization between majority populations and so-called non-Western immigrant identities is enabled via verbal and visual metaphors in outputs by the Human Rights Service (HRS), a prominent Norwegian extreme-right media outlet. Focusing especially on the HRS’s use of visual primary metaphors of cold and darkness, a contribution is made to the existing literature regarding how right-wing outlets construct an image of immigrants and Muslims as threatening Others. As such, the potential polarizing outcomes of the HRS’s visual primary metaphors are theorized to arise from a capacity to invite certain forms of embodied cognition and implicitly associate the target identities with a range of negative emotions. Ultimately, the HRS’s visual primary metaphors of cold and darkness are best understood as polarization vehicles that tacitly support anti-social biases by leveraging the rapidity and efficiency with which subjects can respond emotionally to visual information—especially fear triggers.
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Hate, prejudice and conspiracy theories : The reality from the ideological perspective of Brazilian imageboard users
Author(s): Adriano Beringuy and Leandro Guimarães Marques AlvimAvailable online: 05 August 2024More LessAbstractThe Internet serves as a dynamic and expansive space where numerous groups seek to exchange and disseminate their views. Some of those groups aim to promote hateful ideologies, bigotry, conspiracy theories while externalizing their anger. To achieve this, a spectrum of online platforms is utilized, ranging from mainstream social networks to underground forums. Notably, imageboards stand out as fertile ground where these ideologies flourish, due to anonymity, community engagement, and a plethora of hateful content. This study endeavors to examine the prevalence of bigotry in these spaces within the Brazilian context. Natural language processing algorithms provide the possibility to explore discursive features of massive text sets, extracting latent information and patterns in a relatively simple and automated way. This study shows how prejudice forms the basis of the different discourses found in Brazilian imageboards. Notably, these discourses not only echo historically rooted hateful ideologies but also assimilate conspiratorial perspectives and instances of bigotry emanating from non-Brazilian imageboards.
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(Re)contextualizing the ‘anti-woke’ discourse : Attitudes towards gender-inclusive language in English and French on X (formerly Twitter)
Author(s): Paige JohnsonAvailable online: 11 July 2024More LessAbstractThis study examines how ‘anti-woke’ discourse is drawn upon by French and English-speaking X (formerly Twitter) users to abnormalize gender-inclusive language practices from a Critical Discourse Analytic (CDA) perspective (Fairclough 2010). Using strategies and tools drawn from the Discourse Historical Approach (Wodak and Reisigl 2017) and CDA (interdiscursivity and recontextualization), I compare and discuss how ‘woke’ is (re)appropriated within online arenas across both linguo-cultural contexts to other and undermine those invested in challenging gender-based discrimination(s). Responses, therefore, contribute to a broader right-wing (populist) project that substantiates the uncivil and ‘unsayable’ by subverting the civil and ‘sayable’ amid the emergence of borderline discourses (Krzyżanowski and Ledin 2017). I conclude that ‘anti-woke’ discourse has become a symbolic catch-all discursive strategy to bolster far right attitudes at the expense of abnormalizing the struggles faced by marginalized genders. This analysis thus provides further insight into how discriminatory ideologies become more viable political alternatives through rhetorical and discursive phenomena (Wodak 2015).
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Hegemonic femininity, femonationalism and the far-right : Boris Johnson’s textual representation of the burka and his rise to power in the UK
Author(s): Camila Montiel-McCannAvailable online: 11 July 2024More LessAbstractThe burka has become a key symbol of the supposed ‘Islamification’ of Europe and has led to a series of ‘burka bans’ (Bouattia 2019; Bracke 2012; Hancock 2015). In the debate surrounding these bans, a ‘femonationalist convergence’ has been identified by Farris (2012, 2017) in which the nationalist political right, neoliberal policy makers, and some feminist organisations converge in adopting the language of gender equality to argue that the burka is a symbol of patriarchal oppression. In this paper, I relate this femonationalist convergence to the maintenance of hegemonic femininity, which can be broadly defined as the privileging of femininity that is complementary to white supremacist capitalist patriarchy (hooks 2000). Using feminist critical discourse analysis (Lazar 2005), I analyse the representation of Muslim women in an article on the burka written by former Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, for The Telegraph in 2018. I show how Johnson instrumentalises femonationalist discourse to justify his Islamophobic marginalisation of Muslim women. I conclude that Johnson used this article to lay the groundwork for his Conservative leadership bid the following year and to garner popular support for a shift to the far-right in British politics.
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The quick termination of verbal conflicts expressed through disagreement : Three patterns of conflict minimization during computer science project meetings
Author(s): Ole Pütz and Hafsa HassanAvailable online: 24 June 2024More LessAbstractThis paper considers verbal conflicts at the workplace and asks how team members negotiate conflict termination. Our corpus consists of meetings where computer scientists discuss the progress of projects they are working on, a context where conflict resolution is crucial for the continuation of work. Following the literature, we define conflicts as continued disagreement. The analysis focuses on conflict termination formats that show whether a conflict can be resolved as well as episode length and disagreement mitigation that indicate the severity of the conflict. Power relations among participants are also discussed. Our results show that most conflicts end after two or three disagreements. Among the termination formats, submission is the most frequent, followed by stand-off and compromise. We further show that participants minimize conflicts by concluding them as soon as someone indicates their unwillingness to concede, whereas the pattern of conflict minimization varies with the termination format that participants negotiate.
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The language of sexual violence and impropriety : A cross-cultural and cross-linguistic study
Author(s): Rachelle VesseyAvailable online: 06 June 2024More LessAbstractIn Canada, which has two official languages, sexual violence and impropriety have been identified as problems in the military for at least 25 years (see Duval-Lantoine 2022). In the military’s efforts to address these problems, the institutional language has been identified as problematic (Deschamps 2015; Arbour 2022). This paper addresses the labels for sexual violence and impropriety in Canadian English and French using large corpora of language data: the Corpus of Historical American English, the Corpus of Contemporary Amerian English, the enTenTen20 corpus, the frTenTen20 corpus, the Strathy Corpus, and the Canadian Hansard. Findings show differences between the most widely used labels in American and Canadian data and between English and French. This raises questions about the labels adopted by the Canadian military and the extent to which sexual violence and impropriety can be addressed without a critical review of the language in use.
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Gendering the language of genocide : Linguistic violence against women in Nazi concentration camps
Author(s): Laura Miñano MañeroAvailable online: 03 June 2024More LessAbstractExploring the Holocaust through a gendered lens, this article examines linguistic aggression against women in Nazi concentration camps. While extensive scholarship connects language to genocide, the imbrication between gender, language and genocide remains an under-researched subject. To further this discussion, I analyze female survivors’ memoirs to explore the processes of semantic deprecation through metaphorization. Relying on cognitive semantics (Lakoff and Johnson 1980), I concentrate on euphemistic and dysphemistic metaphors that construct women’s identities in terms of otherness, by means of zoosemic and reifying conceptualizations, among others. The sources under examination encompass Jewish survivors Liana Millu (2001); Gisella Perl (2019), and Anne-Lise Stern (2004), and non-Jewish resisters Margarete Buber-Neumann (2008); Wanda Półtawska (1989), and Germaine Tillion (1997). Considering the relationship between metaphorical language and perceived stereotypes about women and the feminine, and focusing on specific lexical items, I hope to unravel the nexus between linguistic aggression and patriarchal structures in the concentration camp system. I argue that metaphorization reinforced women’s inferior position and perpetuated gender stereotypes. I suggest that, paradoxically, this violence also triggered empowering processes of linguistic reappropriation, asserting the victims’ agency.
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‘You are not empowered, you have neither character nor pride’ : Assessing aggressive language against Spanish female politicians in high-profile positions
Author(s): Maria Milagros Del Saz RubioAvailable online: 13 May 2024More LessAbstractThis 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.
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The hate that dare not speak its name?
Author(s): Robbie Love and Paul Baker
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