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Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Inherent linguistic impoliteness
T2 - The case of insultive YOU+NP in Dutch, English and Dutch
AU - Van Olmen, Daniel
AU - Andersson, Marta
AU - Culpeper, Jonathan
PY - 2023/10/31
Y1 - 2023/10/31
N2 - This article conducts a corpus analysis of insults in the form you+np (e.g. you (stupid) idiot), an impoliteness formula, in Dutch, English and Polish. It argues that impoliteness can be inherently associated with linguistic structures, a claim which contradicts the widely held view in current (im)politeness research that impoliteness, and indeed politeness, is primarily determined by context. However, whilst we show that our insultive form is strongly conventionalised in similar ways across languages, it is never completely conventional. We suggest that the generally high level of conventionalisation found for this form is a result of the addressee evaluation inherent in the structure, as well as the pragmatic explicitness, and thus directness, of referring to the target with a second person pronoun. The form was found to be most conventionalised for impoliteness in Polish, something which is probably attributable to the decline of the vocative case in that language. The article also considers the nature of exceptions, i.e. cases which fit the form but were not impolite.
AB - This article conducts a corpus analysis of insults in the form you+np (e.g. you (stupid) idiot), an impoliteness formula, in Dutch, English and Polish. It argues that impoliteness can be inherently associated with linguistic structures, a claim which contradicts the widely held view in current (im)politeness research that impoliteness, and indeed politeness, is primarily determined by context. However, whilst we show that our insultive form is strongly conventionalised in similar ways across languages, it is never completely conventional. We suggest that the generally high level of conventionalisation found for this form is a result of the addressee evaluation inherent in the structure, as well as the pragmatic explicitness, and thus directness, of referring to the target with a second person pronoun. The form was found to be most conventionalised for impoliteness in Polish, something which is probably attributable to the decline of the vocative case in that language. The article also considers the nature of exceptions, i.e. cases which fit the form but were not impolite.
KW - Conventionalisation
KW - Corpus pragmatics
KW - Evaluative meaning
KW - Impoliteness
KW - Insult
U2 - 10.1016/j.pragma.2023.06.013
DO - 10.1016/j.pragma.2023.06.013
M3 - Journal article
VL - 215
SP - 22
EP - 40
JO - Journal of Pragmatics
JF - Journal of Pragmatics
SN - 0378-2166
ER -