L’impoliteness nei commenti online riguardanti il conflitto israelo-palestinese. Studio pragmatico

Abstract Impoliteness in Online Comments Regarding the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: A Pragmatic Analysis This study aims to analyze linguistic impoliteness in online comments concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from a pragmatic perspective, starting from Culpeper’s recent model (2011, 2016). This research includes both a brief quantitative analysis to identify the general trends of online commentators in the use of impolite formulae, and a qualitative analysis to describe in detail the impolite formulae and the linguistic means used in them. This contribution begins with an introduction in which the purpose, importance and research questions are discussed. Then, in an introductory paragraph, the concept of impoliteness, definitions as well as the models of impoliteness elaborated by Culpeper (2006, 2011, 2016) are briefly reviewed. For the analysis of the data, after extracting the data, they were classified, according to the recent model of impoliteness proposed by Culpeper (2011, 2016), into two main groups: conventionalized impoliteness formulae and implicational impoliteness; they were then analysed from a formally highlighting the mechanisms used in certain situations to intensify the offence. The results revealed that almost all Culpeper’s forms of impoliteness were used with the prevalence of the conventionalized formulas of impoliteness, which highlights that commentators tend to use the explicit forms to damage the addressees’ face. In addition, data analysis shows that there are characteristics that distinguish Italian impoliteness discourse such as the use of colloquialisms, proverbs and idioms, swear words and vulgar language, religious expressions and historical references.