1 s2.0 S0378216611000841 Main

Journal of Pragmatics 43 (2011) 25782593
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Pragmatics
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/pragma
On-line polylogues and impoliteness: The case of postings sent in

response to the Obama Reggaeton YouTube video
Nuria Lorenzo-Dus a,*, Pilar Garces-Conejos Blitvich b,1, Patricia Bou-Franch c,2
a
Department of English Language and Literature, Swansea University, Swansea, SA2 0TX, South Wales, United Kingdom
Department of English, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 9201 University City Blvd., Charlotte, NC 28223, United States
c
Departamento de Filologa Inglesa y Alemana, Universidad de Valencia, Avenida Blasco Ibanez 32, 46010 Valencia, Spain
b
A R T I C L E I N F O
A B S T R A C T
Article history:
Received 21 August 2009
Received in revised form 27 January 2011
Accepted 6 March 2011
Available online 3 April 2011
The overall aim of this paper is to investigate impoliteness in a particular on-line polylogal
setting YouTube postings (c. 13,000 words) triggered by the Obama Reggaeton video,
which was released during the 2008 US democratic primaries. This is done through
integration of quantitative/qualitative analytic tools and of (im)politeness1 and (im)
politeness 2 approaches. A two-prong experimental study is used in order to examine
impoliteness realisation and interpretation in the corpus. Findings reveal clear patterns in
the realisation of impoliteness strategies, including a preference for on-record
impoliteness saliently oriented towards attacking the positive face needs of ones online co-participants. In this respect, findings also call for a refinement of existing
taxonomies of impoliteness. Regarding the interpretation of impoliteness, the analysis
reveals considerable overlap between lay (impoliteness1) and analyst (impoliteness2)
assessments. The former, in addition, are found to relate principally to norms of public
discourse associated with civility.
2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
On-line polylogues
Impoliteness realisation
Impoliteness interpretation
YouTube
1. Introduction
Over 40 years ago, Sacks (1992) called for research into polylogal (multi-participant) conversations, which he regarded as
potentially much more interesting (1992: 523) than their much blander (1992: 533) dyadic counterparts. Sacks call was
taken up with considerably less vigour in linguistics than in disciplines such as communication studies (cf. e.g. Cragan and
Wrights (1980)) critical review of circa one hundred published studies on communication in small groups in the 1970s). A
notable exception in linguistics was a collection of articles on polylogues in a 2004 special issue of the Journal of Pragmatics.
Herein, the inherent complexity and flexibility of polylogues was fully embraced.3 In the words of the editor of this special
issue, how can one resist [Sacks] urge to take on this challenge [to study polylogues]? (Kerbrat-Orecchioni, 2004: 21). One
cannot, would be our answer, particularly given the comparative dearth of studies of polylogues in computer-mediated
communication (CMC) settings. Research on the latter, moreover, has experienced significant growth of late, but
impoliteness phenomena therein remain largely unexplored vis-a`-vis politeness ones (Haugh, 2010; but see section 3).
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 0 1792 602540; fax: +44 0 1792 602545.
E-mail addresses: n.lorenzo-dus@swansea.ac.uk (N. Lorenzo-Dus), pgblitvi@uncc.edu (P. Garces-Conejos Blitvich), patricia.bou@uv.es (P. Bou-Franch).
1
Tel.: +1 704 687 2126; fax: +1 704 687 3961.
2
Tel.: +34 963 864 262; fax: +34 963 864 161.
3
For a detailed discussion of participation status within different types of polylogues (including on-line ones), for example, see Kerbrat-Orecchioni
(2004) and Marcoccia (2004).
0378-2166/$ see front matter 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2011.03.005
N. Lorenzo-Dus et al. / Journal of Pragmatics 43 (2011) 25782593
2579
The need for further empirical research into both on-line polylogues and on-line impoliteness4 thus motivates the
present study. Its overall aim is to investigate impoliteness in a particular on-line polylogal setting YouTube postings
triggered by the Obama Reggaeton video (OR, henceforth), which was released during the 2008 US democratic
primaries. This is done through integration of quantitative/qualitative analytic tools and of (im)politeness1 and
(im)politeness2 approaches. We also use a two-prong experimental design through which we examine how
impoliteness was realised in our corpus and interpreted by samples of the multiple intended recipients of the OR
YouTube video.
The paper is structured as follows. In section 2, relevant work on impoliteness is reviewed and in section 3 a brief
overview of research into impoliteness in CMC settings is provided. These sections lead to the formulation of our research
questions/hypotheses. Section 4 explains the methodology of the two interconnected studies that we conducted in order to
answer the research questions. Results are reported in section 5 and discussed in section 6. Section 7 provides some datadriven reflections on key findings of our work.
2. Impoliteness
The notion of (im)politeness is not unproblematic. A number of recent publications (cf. e.g. Bousfield and Culpeper, 2008;
Bousfield and Locher, 2008), for instance, have discussed the pros and cons, as it were, of conceptualising it from within
either an (im)politeness1 or an (im)politeness2 approach. These two approaches, and terms, build upon Watts et al.s (1992:
30) concepts of first-order politeness and second-order politeness, which respectively designate the various ways in
which polite behaviour is perceived and talked about by members of sociocultural groups and a term within a theory of
social behaviour and language usage.5 Both approaches, moreover, have undergone criticism.
First-order approaches to (im)politeness have been problematised by authors such as Haugh (2007), Mullany (2005),
Terkourafi (2005) and Xie et al. (2005). According to Haugh (2007), for instance, analysts can identify instances of (im)
politeness that emerge through interaction. Within an interactional approach to (im)politeness (cf. Arundale, 2006),
analysts work may be guided by explicit evaluations of (im)politeness made by participants in the course of given
interactions even if this may happen rather infrequently. Analysts can also identify instances of (im)politeness through
the reciprocation of concern evident in the adjacent placement of expressions of concern relevant to the norms invoked in
that particular interaction (Haugh, 2007: 512).
Haughs point regarding the norms governing specific interactions is a particularly important issue in the study of (im)
politeness. In CMC settings like YouTube, for example, in which users engage in discussions about a range of topics (including
those to do with the public good), these norms are likely to be those of public discourse (Sellers, 2004). Public discourse is
defined as regard[ing] public policy, as distinguished from private discourse among citizens seeking to develop their own
private friendships and interests (Sellers, 2004: 15). According to this author, civility constitutes the standard of behaviour
that should govern public discourse. Specific forms of incivility, such as ideologically supported hostility to others, violate the
basic premises of public discourse. This is supported by some of the YouTube Community Guidelines, which are concerned
with the use of language and encourage YouTube users to adhere to free speech and to defend everyones right to express
unpopular points of view. They also explicitly state that they do not permit hate speech (speech which attacks or demeans
a group based on race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, veteran status and sexual orientation/gender
identity).6 It is not clear, however, how YouTube ensures compliance with the latter given as our study will show the
saliency of hate speech in YouTube postings to videos.
Second-order approaches to (im)politeness, for their part, have been criticised for maintaining a universal theoretical
notion of politeness given the discursive dispute about what is considered rude, impolite, normal, appropriate, politic,
polite, or over-polite behaviour across different communities of practice (Locher and Watts, 2005: 16). Their critics have
also argued for a shift away from analysts categorisation of (im)politeness towards examining the actual ways in which
participants realise and ascribe (im)politeness to others in the course of interaction (Hutchby, 2008).
Analysts categorisations of impoliteness have in fact led to a number of taxonomies of impoliteness strategies within
second-order approaches. Following Lachernicht (1980), Culpeper (1996) began to explore and categorise impoliteness
in its own right (see also Kienpointner, 1997). Lachernicht (1980) had proposed a taxonomy that consisted of four
aggravation superstrategies, namely off record, bald on record, positive aggravation and negative aggravation.
Culpeper (1996) devised a model of impoliteness along the same lines. This model was also a reversal of Brown and
Levinsons (1978/1987) politeness taxonomy and, as such, comprised five impoliteness superstrategies: bald on record,
positive impoliteness, negative impoliteness, sarcasm or mock politeness, and withhold politeness. The five
impoliteness superstrategies in this model were for the most part empirically derived from a corpus of army recruiting
training data. In Culpeper et al. (2003), all five superstrategies were also found to be represented in a corpus of disputes
extracted from the BBCs documentary television series The Clampers. Furthermore, Culpeper et al. (2003) found these
superstrategies to occur in combination (rather than singularly) in their corpus, contrary to what Brown and Levinson (1987)
4
Research into impoliteness in off-line mediated polylogues is, however, well established, especially within the context of television (e.g. Bousfield,
2008a,b; Culpeper, 1996, 2005; Culpeper et al., 2003; Garces-Conejos Blitvich, 2009, 2010c; Locher and Watts, 2005; Lorenzo-Dus, 2009b).
5
See Eelen (2001) for an extended discussion.
6
http://www.youtube.com/t/community_guidelines.
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had claimed for politeness. Culpeper (2005) then made an addition to his 1996 model, namely off record impoliteness,
reflecting that impoliteness can also be conveyed by means of an implicature. He argued that off record impoliteness could
take the place that sarcasm had previously occupied, given that the latter could be separated out as distinct from the
others, given its metastrategic nature (2005: 44).
Culpepers (2005) model has been subsequently adopted by a number of scholars (e.g. Cashman, 2006; Kienpointner,
2008). It has also been significantly reformulated by Bousfield (2008a,b), who advocates a model based on two tactics,
within which numerous individual impoliteness strategies can be subsumed. The two tactics are on-record and offrecord impoliteness, the latter including sarcasm and withhold politeness. Two aspects of Bousfields (2008a,b) model are
worth discussing in some detail: its dropping the positive/negative face distinction and its maintaining the on/off record
distinction.
Bousfield (2008a,b) argues that both the adoption of Spencer-Oateys (2002) relational management framework in
Culpeper (2005) and the fact that positive/negative face strategies have been found to combine systematically in interaction7
render Brown and Levinsons traditional separation between positive/negative face unnecessary. A number of scholars
nevertheless maintain similar distinctions. Consider, for example, Terkourafis (2008) proposal of the emotions of approach/
withdrawal as the bases for a universal notion of face2; Spencer-Oateys (2005) equity/association rights and quality face;
Houses (2005, 2010) individual/society tensions (animal drives of coming together versus those of noli me tangere); and
Scollon and Scollons (2001) involvement and independence face. Therefore, while acknowledging the fuzziness of the
positive/negative face categories as well as the difficulties of applying negative face to a number of cultures,8 we agree with
those who propose a reconceptualisation rather than elimination of the negative/positive face distinction (e.g. Arundale,
2010; Garces-Conejos Blitvich, 2010a; Haugh, 2006; ODriscoll, 1996; Scollon and Scollon, 2001).9 Moreover, we believe that
category discrimination is useful and necessary when undertaking quantitative analyses that seek to reveal patterns of
behaviour, as this article does (cf. also Terkourafi, 2005). As stated by Garces-Conejos Blitvich (2010a), [p]rovided that
researches acknowledge the fact that they are working with socially based categories that should be seen in terms of a cline
rather than as compartmentalized, the maintenance of both categories [positive politeness/negative politeness] could be
seen as a help rather than a hindrance.
Secondly, Bousfield (2008a,b) proposes to maintain the on/off record impoliteness distinction, albeit that he
acknowledges that there is not always a clear cut distinction between them. Bousfields proposal probably results from
his model resting squarely on Gricean foundations. Yet, as argued by Garces-Conejos Blitvich (2010a), the on/off record
distinction is problematic within current research in cognitive pragmatics (Carston, 2002, 2009; Recanati, 2004; Sperber and
Wilson, 1995) and the switch to a hearer-based approach in the field of (im)politeness as a whole. Extant admittedly scant
research on the latter suggests that hearers orient similarly to both on and off record instances of impoliteness in interaction
(Rees-Miller, 2000). An alternative to dropping the on/off record distinction may lie in theorising a speaker versus a hearer
based (im)politeness (Locher, 2004; Xie et al., 2005). Another, and one we advocate in this study, lies in devising
methodologies that seek to unveil patterns of behaviour and, hence, to provide a birds eye view of impoliteness in
interaction. Within this option, analysts rely on hearers uptake for their assessments of (im)politeness but they also focus on
speakers choices regarding production of impoliteness since, from the speakers perspective, the on/off record distinction
may be meaningful.
In sum, this paper adopts an impoliteness model that maintains both the positive/negative and the on/off record
distinctions. Within the latter, and regarding off record impoliteness, it distinguishes between implicated impoliteness
(cases where the implicated meaning could correspond to any of a myriad of impolite meanings realised off-record),10
sarcasm (cases where the use of politeness is obviously insincere), and withhold politeness (cases where politeness is
absent where it should be expected or mandatory) (Garces-Conejos Blitvich, 2010b). As for maintaining the positive/negative
face distinction, and with the caveat that any distinctions between the two need to reflect cultural differences, we argue that
one aspect of face may take precedence over the other in interaction, even if both aspects may be simultaneously threatened.
We therefore also understand positive (im)politeness and negative (im)politeness dialectally, as a cline. Overall, we see the
use of categories that help discriminate or unveil patterns of impoliteness (on/off record; positive/negative; and different
individual impoliteness strategies) as a sine qua non in this paper given its (in part) quantitative methodology. In line with the
proposed distinction between speaker/hearer centred (im)politeness, moreover, we believe that research is needed to
7
See also Culpeper et al. (2003), Garces-Conejos (1993, 1995) and Harris (2001).
Some of the strongest criticism against the positive/negative face distinction has in fact come from scholars studying languages other than English
(principally Asian ones), who have claimed that negative face is not representative of their cultures (Matsumoto, 1988; Nwoye, 1992; Koutlaki, 2002). Yet,
other Asian scholars have disagreed with those claims (Usami, 2002; Fukuda and Asato, 2004). This has prompted a call for further research that theorises
face in its own terms rather than conflating it with politeness (cf. Haugh and Bargiela-Chiappini, 2010).
9
For example, ODriscoll (1996) argues that positive/negative face should not be seen in absolute terms, but as a cline. This coincides with Scollon and
Scollons (2001) view of the relationship between involvement and independence face as paradoxical. The latter reflects the fact that there is constant
tension between positive/negative face, which requires that both be present, but one of them is seen as predominant in a particular situation (cf. also
Bousfield, 2008a), and thus more susceptible to being threatened, without excluding the other. For his part, Arundale (2010: 2086) states that one of the
aims of Face Constituting Theory is the conceptualisation of face as a relational phenomenon, . . .specifying more precisely what aspects of relationships are
involved. Haugh (2006: 23), along the same lines, argues that a reconceptualisation of the positive/negative distinction would enable us to better
accommodate both universal and culture-specific aspects of face and politeness [. . .] as they are more abstract notions that can encompass multiple
meaning.
10
See also Bousfield (2008a: 151152) for a discussion of the multifunctionality of the off-record strategy.
8
2581
ascertain whether these categories are assessed differently by hearers in terms of (im)politeness values. These assessments
should be taken into consideration in future reformulations of the model.
3. On-line polylogues and impoliteness
CMC research is experiencing an academic shift away from what is nowadays perceived as an excessive focus on the
influence of the computer medium on communication to a focus on user variation within that medium. This shift has been
described in terms of a third wave of CMC research and seeks to demythologiz[e] the alleged homogeneity and highlight
the social diversity of language use in CMC (Androutsopoulos, 2006: 42021). While also rejecting technological
determinism in CMC, we believe that two medium features play an important role therein, namely the lack of physical
presence and its polylogal (rather than dyadic) communicative affordances.
A number of theories have been advanced to explore the implications stemming from the lack of physical presence in
CMC. It has been argued, for instance, that physical anonymity may lead to a certain loss of self-awareness and, in turn,
to lesser inhibition. The process is known as deindividuation (Kiesler et al., 1984; Siegel et al., 1986; Sproull and Kiesler,
1986a,b) and is premised on an individualistic view of the self which, as postulated within the Social Model of
Deindividuation Phenomena (SIDE), fails to consider that lack of physical presence may also increase the cognitive
salience of social identity (Reicher et al., 1995). According to the SIDE model, deindividuated contexts are conducive to
individuals constructing themselves mostly as members of relevant social categories, i.e. to social or collective identity
construction. This tends to be enhanced, furthermore, in the face of perceived opposition from out-group(s) and may
lead to polarisation and hostility, which has important repercussions for the deployment of impoliteness in such
contexts.
Most research on (im)politeness takes the dyad as the locus of interaction and focuses on face to face communication,
seeing impoliteness in terms of direct face threats to interlocutors individual face. As discussed above, however,
participants identities in deindividuated, on-line contexts are mostly constructed in terms of their belonging to one or more
social categories or groups. It is therefore generally the case that face threat in such contexts is not addressed directly to
participants themselves but to the group/s in relation to which participants social, on-line identities are constructed. For
example, in on-line polylogues impoliteness may ensue when one interacts on the basis of being, say, a democrat and others
attack the Democratic partys ideological beliefs. This is by no means exclusive to CMC it can and does occur in face to face,
dyadic communication. Nevertheless, the difference lies in the higher incidence of this type of behaviour in on-line contexts,
such as the one considered in this article.
Several recent studies have usefully drawn upon (im)politeness theories in order to explore polarisation and
hostility in asynchronous CMC contexts (e.g. Angouri and Tseliga, 2010; Haugh, 2010; Graham, 2007, 2008; Upadhyay,
2010). These studies have examined different on-line media, ranging from emails and fora to internet lists and responses
to e-editions of newspapers. Their findings, though, broadly coincide in stressing the interrelation of medium- and
user-related (identity construction, mainly) aspects in the production and interpretation of impoliteness in CMC.11
In these studies, the polylogal nature of the interaction has received scant attention in the discussion or explanation of
their findings, which has often focused on dyadic interactions (an exception here is Graham (2008)). Moreover,
with the exception of Haugh (2010) and Upadhyay (2010), these studies have employed exclusively qualitative
methods.
Quantitative research into impoliteness in on-line polylogues is relatively scarce. To our knowledge, and within the
context of YouTube polylogues, it is limited to two previous studies of the use rather than the use and assessment (as is our
case here) of impoliteness in the comments triggered by videos posted on YouTube: Garces-Conejos Blitvich (2010b) and
Lorenzo-Dus (2009a). Their findings agree in identifying a preference in this context for the use of on-record, positive
impoliteness, that is, for the use of deliberate, explicit attacks on the positive face wants of ones polylogal co-participants.
In Garces-Conejos Blitvich (2010b) impoliteness was examined within a corpus of 318 YouTube postings sent in response
to nineteen videos of the US 2008 primaries and presidential elections. Results revealed a preference for, on the one hand,
on-record (95% of total) over off-record (5%) impoliteness and, on the other, for positive impoliteness (57% of all on-record
impoliteness) over negative impoliteness (38% of all on-record impoliteness). In Lorenzo-Dus (2009a) impoliteness
strategies and structural patterns were examined in 50 YouTube polylogal sequences (350 turns) regarding the election of
Barack Obama as US President in November 2008. Results also revealed a preference for on-record (93.5% of total) over offrecord (6.5%) impoliteness. The difference between positive (48.5%) over negative (45%) impoliteness was, however,
small.12
11
See Garces-Conejos Blitvich (2009) and Garces-Conejos Blitvich et al. (2010) for further discussion on the interconnection of identity and assessments of
impoliteness in off-line media environments, specifically television.
12
This YouTube corpus was compared with another one also based on Obamas election as US President (50 Facebook polylogal sequences; 400 turns) in
order to investigate empirically and from within an impoliteness framework the relationship between degrees of anonymity and amount/type of
impoliteness. The rationale for the comparison was the user anonymity provided by YouTube but not by Facebook (Facebook users may of course construct
fictitious selves). Results did not reveal significant differences between degrees of anonymity and amount of impoliteness. They did reveal, however,
statistically significant differences regarding the frequency of use of certain impoliteness strategies, such as a marked preference for the use of sarcasm
(mock politeness) in Facebook vis-a`-vis YouTube. The marked preference for sarcasm in Facebook over YouTube possibly owes to the fact that in the former
one is talking to and with friends, whereas in the latter one may be talking to some random person from around the globe.
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Table 1
Impoliteness strategies (superstrategy coding level).
Positive impoliteness
On record
Negative impoliteness
Impoliteness strategies
Implicated (positive/negative) impoliteness

Off record
Sarcasm
Withhold politeness
It is against the theoretical background presented in sections 2 and 3 that our study of impoliteness in asynchronous online polylogues (YouTube) seeks to answer the two research questions below and their corresponding hypotheses:
- Research Question 1: How is impoliteness typically realised (i.e., which impoliteness strategies are most frequently used) in
the on-line polylogue generated in response to the YouTube OR video?
- Hypothesis 1: Use of impoliteness strategies this polylogue will be similar to that previously identified in other YouTube
settings, thereby pointing to patterns of impoliteness realisation in this asynchronous on-line environment.
- Research Question 2: How do YouTube users assess impoliteness in the on-line polylogue generated in response to the OR
video?
- Hypothesis 2: Public discourse norms of civility will broadly guide assessment of impoliteness in the on-line polylogue
under examination.
4. Methodology
In order to overcome the problems associated with adhering to a strictly (im)politeness1 or (im)politeness2 approach, our
methodology adopts a multilayered framework that combines (i) taxonomies of impoliteness strategies proven useful for the
analysis of corpora (henceforth, the impoliteness realisation study); and (ii) participants explicit/implicit assessments of
certain linguistic behaviour as impolite according to relevant norms (henceforth, the impoliteness interpretation study).
Next, we describe the data and procedure of these studies.
4.1. The Impoliteness Realisation (IR) study
The IR study drew upon a reference corpus comprising all the YouTube turns in response to the OR video over a seven
month period following its release. This video was primarily selected for analysis because of its political content specifically
its being an election campaign video. Given the presence of marked polarisation and impoliteness within the current
YouTubification of politics (Garces-Conejos Blitvich, 2010b; May, 2008), the OR video was likely to trigger and it indeed did
a considerable number of impolite turns/sequences.13
From our reference corpus, 500 consecutive turns (totalling c. 13,000 words) were randomly selected as the analysis corpus.
The first stage of the analysis entailed segmenting this corpus into discrete polylogal sequences, the boundaries of which were
determined by thematic coherence. Each of these polylogal sequences thus comprised a variable number of thematically linked
albeit to different degrees turns. The second stage of our analysis entailed coding each sequence at a macro and a micro level.
Macro-level coding involved the following categories: number of participants and number of turns. Micro-level coding involved
identifying impoliteness strategies within turns. The strategies applied to our data are first summarised in Table 1 and then
listed individually in Table 2, which also contains an example of each strategy from our corpus.
Macro- and micro-level coding of the corpus was independently and jointly undertaken by the three authors of this
paper. Inter-coder differences were subsequently resolved through discussion. In those cases where interlocutors positive
and negative face were simultaneously attacked (for example, often in relation to the impoliteness strategy explicitly
associate with a negative aspect), inter-coder agreement was obtained on the level of saliency of one vis-a`-vis the other
aspect of face. Once coded, the frequency and distribution of impoliteness strategies in the corpus were statistically
determined. The findings of these quantitative analyses revealed a number of patterns, which were further explored
qualitatively.
4.2. The Impoliteness Interpretation (II) study
Participants assessment of certain linguistic behaviour as impolite was investigated from within the premise that, in the
case of YouTube polylogal interaction, these participants comprised not only those users actively involved in one or more of
13
Throughout this paper, and in line with previous work on on-line polylogues, we use turns and sequences as the analytic terms for actual postings and
thematically connected groups therein, respectively (Bou-Franch et al., 2010).
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Table 2
List of individual impoliteness strategies,a within their respective superstrategy category, and examples from the corpus.
ON RECORD IMPOLITENESS
POSITIVE IMPOLITENESS
Ignore/snub the other [ISO]
Exclude other from the activity [EOA]
Dissociate from the other [DFO]
Be disinterested, unconcerned,
unsympathetic [DUU]
Use inappropriate identity markers [IIM]
Use obscure secretive language [OSL]
Make the other feel uncomfortable [MOFU]
Seek disagreement [SD]
Use taboo words [TW]
Call the other names [CON]
NEGATIVE IMPOLITENESS
Frighten [FR]
Condescend, scorn, ridicule [CSR]
Invade the others space [IOS]

Explicitly associate the other with a
negative aspect [ANA]
Put the others indebtedness on record [PIR]
Hinder or block the other, either physically
or linguistically [BO]
OFF RECORD IMPOLITENESS
Implicated impoliteness [IP]
Sarcasm [SRC]
WITHHOLD POLITENESS
Turn # 95
si eres muslam vota obama (if youre a muslm (sic) vote for obama)
Turn #193. . ..
u werent even supposed to be in OUR mothafucken continent in the first place.
Turn #353
CONOZCAN A SU CANDIDATO (copiar y pegar) (KNOW YOUR (plural, formal)
CANDIDATE (copy and paste)
Turn #319
. . . como te voy a dar importancia a las tonterias que haz tratado de escribir,
(. . .how am I going to give any importance to the nonsense that youve tried to write)
Turn #401
. . .Husssie Obama Is the antichrist!!
No examples found in corpus
Turn #403
. . . What are you for Hilary who voted for this pointless invasion occurring in Iraq.
Turn #51
In your dreams!!
Turn #170
ya fuck illegal immigrants
Turn #448.
loko no pueden ser mas enfermos (nuts, you cant be any more insane)
Turn #401
. . .Do not follow this liar or he will lead you straight to hell
Turn #59
For your information he cant stand Chavez you ignorant beast [CON],
educate yourself before running your mouth.
Turn # 53
We need a real change and not a 98 old man
Turn #190
. . .Blacks made it possible for latinos to migrate here.
Turn #401
. . .Discontinue your worship of this false messiah!
Turn #402
. . . are you the pope of Hillary Clinton?
Turn #141
. . .just because youre a republican and dont support Obama doesnt mean
you have to be a racist
a
With the exception of implicated impoliteness, which comes from Garces-Conejos Blitvich (2010b), all the individual impoliteness strategies were
first identified in Culpeper (1996).
the on-line polylogal sequences but also those who did not contribute their own postings but were also part of its
participation framework. This responds to our belief that the study of (im)politeness in mediated settings, including those
mediated by computers, must account for all those involved in their perceptual range.14 Determining who is involved in the
perceptual range of interaction in on-line, asynchronous polylogues is significantly more complex than in dyadic, face-toface ones (Bou-Franch et al., 2010). In this regard, Marcoccia (2004) argues that the complexity of on-line polylogal
exchanges defies any attempts at formalisation modelled on face-to-face speech. Indeed, and given the public (mass),
mediated nature of communication in YouTube, a more fruitful modelling avenue might be found within recent debates in
the field of broadcast discourse about the traditional Goffmanian (1981) reception role of the overhearing audience. These
debates acknowledge the inadequacy of simply treating viewers/listeners as overhearers, that is, of their being un-ratified,
unaddressed recipients of a discourse that is produced precisely to be broad-cast to them. Concerning impoliteness in these
settings, then, some recent work has explicitly investigated assessments thereof by the broadcasts distributed recipients
(Hutchby, 2006) (cf. Garces-Conejos Blitvich et al., 2010; Lorenzo-Dus, 2009b,c).
Given the above, the data for the II study consisted of an (im)politeness assessment task in the form of a questionnaire
that was completed by YouTube users who were familiar with both the OR video and some of the postings submitted in
14
The notion of participation framework is used in the sense of Goffman (1981: 3), who defined it as follows: When a word is spoken, all those who
happen to be in the perceptual range of the event will have some sort of participation status relative to it. It is of course acknowledged that the participation
framework involved in CMC is different to that in broadcasting, within which Goffmans definition emerged. Points of convergence/divergence between
them are an area ripe for further research (see, for example, Tolson, 2010).
2584
response to it but who had not contributed their own postings. Two sequences from the IR data (Sequence #1 (example 3)
and Sequence #2 (example 4)) were assessed through the questionnaire. Three criteria were applied to select these two
sequences:
1. explicitly polylogal nature: each sequence comprised more than two participants.
2. impoliteness representativeness: turns in Sequences #1 and #2 contained instances of all the main strategies identified
through the IR study.
3. time constraints on task completion: a pilot study was conducted which revealed that six to eight brief turns (two to four
lines per turn) could be realistically assessed in approximately fifteen minutes. Combined, the two sequences contained
seven brief turns.
The questionnaire was administered to sixty YouTube surfers of similar age (eighteen to 24 years old) and educational
background (undergraduates) but of different gender (21 males, 39 females). Respondents were EnglishSpanish bilinguals,
the two languages featured in the sequences. The questionnaire was administered within a university lecture and took
approximately 30 minutes to complete, including instructions and debriefing. Respondents had not received formal
instruction on (im)politeness and were told clearly that the questionnaire was not an assessed component of the course in
which it was embedded. Their participation was, therefore, voluntary.
The II study followed an (im)politeness1 approach. Specifically, it sought to elicit three kinds of (im)politeness1
assessments: expressive, classificatory and metapragmatic (Eelen, 2001).15 Respondents were asked, firstly, to rate each of
the turns in the two sequences included in the questionnaire on a Likert scale: 1 (very polite) 2 (polite) 3 (neither-politenor-impolite) 4 (impolite) 5 (very impolite). Immediately afterwards, they were asked to write down the reasons for their
ratings.
By rating specific turns, these respondents had to engage in classificatory (im)politeness1 i.e., they had to produce
judgements of others (the authors of the turns) interactional behaviour as (im)polite/politic in actual interaction. It is
important to stress that within the on-line, asynchronous polylogal sequences under examination, actual interaction
stretches far beyond the here-and-now of other unmediated and/or synchronous interactional settings. It is also important
to acknowledge that these respondents were requested to assess (im)polite behaviour and to do so according to pre-given
categories. Therefore, the resulting classificatory (im)politeness1 information that we obtained through the questionnaire
cannot be taken, strictly speaking, as spontaneously their own such is, indeed, the nature of most experimentally controlled
studies. We tried to minimise the effect of this by providing in our Likert scale first-order (im)politeness categories. Thus, we
used the first-order (im)politeness notion of neither-polite-nor-impolite, that is, contextually and socially appropriate,
instead of its second-order (im)politeness equivalent, namely politic (cf. Watts et al., 1992). The terms polite and
impolite were retained. Although we are aware of debates regarding their not being ideal first-order notions (cf. e.g. Watts,
2008; Garces-Conejos Blitvich et al., 2010), the lack of widely agreed upon terms for politeness and impoliteness led us to opt
for those that arguably constitute the two default second-order terms: polite and impolite. (Im)politeness research
should continue to address this important area with a view to improving empirical design in the future. We also sought to
avoid second-order-influenced conceptual specificity (e.g. rude versus impolite). Asking respondents to provide reasons
for their ratings, furthermore sought both to elicit greater information regarding classificatory (im)politeness1 and to
encourage explicit comments about (im)politeness as a concept i.e., evidence of metapragmatic (im)politeness1. What is
more, since our respondents were part of the intended recipients of the asynchronous on-line polylogal sequences examined,
asking them to provide reasons for their ratings sought to trigger and it did so expressive (im)politeness1, that is,
expressions of (im)politeness encoded in the questionnaire responses.
5. Results
5.1. The IR study
A total of 61 polylogal sequences were identified in our corpus. These included 409 turns and 365 participants altogether.
The average number of turns and participants per sequence were, therefore, 6.7 and 1.1, respectively. Out of the 409 turns,
173 were in Spanish, 195 were in English and 54 combined Spanish and English. Only ten turns were in other languages
(Italian and Portuguese).16
Use of impoliteness was calculated firstly at the superstrategy level, specifically by pooling impoliteness strategies into
one of three groups: positive impoliteness (P-IMP), negative impoliteness (N-IMP) and off-record impoliteness (OR-IMP).
15
Expressive politenesss1 designates politeness as it is encoded in speech; classificatory politeness1 refers to use of politeness as a tool for
categorisation; and metapragmatic politeness1 concerns instances of talk about politeness as a concept, about what people perceive politeness to be all
about (Eelen, 2001: 35).
16
Although not within the remit of this article, it is important to note that code-switching in some of these turns was linked to individual impoliteness
strategies, notably dissociate from the other. This lends support to Cashmans (2006) investigation of relational work in a bilingual community that made
use of code-switching, the results of which suggested a possible link between impoliteness and code-switching. Cashman (2008) found that bilingual
informants and participants in role play and spontaneous interaction saw code switching as a resource for constructing/interpreting impoliteness.
Specifically, impoliteness and code switching were found to serve as resources to challenge, reaffirm or augment power.
[()TD$FIG]
2585
114; 13%
401; 45%
380; 42%
P-IMP
N-IMP
OR-IMP
Fig. 1. Number of occurrences; percentages of superstrategies in the corpus.
No. of occurrences
[()TD$FIG]
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
1
7 10 13 16 19 22 25 28 31 34 37 40 43 46 49 52 55 58 61
Sequence No.
P-IMP
N-IMP
OR-IMP
Fig. 2. Distribution of impoliteness superstrategies (P-IMP; N-IMP; OR-IMP) across sequences in the corpus.
The total number of occurrences for each of these and their distribution across the 61 sequences are shown in Figs. 1 and 2,
respectively.
T-tests (paired, two sample for means) found significant differences between the use of P-IMP and OR-IMP [t (60) = 6.71,
p < .001], as well as between N-IMP and OR-IMP [t (60) = 5.95, p < .001]. The difference between P-IMP and N-IMP was
significant at the 0.5 level [t (60) = 0.68, p = 0.2].
The occurrence of individual impoliteness strategies within each of the three superstrategies was next calculated. This
revealed considerable disparity. One impoliteness strategy (use of obscure or secretive language, OSL) did not feature at all.
Several others were used less than five times in the entire corpus. Of the rest, those with a frequency of use greater than 10%
of the total for their respective superstrategy were subjected to statistical analysis. Fig. 3 shows the number of occurrences of
these strategies.17
The differences between the most frequent P-IMP strategy, namely call other names, and the remaining P-IMP
strategies (dissociate from the other, use taboo words and seek disagreement) were not statistically significant. The
difference between the frequency of use of the two OR-IMP strategies, namely implicated impoliteness and sarcasm, was
significant at the 0.5 level [t (60) = 1.85, p < .05]. The difference between the most frequent N-IMP strategy, i.e., explicitly
associate the other with a negative aspect, and all the remaining strategies was significant.18
5.2. The II study
Out of the 60 questionnaires that were administered, four were either only partially completed or completed
inadequately (i.e., respondents did not take the questionnaire seriously) and were therefore discarded. Initial analysis was
conducted separately for the questionnaires completed by males (n = 19) and females (n = 37). However, only minor (not
statistically significant) differences were observed. In what follows, therefore, pooled results are reported. Figs. 4 and 5 show
the questionnaire ratings for each turn within sequence #1 and sequence #2, respectively.
As can be seen in Fig. 4, there was virtually 100% agreement regarding the assessment of turns 1, 3 and 4 in Sequence #1 as
being (very) impolite (4 /5 ratings). There was also virtually 100% agreement regarding the assessment of turn 2 as being
17
Please note that shading in Fig. 3 reflects, arbitrarily, of course, impoliteness superstrategies: P-IMP (light grey); N-IMP (dark grey); OR-IMP (white).
ANA BO [t (60) = 4.92, p < .001]; ANA DFO [t (60) = 4.25, p < .001]; ANA SD [t (60) = 3.81, p < .001]; ANA CON [t (60) = 3.04, p < .001];
ANA CSR [t (60) = 2.82, p = .002]; ANA IIP [t (60) = 4.31, p < .001)]. Bonferroni correction was applied in all cases. [ANA = associate with a negative
aspect; BO = block the other; DFO = dissociate from the other; SD = seek disagreement; CON = call the other names; CSR = condescend, scorn,
ridicule; IIP = implicated impoliteness].
18
[()TD$FIG]
No. of occurences
2586
250
194
200
150
100
92
111
109
91
76
71
61
43
50
0
DFO
SD
TW
CON
CSR
ANA
BO
IIP
SRC
Impoliteness strategy
Fig. 3. Frequency of use of individual impoliteness strategies in the corpus.
[()TD$FIG]
56
No. of ratings
60
54
50
54
39
40
30
15
20
10
0
Turn 1
Turn 2
Very polite - polite (1-2)
Turn 3
Neither polite nor impolite (3)
Turn 4
Impolite-very impolite (4-5)
Fig. 4. Questionnaire ratings Sequence #1 (Turns 14).
[()TD$FIG]
54
No. of ratings
60
50
40
29
30
20
21
17
20
10
10
15
0
Turn 1
Very polite - polite (1-2)
Turn 2
Neither polite nor impolite (3)
Turn 3
Impolite-very impolite (4-5)
Fig. 5. Questionnaire ratings Sequence #2 (Turns 13).
not (very) impolite in this sequence but both (very) polite (1 /2 ratings; n = 39) and neither-polite-nor-impolite
(3 ratings; n = 15) were obtained for this turn.
In sequence #2 (Fig. 5), there was nearly 100% agreement regarding assessment of turn 2 as being (very) impolite (4 /5
ratings; n = 54). There was considerable variation, though, regarding the assessment of turn 1, with slightly over half of the
respondents awarding 3-ratings to turn 1 (n = 29). Of the remaining 28 respondents, seventeen gave 1 /2 ratings and ten
gave 4 /5 ratings. Assessments of turn 3 showed greater variation still, with similar numbers of 1 /2 (n = 21), 3 (n = 20)
and 4 /5 (n = 15) ratings. All in all, then, highly consistent ratings were obtained for five of the seven turns assessed
through the questionnaire.
6. Discussion
6.1. The realisation of impoliteness in postings sent in response to the OR YouTube video
Our first research question sought to explore how impoliteness was realised in the IR corpus. Impoliteness realisation was
hypothesised not to be random but to follow patterns of use similar to those identified in like YouTube settings. As reported
in section 4.1 (Fig. 2), off-record impoliteness strategies were much less frequently used in our corpus (13%) than on-record
ones (87%). This closely matches the results obtained in past studies by Lorenzo-Dus (2009a) and Garces-Conejos Blitvich
(2010b). Likewise, within on-record impoliteness strategies, the findings of this and the latter two studies revealed a
preference for the use of strategies that were saliently oriented towards attacking the positive face of ones interlocutor(s).
This preference was, however, only minimal in our study: P-IMP 44.8%; N-IMP 42.5%. The results of our study therefore
2587
strongly support the thesis that polarisation in on-line polylogues is linked to on-record impoliteness. They also support to a
lesser extent the idea that it is linked to the use of impoliteness strategies that target saliently others positive face. Example 1
below illustrates this within the first turn of a polylogal sequence:
Example 1 [text coded to a P-IMP strategy has been underlined for clarity of presentation purposes; ANA = associate
with a negative aspect; BO = block the other; CON = call the other names; IIM = Inappropriate Identity Marker.]
watcher2012
WARNING!!! Wake up you fools [CON] Husssie Obama [IIM] Is the antichrist!! [CON] Discontinue [BO] your
worship of this false messiah! [CON] He is anti-GOD and a liar. . .[CON] He is a master of mendacity [CON] that is filled
with hate and retribution [ANA] . . .His heart is not with Mexico or the USA. . .His heart belongs to Islam and African. . .[ANA]
Do not follow [BO] this liar [CON] or he will lead you straight to hell. . . [ANA] Dec.23rd 2012!!
In addition to illustrating the frequency of use of positive impoliteness strategies (seven out of the twelve coded strategies),
Example 1 is also illustrative of what we see as a flaw in current impoliteness2 taxonomies, namely their placing explicitly
associate the other with a negative aspect within the group of negative impoliteness strategies. This is admittedly what we
did in this study, too, for the purposes of analytic comparison with previous studies. However, having examined carefully the
performance of explicitly associate the other with a negative aspect in our data (and re-examined its performance in the
previous studies used as comparators), we believe that it displays considerable functional similarity to the P-IMP strategy
call the other names.
In our view, both explicitly associate the other with a negative aspect (ANA) and call the other names (CON) are more
saliently oriented towards attacking the positive rather than the negative face needs of ones target(s). In each of the three
occurrences of ANA in Example 1, for instance, it is Obamas presumed face needs to feel liked and appreciated as a potential
US President that are attacked by explicitly associating him with someone who is filled with hate and retribution (ANA),
whose . . . heart [is] not [. . .] with Mexico or the USA. . .[but] belong[s] to Islam and African. . . (ANA) and who is capable of
lead[ing] you straight to hell. . . (ANA). Attacks on Obama in Example 1 through the use of CON, for their part, are also made
on grounds of his being the antichrist!!, a false messiah!, anti-GOD and a liar. and this liar. Other than possibly in its
degree of severity/explicitness, in Example 1 such name-calling is functionally similar, and face-wise similarly oriented, to
the explicit association of Obama with negative aspects. It is our contention, therefore, that ANA and CON should be placed
within the same superstrategy (P-IMP).19 Doing so, incidentally, would considerably strengthen the statistical evidence
regarding the preference for P-IMP in our data.
Two other impoliteness realisation patterns were revealed in this study to be consistent with those obtained in
comparative past studies. Firstly, and as noted above, explicitly associate the other with a negative aspect was the most
frequently used strategy in all three studies, followed by the N-IMP strategy condescend, scorn or ridicule. Secondly,
the most frequent P-IMP strategies across the three studies (excluding ANA) were disassociate from the other and call
the other names. Whereas call the other names was used in both our study and in Lorenzo-Dus (2009a) more
frequently than dissociate from the other, the inverse trend was found in Garces-Conejos Blitvichs (2010b). This may
be a function of the type of polylogal interaction in the latter study, which included less participants than was the case in
Lorenzo-Dus (2009a) and the present study. In the corpus used by Garces-Conejos Blitvichs (2010b), in fact, a
considerable number of sequences contained turn-chains in which speakers engaged in clearly demarcated, polarised
positioning. Dissociating themselves from others was part and parcel of such polarised positioning. While similar cases of
dissociate from the other were also present in our corpus and in Lorenzo-Dus (2009a), larger and more transient subgroups emerged therein, whose members did not always make explicit the distance existing between them and (an)other
member(s)/sub-groups.
In sum, our hypothesis that the realisation of impoliteness in our corpus would be broadly similar to that found in other
online polylogal contexts was confirmed. Just as several studies of impoliteness in reality television have gradually identified
patterns regarding the use of certain impoliteness strategies over others (cf. Bousfield, 2008a,b; Culpeper, 1996, 2005;
Culpeper et al., 2003; Lorenzo-Dus, 2009c), impoliteness realisation in the institutionally less controlled context setting of
on-line polylogues (at least those examined within YouTube) also seems to exhibit some degree of patterning. Further
empirical case studies are clearly needed, though, to unveil further/more specific patterns. In doing so, third-wave CMC
researchers may be seen to contribute to bringing to the centre of attention the variety of group practices that characterise
computer-mediated environments (Androutsopoulos, 2006: 421).
6.2. Interpreting impoliteness in postings sent in response to the OR YouTube video
Our second research question sought to ascertain how a sample of the distributed recipients of some postings in response
to the OR YouTube video interpreted (im)politeness therein. In answering this question, we combined (im)politeness1 and 2
approaches. A pioneering study adopting this combined approach is Lorenzo-Dus (2009c), in which the analysts
categorisation of impoliteness was examined alongside those given by the distributed recipients of the sequences in which
19
This does not deny the fact that both may simultaneously threaten their targets negative face (see section 2).
2588
such impoliteness arose. The communicative context in which impoliteness was realised in that study was also a polylogal
one specifically, a British reality television programme in which lay participants are often humiliated by experts. This
broadcast context was selected because of the clash frequently found therein between cultural (Anglo-Saxon) and local
(exploitative television) norms (cf. Culpeper, 2005). The former generally follow principles of civility and seek to avoid
face-threat, let alone impoliteness (cf. e.g. Lakoff, 1989). The latter thrive on the use of offensive behaviour as a means to
creating spectacular incivility, that is, incivility-as-spectacle (Lorenzo-Dus, 2009b: 100). Impoliteness interpretation in
this context was investigated bearing in mind all those involved in its participation framework and sought to ascertain
whether, and to what extent, their assessments converged. Our II study adapted the above experimental design to the
computer-mediated setting of YouTube. Below we discuss our findings vis-a`-vis the three factors underlying our emic
approach to (im)politeness, namely (a) explicit assessments made by YouTube users in their turns; (b) users uptake/
orientation to previous turns; and (c) assessments (through questionnaire) of YouTube users who had read these turns but
had not contributed their own.
(a) Explicit assessments made by YouTube users in their turns: Throughout the corpus, users made a considerable
number of comments regarding their own views on the linguistic/pragmatic (in)adequacy of prior turns (cf. Eelens
metapragmatic (im)politeness1). Consider, as an illustration, Example 2:
Example 2
myamulata21 - Independientemente, de tus ideologias o posicion politica te sugiero expreses tus opiniones y tu punto de vista de
una manera mas inteligente y sin tener que recurrir al uso de lenguaje despectivo y peyorativo. Esto hace lucir tu opinion ignorante
y desmerece tu argumento. Como puerto rriquena y partidaria de Barrack Obama lamento no la critica, a la que tienes derecho, sino
al tono vulgar de la misma. Elevemos la naturaleza del debate.
[Regardless of your ideology or political stance, I suggest that you express your opinions and viewpoint in a more intelligent
fashion and without resorting to the use of derogatory and pejorative language. Doing so shows off your ignorant opinion and
debases your argument. As a Puerto Rican and a Barack Obama supporter I dont regret criticism, to which youre entitled, but
its vulgar tone. Lets elevate the nature of the debate.] (authors translation).
In Example 2, myamulate21s meta-linguistic/pragmatic comments are framed within the speech act of suggesting (te
sugiero que I suggest to you that). They are also extensively justified in terms of their leading, if followed, to enhanced
impression management for myamulate2s explicitly addressed recipient (i.e., the you in the message). The latters failure to
do so is evaluated as show[ing] up your ignorant opinion and debas[ing] your argument. Use of derogative and pejorative
language is talked about (meta-represented) by myamulata21 as something that the author of the previous turn should
refrain from in order to elevate the nature of the debate. Myamulata21s meta-comments, therefore, imply the existence of
a netiquette (cf. Graham, 2007, 2008). This is not to say, however, that users such as myamulata21 knowingly observe
YouTube Community Guidelines no postings in our corpus made explicit/implicit reference to these, for instance. Instead,
their postings both showed clear evidence of netiquette norms being ignored and, in cases such as myamulata21s posting
above (of which there were a considerable number in the corpus), of concern that civility should constitute the general
standard of behaviour within this forum.
(b) Participants uptake/orientation to previous turns: Often in our corpus, too, YouTube users signalled their assessment
of impoliteness explicitly through uptake turns or orientations to previous turns, as illustrated in Example 3 below:
Example 3 (sequence #1)
Turn 1. chilenazo7
obama fucking nigga go back to afrika!!!
Turn 2. IntegrityFilmsfire
Africa is beautiful and the word nigger is so old. Obama will be President get over it . . .Obama08
Turn 3. lbjfanbigups
chilenazo7 fucking white trash or maybe cholo [crazy] get a GED!!!20
Turn 4. lacolectiva
fuck all you haters, this song is the shit!!! OBAMA !!!! all you ignorant ass motherfuckers, quit hating!!! and fuck you
chilenazo7 deberias ser chickenasshole, seguro que eres un maricon frustrado!!! eres una verguenza para los chilenos, obama
para presidente
[. . . you should be chickenasshole, you must be a frustrated faggot!!! You bring shame on Chileans, Obama for President].
(authors translation).
In the above sequence, an initial contribution by chilenazo7 (turn 1) triggers three counter-reaction turns (turns 24). Turn 2
is oriented to the content of turn 1, picking up on the three aspects attacked by chilenazo7 therein: afrika, nigger, and
20
GED: General Education Development test a test that certifies that the taker has American or Canadian high school-level academic skills.
2589
Table 3
Questionnaire Ratings and Reasons provided Sequence #1. [Only reasons with an occurrence equal or higher than five (5) are listed.].
Turn no.
Individual
impoliteness
strategies
Ratings
Reasons (number of times given)
Turn 1
CON (1)
TW (1)
BO (1)
SD (1)
4 /5
(n = 56)
* racist use of language/racist user (30)

* inappropriate/offensive vocabulary (22)
1 /2
(n = 39)
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Turn 2
scores (n = 15)
Turn 3
CON (1)
TW (1)
IIP (1)
4 /5
(n = 54)
Turn 4
BO (3)
CON (3)
TW (3)
4 /5
(n = 54)
non-offensive/non-insulting (14)
educated use of language (16)
colloquial language (12)
not (too) offensive but failing to respect others opinions when disagreeing (13)
rude (26)
racist comments (31)
insulting (23)
taboo words (32)
taboo words (37)
insulting behaviour (42)
attacking homosexuality (16)
obama. Each of these is defensively countered in turn 2 without resorting to impoliteness (other than possibly the use of the
imperative get over it), which conveys lack of concern, interest or sympathy towards chilenazo7. Turns 3 and 4, for their
part, are clearly counter-offensive.21 In turn 3, chilenazo7 is called fucking white trash or maybe cholo (an instance of call
the other names) and hes instructed to get a GED (an instance of condescend, scorn, ridicule, for GEDs are associated
with under-achievers in the sense that they are taken by those who are unable to complete high school). In turn 4, lacolectiva
attacks a wider group (fuck all you haters . . .all you ignorant motherfuckers quit hating!!!), before singling out chilenazo7
for further impoliteness. The latters perceived impoliteness in turn 1 is explicitly addressed in turn 4 by lacolectiva, who
calls him a chickenasshole and presents him as a frustrated faggot and someone who bring[s] shame on Chileans. In this
short sequence, uptake to a prior turn that is perceived to be impolite, develops into an impoliteness crescendo itself.
(c) Assessment questionnaires by YouTube users who had watched the video, read relevant turns but not contributed
their own. In section 5.2 we reported high agreement levels in the assessment of impoliteness by questionnaire respondents
for Sequence #1 (Example 3). This suggests that, despite the frequency of impoliteness vis-a`-vis politeness in the YouTube
setting under examination (Garces-Conejos Blitvich et al., under review), impoliteness was not interpreted as unmarked
behaviour by the questionnaire respondents. Further evidence thereof was obtained by examining the reasons generally
given for awarding different ratings. These are grouped per turn in Table 3 (sequence #1).
Respondents highlighted the racist and offensive language/views conveyed in turn 1, and this corresponded to the
analysts identification of use of taboo words and call the other names strategies therein. Respondents also noted the
presence of impolitely worded disagreements in this turn, which tied in with the analysts identification of the strategy seek
disagreement. Rude language and directing racist/homophobic comments against others were referred to by respondents to
justify their 4 /5 ratings of turns 3 and 4, which once again tied in with the analysts identified strategies of use of taboo
words and call the other names.
Respondents reasons for their ratings thus reinforce the hypothesis that civility norms guide interpretations of
interpersonal relations in YouTube. Moreover, respondents comments were related to the impoliteness strategies in the
data, principally to the use of taboo words and name-calling. Sequence #2 in the questionnaire, for which lower levels of
respondents agreement were obtained, is reproduced in Example 4:
Example 4 Sequence #2
Turn 1. Belen778
Yo soy latina que vive en espana y si me tocara votar estaria con obama, ademas que esta bien bueno. que viva venezuela!!!
[Im a Latina who lives in Spain and if I had to vote Id support Obama, not least because hes very hot. . . Long live
Venezuela!!!]
Turn 2. chilenazo7
la mina mas bruta, estupida mujer, vete a la cocina y no estai metiendote en cocina, como vai a votar por un negro y solo
porque esta bueno le vas a dar tu voto, a la cocina
[such a common woman, stupid woman, go to the kitchen and dont mess about in the kitchen, how come are you going
to vote for a nigger and just because hes very hot youre going to give him your vote, [go back] to the kitchen]
Turn 3. Belen778
21
The terms trigger, counter-offensive turn (move) and counter-defensive turn (move) are used here in the sense of Bousfield (2007).
2590
Table 4
Questionnaire Ratings and Reasons provided Sequence #2. [Only reasons with an occurrence equal or higher than five (5) are listed.].
Turn no.
Individual impoliteness strategies
Ratings
Reasons (number of times given)
Turn 1
1 /2
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Turn 2
Turn 3
CON (2)
BO (2)
CSR (1)
ANA (2)
DUU (1)
BO (1)
(n = 17)
(n = 29)
4 /5
(n = 10)
4 /5
(n = 54)
1 /2
(n = 21)
(n = 20)
4 /5
(n = 15)
respectful expression of ones views (28)

personal affinity with views expressed in turn 1 (11)
absence of insults (18)
weak argument (21)
inappropriate argument (10)
vulgar/colloquial use of language (15)
sexist/misogynist (45)
insulting (33)
cant write (12)
defends ones view/non-offensive (16)
respectful (15)
defends ones view although is impolite to user in turn 1 (12)
expression errors (9)
insulting (14)
lack of respect (18)
si no sabes ni escribir como te voy a dar importancia a las tonterias que haz tratado de escribir, hazte un curso de ortografia
y no hagas perder el tiempo a la gente, y vive en democracia cada quie`n es libre de votar por quie`n le de la gana vive y
deja vivir!!!
[if you cant even write how am I going to attach any importance to the nonsense that youve tried to write, take a
spelling course and dont waste peoples time, and live according to democracy, everyone is free to vote for whomever
they want to, live and let live!!!]. (authors translation).
As reported in section 5.2 (Fig. 5), nearly all questionnaire respondents perceived turn 2 as impolite, but there was
disagreement regarding the other two turns in this part of the sequence, as shown in Table 4.
Respondents varying interpretations regarding turn 1, which contained no impoliteness strategies, was initially
surprising, given the close match between (im)politeness1 and 2 assessments obtained for Sequence #1. It must be
remembered, though, that only ten out of the 56 respondents considered this turn (very) impolite so (im)politeness1
and 2 assessments for this turn did not contradict each other significantly. Reasons for assessment of this turn as (very)
impolite concerned the inappropriateness of commenting colloquially or through vulgar expressions on Obamas
looks and to base ones vote on his appearance. Reasons for assessing this turn as either (very) polite or neutral included
absence of insults (n = 18), expression of ones views (n = 28) and personal affinity with the views expressed in the turn
(n = 11).
Nearly all respondents assessed turn 2 as (very) impolite on the grounds of its author being sexist and misogynist (n = 45),
displaying insulting behaviour (n = 33) and, less frequently, poor literacy (n = 12). The first two of these reasons can be linked
to individual impoliteness strategies identified in the turn, specifically here to call the other names and condescend, scorn,
ridicule.
There was considerable variation among respondents regarding assessment of turn 3, which may owe to the absence of
either name calling or use of taboo words. Name calling, insulting others and use of bad language as we discussed earlier
were the most frequently and consistently given reasons for awarding 4 /5 ratings in Sequence #1. Respondents who
found turn 3 in Sequence #2 (very) polite (1 /2 ratings) argued that its author was just defending herself (n = 16) and doing
so with respect towards the previous user (n = 15). Some (n = 12) also referred to personal affinity with the view expressed in
turn 3. Those respondents who awarded 3 ratings to this turn seemed to base their ratings on similar grounds, namely
defending ones views (n = 12) and personal affinity with the views expressed in turn 4 (n = 7).
One must not lose sight of the size of the questionnaire sample when venturing any explanations regarding the link
between use of certain impoliteness strategies in the corpus and their interpretation by some YouTube users. With this
important caveat in mind, however, our findings tentatively lend weight to our second hypothesis, namely that norms of
public discourse civility underlie assessments of (im)polite/politic behaviour in YouTube. Specifically, it seems that those
stereotypical politeness1 features associated with being nice (do not use bad language, do not insult others) are most
saliently assessed by the YouTube users in this study.
7. Conclusions
This article has investigated impoliteness within a sizeable corpus of YouTube comments posted in response to a political
campaign video also posted on YouTube. The analysis has looked both at how impoliteness was realised within this corpus
and how it was interpreted by (samples of) its distributed recipients. In doing so, the analysis has furthered recent work in
(im)politeness that integrates not only first and second order approaches (Lorenzo-Dus, 2009c) but also quantitative and
qualitative methods (Holmes and Schnurr, 2005; Garces-Conejos Blitvich, 2010b; Lorenzo-Dus, 2009c).
2591
Our results are revealing in a number of ways. Firstly, use of individual impoliteness strategies in the corpus was similar
to that identified in the literature on online, polylogal contexts, thereby pointing to the existence of some degree of
patterning regarding impoliteness realisation. Prior research in other public, mediated contexts, namely so-called
exploitative television has gradually established a preference for certain impoliteness strategies. Reasons for this may be
linked to the performed nature of talk including impolite talk in this broadcast genre, specifically its routine, produced-asentertainment humiliation of lay folk therein, often through witty, sarcastic remarks and condescension. Our finding that
impoliteness realisation is also patterned to a certain extent in the institutionally much-less controlled communicative
environment of YouTube is important insofar as the patterns that we have identified (on record, saliently positive
impoliteness) correspond to those to be expected within the SIDE model (cf. section 2) for deindividuated contexts in which
social identity is salient. Social identity relies on membership of groups (or social categories). In a polarised environment,
such as provided by YouTube postings, these groups are likely to define themselves ideologically in classic us versus them
terms (cf. Van Dijk, 1998). The them group, in turn, is likely to be explicitly associated with negative aspects, clearly
disassociated from, and so forth that is, its construction is likely to rely on the kind of saliently positive impoliteness
strategies that we found in our quantitative IR study.
A second finding emerging from our analysis of how impoliteness was realised in the corpus and one clearly benefitting
from a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods concerns the function and salient orientation of individual
impoliteness strategies, in particular explicitly associate the other with a negative aspect (ANA). Close examination of the
discourse stretches coded to this strategy in the corpus (and in other similar corpora to which we had access) revealed that it
predominantly oriented towards attacking the positive face needs of the person/s being addressed and that it displayed a
very similar function to the P-IMP strategy call the other names. On the basis of this examination we contend that ANA
should be considered to exhibit salient (rather than exclusive) orientation towards positive impoliteness. It could indeed be
possibly regarded as the less explicit equivalent of call the other names although further empirical work would be
needed before the latter may be fully supported.
Thirdly, and lastly, our analysis of how impoliteness was interpreted in the corpus under investigation revealed
considerable similarities between impoliteness1 and impoliteness2 assessments. It also revealed that (im)politeness1
assessments were often related to norms of public discourse associated with civility. Here, it must be remembered, we
adopted an emic approach in which assessments by all distributed recipients of impoliteness were accounted for. Our
approach in fact drew upon: (a) impoliteness2 (analysts assessments through their independent and joint coding of the
corpus); and (b) impoliteness1 (YouTube participants in the online polylogal discussions and a sample of YouTube users who
did not post messages in response to the OR video but who did watch it and read some of these postings). Our decision to
include within (b) YouTube users who posted comments and those who did not stems from our initial goal to examine online polylogues in their participatory complexity. (im)politeness in these contexts is generated in full cognisance that it will
potentially reach others beyond those directly involved in this realisation. Treating these others simply as overhearers
or any other non-ratified reception role therefore neglects a crucial aspect of how impoliteness operates in online
polylogues.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to express their thanks to Dr. Marsh for his valuable comments on an earlier draft of this paper and
to the organisers and delegates of the international conference Linguistic Impoliteness and Rudeness II (Lancaster
University, 2009) and the Journal of Pragmatics anonymous reviewers for their feedback on some of the aspects of this paper.
Any outstanding issues are our responsibility. Patricia Bou-Franchs and Nuria Lorenzo-Dus contribution was partly funded
by the GENTEXT Research Group (Spanish Ministry of Education, FFI2008-04534?FILO).
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Nuria Lorenzo-Dus is Reader in Linguistics in the College of Arts and Humanities at Swansea University, UK, where she also directs the Language Research Centre
http://www.swansea.ac.uk/artsandhumanities/riah/ResearchGroups/LanguageResearchCentre/. She has published widely in journals, including Journal of
Pragmatics, Journal of Politeness Research and Media, Culture & Society. She is the author of Television Discourse (Palgrave Macmillan 2009) and the editor and
contributing author of Spanish at Work. Analysing Institutional Discourse across the Spanish-speaking World (Palgrave Macmillan 2010). She is currently coinvestigator in two funded projects, one by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (Conflicts of Memory Mediating the 7/7 London Bombings) and the other
by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science (Gender and Sexual (In)equality in Contemporary British and Spanish Society).
Pilar Garces-Conejos Blitvich (Ph.D. University of Valencia) is an Associate Professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte (USA) where she
teaches applied linguistics. Her work focuses on im-politeness models, genre theory, identity theory and (traditional/new) media discourse. Recent publications
include papers in international journals such as the Journal of Politeness Research, Intercultural Pragmatics, International Review of Pragmatics, International Review of
Applied Linguistics, Issues in Political Discourse Analysis and a co-edited collection Pragmatics and context (Toronto, CA: Antares). She has also recently edited a
special issue on impoliteness across cultures for Intercultural Pragmatics, and is currently editing a special issue on the interconnection between face and identity
for the Journal of Politeness Research. She is the co-editor in chief of the series Advances in Pragmatics and Discourse Analysis Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Patricia Bou-Franch works as Associate Professor in the school of Philology, Translation and Communication Studies (University of Valencia, Spain). Her research
interests include (im)politeness, language and gender, computer-mediated communication and cross-cultural communication. She has published in international
journals like International Review of Applied Linguistics, Intercultural Pragmatics and Journal of Pragmatics and is co-editor of Gender and Sexual Identities in
Transition: International Perspectives (Cambridge Scholar Publishing, 2008). She is currently co-investigator in a research project funded by the Spanish Ministry of
Education and Science (Gender and Sexual (In)equality in Contemporary British and Spanish Society).

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Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

On-line polylogues and impoliteness: The case of postings sent in

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Implicated (positive/negative) impoliteness

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Invade the others space [IOS]

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Fig. 1. Number of occurrences; percentages of superstrategies in the corpus.

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Very polite - polite (1-2)

Neither polite nor impolite (3)

Fig. 4. Questionnaire ratings Sequence #1 (Turns 14).

Fig. 5. Questionnaire ratings Sequence #2 (Turns 13).

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Reasons (number of times given)

* racist use of language/racist user (30)

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Individual impoliteness strategies

Reasons (number of times given)

respectful expression of ones views (28)

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