Dear friends, traitors and filthy dogs
Vocatives and impoliteness in online discussions of the Greek crisis
A growing line of research focuses on users’ discussions on social networking sites regarding the causes and
consequences of the Greek crisis, as well as on online impoliteness in polarised political debates. Following this trend, I set
out to examine how vocatives meant to address non-present interactants (such as politicians or collectivised others) are employed
by Greek Facebook and YouTube users to delegitimate their perceived political opponents and attribute blame for the country’s
problematic politico-economic situation. I am focusing both on standardly impolite vocatives (personalised negative vocatives) and
on superficially polite vocatives (vocatives of mock-endearment and mock-deference), examining their structure and purpose in
comments discussing the critical period of the 2015 Greek referendum and subsequent elections. Findings suggest that users exploit
norms of standardised politeness and cultural expectations within the Greek interactional context to denigrate
their political opponents. Additionally, capitalising on salient discourses on the Greek crisis and on the Greek historical past,
on the political content of their discussions, and on the affordances of social media, they take advantage of taboo themes
typically associated with impoliteness to name the culprits behind the troublesome everyday Greek reality.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Vocatives as an impoliteness strategy
- 2.1Mock-polite vocatives and impoliteness
- 2.2Personalised negative vocatives and impoliteness
- 2.3Addressees of vocatives
- 3.Data and method of analysis
- 3.1Data collection and selection criteria
- 3.2Procedure of analysis
- 4.Results and discussion
- 4.1Distribution of mock-polite and personalised negative vocatives in the data
- 4.2Public impoliteness through mock-endearment and mock-deference
- 4.3Public impoliteness through personalised negative vocatives
- 4.3.1Personalised negative vocatives targeting public actors
- 4.3.2Public impoliteness against collectivised others
- 5.Conclusions
- Notes
-
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