4.1Characterization of the functions

Three main pragmatic uses of “hhh” were detected in the corpus.

Contempt marker: the use of the marker to convey a negative message of contempt, ridicule, disgust, or discord, towards a previous text (comment or post), its authors or other politicians or commenters holding similar views. This functioning of “hhh” could be perceived in B’s response to A’s show of support towards Gantz (see 4.2 for a detailed analysis).1414.The examples were translated by the authors (Hebrew available upon request) to best reflect their pragmatic implications, without representing typos, grammatical errors or other mistakes found in the originals. Punctuation was occasionally added to facilitate the reading. Explanatory details were added by the authors in square brackets. In order to conserve their privacy, the commenters’ names were replaced with alphabetic letters indicating the orders of the comments, and used in all instances where a commenter was tagged or addressed by name.

In order to facilitate understanding, the original post by Gantz is provided first, followed by the main comment by A, and only then appears B’s response expressing contempt.

We consider contempt markers to be a subcategory of sentiment markers, which express a dominant affective approach towards the previous text and/or people associated with it.1515.No example of positive sentiment marking as a separate and distinct function of “hhh” was found in our corpus. There were, however, some intention and interpretation markers reflecting a positive affective stance (see below).

Intention marker: the use of the marker to facilitate the understanding of the previous or successive text inside the comment, by signaling to other commenters, that they, as addressees, should notice the pragmatic strategies it employs (mostly, irony, humor or softening strategies). For example:

Here, the “hhh” used at the end of B’s comment serves to stress his ironic intention, and facilitate its interpretation by other commenters (see 4.3 for a detailed analysis).

Interpretation marker: the use of the marker to signal that the commenter, as an addressee of the politician’s post or another commenter’s comment, has deciphered the pragmatic strategies it employed – mostly indirect meanings or softening strategies. For example:

Here, the “hhh” used at the start of B’s comment attests to his identification and appreciation of the irony and/or humor used by A (see 4.4 for a detailed analysis).

The differences between the functions are summarized in the Table 3.

The distribution of the functions in our corpus can be observed in Diagram 1.

As shown, the use of “hhh” as a contempt marker was the most prevalent (82% of all its occurrences), mostly either as a sole function or combined with intention marking. This finding is consistent with the polemical nature of the corpus examined. The second common use, significantly less frequent, was that of an intention marker (55%) – usually along with contempt marking; sometimes as a sole function; and more rarely combined with interpretation marking. Notably less common, was the function of interpretation marker (8%) – used with similar regularity as a sole function, along with contempt, or with intention marking.

In the following sub-sections, the three functions will be discussed and exemplified.

4.2“Hhh” as a contempt marker

The identification of this function was based on the interaction between the comment using the marker and the previous comment/s or post, to which it responded. As stated (Section 4.1), it was found that contempt marking was the central function in comments to politicians’ posts. That is to say, the marker was mostly used to convey a negative message of contempt, ridicule, disgust, or reluctance, towards a comment or post, its author, or other politicians or commenters holding similar views, including even the entire political wing.

As expected, “hhh” functioning as a contempt marker was usually encountered right after the comment targeted – either at the start of a new comment or as a sole content unit.1616.Similarly, König’s (2019)König, Katharina 2019 “Stance Taking with ‘Laugh’ Particles and Emojis – Sequential and Functional Patterns of ‘Laughter’ in a Corpus of German WhatsApp Chats.” Journal of Pragmatics 142: 156–170. König, Katharina 2019 “Stance Taking with ‘Laugh’ Particles and Emojis – Sequential and Functional Patterns of ‘Laughter’ in a Corpus of German WhatsApp Chats.” Journal of Pragmatics 1421: 156–170. study revealed a tendency for laugh particles to deploy an initial position in a responsive posting relating to previous utterances.

Contempt markers targeted three kinds of victims – either directly or indirectly (as a third party) – previous rival commenters, politicians, or the entire political wing.

As shown, contempt markers mostly targeted other commenters (81.71% of the eighty-two occurrences) – usually as sole victims (43.9%), sometimes along with their favored politicians (29.27%), and much less as representative of their own political wing (8.54%). The contempt was mostly directed at politicians together with commenters, and less so as only targets; which means that commenters using “hhh” to convey contempt understand the genre as an arena where they mainly clash with other commenters – not with the politicians – of the rival political wing (see Examples 1, 4, 5 in this section).

Based on previous studies (see Section 2), we consider the length of the marker to be indicative of the intensity of the contempt expressed towards the victims. Diagram 4 demonstrates the lengths of the markers in each category of victims.

Out of all contempt markers, the short ones were the least frequent (6.09%), while the long ones (including overlong) the most (62.19%). These findings attest to the intensity of the negative feelings characteristic of the confrontation between the two rival wings in this discursive arena. Interestingly, the relative rate of overlong markers was highest when the contempt was directed at the politicians. This suggests that even though politicians were not targeted as much as other commenters (see Diagram 3), when they were, the emotions appeared to be more intense.

The following examples demonstrate contempt marking.

In Example 1, the marker is the sole content B’s comment.

The graphic laughter marker in B’s comments is a typical example of contempt marking. After Gantz suggests voting for him will save Israel from the standstill political situation, his supporter, commenter A, continues in the same serious mode of bona-fide communication1717.I.e., without resorting to humor or other forms of indirectness (Raskin and Attardo 1994Raskin, Victor, and Salvatore Attardo 1994 “Non-literalness and Non-bona-fide in Language: An Approach to Formal and Computational Treatments of Humor.” Pragmatics and Cognition 2 (1): 31–69. Raskin, Victor, and Salvatore Attardo 1994 “Non-literalness and Non-bona-fide in Language: An Approach to Formal and Computational Treatments of Humor.” Pragmatics and Cognition 2 (1): 31–69. ). and replies with a sincere speech act that could be understood as a prediction or wishful thinking.

In these circumstances, B’s response – two successive comments consisting only of overlong laughter markers – can only be interpreted as an extreme expression of dismissal of either A’s belief or hope that Kahol Lavan can overcome the Likud party.

Example 4 follows the same post by Gantz. In this case, “hhh” appears at the start of B’s secondary comment.

Commenter A reacts with great enthusiasm to Gantz’s post; and is responded by a laugher marker opening B’s comment. The intense effect of the overlong marker is enhanced with an explicit lexical reference to the act of laughing: “I have never laughed like this before”.

As in the previous example, B’s use of a laughter marker immediately after A’s sincere speech acts implies an expression of contempt towards A and his serious utterance. This interpretation is reinforced by the surrounding co-text, which presents the idea of Gantz being a prime minister as absurd: “Gantz – a prime minister, let’s hear him speak without stuttering first”.1818.In several media interviews, Gantz stuttered or seemed confused, making him the butt of many snide remarks, partly due to the big difference between his timid performance to Netanyahu’s known rhetorical skills.

“Hhh” functioning solely as a contempt marker is found only rarely in the middle or end of a comment; and in these cases, it is preceded by other expressions of stance, as in the following example.

Netanyahu’s post shows a photo of Gantz meeting the leaders of the alliance Ha-Meshutefet with a caption supposedly capturing Gantz’s thoughts “we must advance with Ha-Meshutefet”, which Netanyahu labeled – “a dangerous advancement”. In this context, Netanyahu’s remark can be read as a warning to the electorate.

Commenter A, not a supporter of Netanyahu, replies to the post by suggesting that the latter focus on the trial held against him instead of recruiting more votes, which would be useless anyway: “no chance in hell, you won’t be prime minister”. Commenter B, who supports Netanyahu, responds by alluding to what s/he perceives to be not only unjustified but also absurd indictments (“A, on cigars and positive coverage – a life sentence?”), and asks whether A has “swallowed the lie”, implying that the latter is a naïve person who was misled by Netanyahu’s adversaries.

These accusations are met with two rhetorical questions both disputing and ridiculing B’s claims. By asking “what lie?” A implies that Netanyahu is not wrongly accused, and by “why a life sentence?”, that there was never any talk about such an extreme punishment. In this specific context, the marker “hhh” is used to signal contempt and mock the previous comment as well as the commenter behind it. This is reinforced with the blunt assertation “you guys are mad”, used to target the rest of Netanyahu’s supporters as well.

To sum up, our corpus shows that “hhh” as a contempt marker follows a text – post or comment by another commenter – which is uttered sincerely, in a bona-fide mode, and is not likely to evoke “real” laughter. In cases where “hhh” does not stand alone, its co-text – the rest of the comment – may add other contempt markers, some of them also indicating laughter, along with implications and clarifications of the reason for ridicule. As will be detailed subsequently, the function of contempt marker may accompany the other two functions.

4.3“Hhh” as an intention marker

As mentioned above (Section 4.1), intention marking was also prevalent in the corpus examined. This function consists of signaling to other commenters that they should note the pragmatic strategies (mostly, irony, humor, and softening strategies) employed previously or later in that same comment, in order to facilitate understanding. Thus, the identification of this function was based on the interaction between the marker and its immediate co-text at the same comment.

As to be expected, “hhh” used to signal intention does not stand alone, but follows, or is followed by, the text it clarifies, as shown in Diagram 5.

In the bulk of the present corpus, the intention marker “hhh” was used to convey mostly irony and/or humor in the juxtaposed text (see Examples 6, 2, 7 in this section); in only three occurrences it was interpreted as a politeness strategy marking a softening of the message conveyed in the same comment (see Example 8 in this section).

Diagram 6 presents the distribution of the different categories of intention markers in the present corpus.

Softening markers are inherently perceived as positive towards their direct addressees (see Example 8). In this corpus they were found to appeal to the positive face of commenters of the same political wing, creating solidarity between the interactants.

Positive intentions towards addressees were also displayed in two humorous occurrences (see Example 7). However, it is worth noting that, in this corpus, not only all ironic but also almost all humorous utterances, conveyed negative intentions towards a victim – either the direct addressee of the comment or a third party – threatening their positive face. These results coincide with the social corrective function of humor, i.e., its use to reinforce dominating political views (Tsakona and Popa 2011Tsakona, Villy, and Diana Elena Popa 2011 “Humour in Politics and the Politics of Humour.” Studies in Political Humour: In between Political Critique and Public Entertainment 46: 1–30. Tsakona, Villy, and Diana Elena Popa 2011 “Humour in Politics and the Politics of Humour.” Studies in Political Humour: In between Political Critique and Public Entertainment 461: 1–30. ). Four out of all humor markers in our corpus (7.27% of all intention markers) carried mixed affective intent: it was supportive of the direct addressee of the comment (previous commenter of the same political wing) but challenged a third party (commenters or politicians of the rival wing). This finding adds to the growing body of research demonstrating how humor contributes to the formation of boundaries between different political groups (Kuipers 2011Kuipers, Giselinde 2011 “The Politics of Humour in the Public Sphere: Cartoons, Power and Modernity in the First Transnational Humour Scandal.” European Journal of Cultural Studies 14 (1): 63–80. Kuipers, Giselinde 2011 “The Politics of Humour in the Public Sphere: Cartoons, Power and Modernity in the First Transnational Humour Scandal.” European Journal of Cultural Studies 14 (1): 63–80. ; Friedman and Kuipers 2013Friedman, Sam, and Giselinde Kuipers 2013 “The Divisive Power of Humour: Comedy, Taste and Symbolic Boundaries.” Cultural Sociology 7 (2): 179–195. Friedman, Sam, and Giselinde Kuipers 2013 “The Divisive Power of Humour: Comedy, Taste and Symbolic Boundaries.” Cultural Sociology 7 (2): 179–195. ). While the use of humor bonds interlocutors who share the same views (inclusive function); it also targets or alienates the ones who do not (exclusive function) (Tsakona and Popa 2011Tsakona, Villy, and Diana Elena Popa 2011 “Humour in Politics and the Politics of Humour.” Studies in Political Humour: In between Political Critique and Public Entertainment 46: 1–30. Tsakona, Villy, and Diana Elena Popa 2011 “Humour in Politics and the Politics of Humour.” Studies in Political Humour: In between Political Critique and Public Entertainment 461: 1–30. ).

Diagram 7 portrays the distribution of the victims of the irony and humor markers in the present corpus.

As shown, the victims of irony and humor, much like those of contempt markers, were mostly other commenters – either alone (32.73%), with politicians (32.73%), or as representatives of their own political wing (10.9%). Politicians were targeted mostly together with commenters supporting them (32.73%), and to a lesser extent, on their own (18.18%).

In Diagram 8, the length of the fifty-five negative intention markers is presented in relation to the victims they targeted.

In general, intention markers were found to be longer than standard in many occurrences (58.18% out of fifty-five occurrences), and only rarely shorter (7.27%). A high number of long and overlong markers was noted especially when the victims of irony and humor were other commenters (83.33% out of eighteen occurrences) or an entire political wing (83.33% out of six occurrences). However, when targeting a political wing, no overlong markers were observed. This form was only employed against politicians and commenters, either together or as sole victims.

Under the following conditions, and only then, “hhh” can be interpreted both as a contempt and an intention marker: (1) the marker appears as part of a text (that is, it does not stand alone in a comment); (2) the marker follows or is followed by an indirect strategy used in the same comment; (3) the stance expressed in the comment in which the marker appears is different from (and usually opposing to) the one of the previous comment. In those cases, determining which of the two functions was more dominant made little sense, since we assume that different readers may also oscillate between either of the two interpretations, or even opt for both.

The following examples demonstrate different intentions marked by “hhh”. In Example 6, it serves to mark the ironic intention of the commenter.

The post by Netanyahu is dedicated to the visit of prominent world leaders for the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and to the restoration of flood damages in Nahariya. The two issues are far from related, but they share Netanayahu’s positioning of an accomplished leader, both nationally and internationally.

Commenter A challenges said positioning, first with an ironic echoic (Sperber and Wilson 1981Sperber, Dan, and Deirdre Wilson 1981 “Irony and the Use-Mention Distinction.” In Radical Pragmatics, ed. by Peter Cole, 295–318. New York: Academic Press.Sperber, Dan, and Deirdre Wilson 1981 “Irony and the Use-Mention Distinction.” In Radical Pragmatics, ed. by Peter Cole, 295–318. New York: Academic Press.) rhetorical question implying that Israel would be lost without Netanyahu, and then with a series of extreme and absurd assertions. These are clearly insincere (Haverkate 1990Haverkate, Henk 1990 “A Speech Act Analysis of Irony.” Journal of Pragmatics 14: 77–109. Haverkate, Henk 1990 “A Speech Act Analysis of Irony.” Journal of Pragmatics 141: 77–109. ) and flout the maxims of quality and quantity (Grice 1975Grice, Paul H. 1975 “Logic and Conversation.” In Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech Acts, ed. by Peter Cole, and Jerry L. Morgan, 41–58. New York: Academic Press. Grice, Paul H. 1975 “Logic and Conversation.” In Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech Acts, ed. by Peter Cole, and Jerry L. Morgan, 41–58. New York: Academic Press. ). The laughter marker seems to signal the ironic intention of this co-text, but could also be viewed as a contempt marker, mocking Netanyahu for his self-praise.

In about a quarter of the occurrences of “hhh” signaling ironic intentions, the marker appears right after the ironic echo (Sperber and Wilson 1981Sperber, Dan, and Deirdre Wilson 1981 “Irony and the Use-Mention Distinction.” In Radical Pragmatics, ed. by Peter Cole, 295–318. New York: Academic Press.Sperber, Dan, and Deirdre Wilson 1981 “Irony and the Use-Mention Distinction.” In Radical Pragmatics, ed. by Peter Cole, 295–318. New York: Academic Press.) of a post or previous comment. Such case is the following.

Here Netanyahu’s post announces the nomination of a new minister, about a month and a half before the dissolution of the Knesset (the Israeli parliament) and the general elections. Commenter A supports the nomination, wishes the new minister luck, and predicts great success by using the Hebrew biblical expression ta’ase hail (excel).2020.The expression appears several times in the Old Testament, the most familiar one being “many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all” (Proverbs 31:29–31), and forms a part of the Sabbath dinner prayers in many Jewish households.

Commenter B echoes the exact expression A uses to predict the minister’s success: “excel”, but adds the time frame remaining until the elections: “in a month”; thus, ironically stressing the absurdity of A’s anticipation or wish. The comment could be regarded also as an ironic echoing (Sperber and Wilson 1981Sperber, Dan, and Deirdre Wilson 1981 “Irony and the Use-Mention Distinction.” In Radical Pragmatics, ed. by Peter Cole, 295–318. New York: Academic Press.Sperber, Dan, and Deirdre Wilson 1981 “Irony and the Use-Mention Distinction.” In Radical Pragmatics, ed. by Peter Cole, 295–318. New York: Academic Press.) of Netanyahu’s post; ridiculing his description of the nomination as important and even historical when he knows fully well that the minister would not be able to prove herself in such a short period of time.

As in the previous example, “hhh” here might serve also as a contempt marker, mocking commenter A and/or Netanyahu for their allegedly absurd notions.

Contrary to Examples 2 and 6, in the following two occurrences, “hhh” is used to mark a positive intention.

In this post, Netanyahu announces his upcoming trip to Washington, describing it as critical.2121.During his visit to the USA, Netanyahu met with the president at the time, Donald Trump, and reached several agreements concerning the security of Israel. The commenter, one of his supporters, reacts to an insignificant implication of the announcement – that Netanyahu, on his trip to the USA, will go through the Duty-Free area – by asking the prime minister to use the occasion and bring him/her perfume and chocolate. This sort of errand was common practice among Israeli friends and family members, more so in the past but to a certain extent till this very day, especially when the products are significantly less expensive than in Israel.

By asking Netanyahu to take advantage of the low prices of the Duty-Free shops, the commenter positions him/herself as his close friend. thus creating a script opposition (Raskin and Attardo 1994Raskin, Victor, and Salvatore Attardo 1994 “Non-literalness and Non-bona-fide in Language: An Approach to Formal and Computational Treatments of Humor.” Pragmatics and Cognition 2 (1): 31–69. Raskin, Victor, and Salvatore Attardo 1994 “Non-literalness and Non-bona-fide in Language: An Approach to Formal and Computational Treatments of Humor.” Pragmatics and Cognition 2 (1): 31–69. ) between the real situation (great distance and hierarchical differences between both parties) and the imagined one (of a friend going abroad) leading to a humorous effect. The rest of the comment maintains the positioning of Netanyahu as a friend, indicating the positive intention of the commenter, which is to laugh with Netanyahu (and supporters), not at his expanse. In this case then, we understand “hhh” as a humor marker signaling the addresser’s intention to make the addressees laugh, and perhaps also soften the potential threat to Netanyahu’s negative face, which insinuating such close friendship could pose.2222.In other circumstances, this comment could be interpreted as ironic, intending to reformulate Netanyahu’s trip as touristic trip and minimize its importance. However, the present interpretation relies on clues which are both co-textual – flower emojis, expressions of familiarity and intimacy – and contextual – the interlocutors’ Facebook personas and declared political affiliations; as well as on the study of this type of positive humor, which is very common in comments by Netanyahu’s supporters (see Hirsch and Shukrun-Nagar in pressHirsch, Galia, and Pnina Shukrun-Nagar in press). “Flirting with the Israeli Prime Minister, Humorously.” The European Journal of Humour Research 10 (1). Hirsch, Galia, and Pnina Shukrun-Nagar in press). “Flirting with the Israeli Prime Minister, Humorously.” The European Journal of Humour Research 10 (1). ).

In the following example, the marker is used similarly in order to mitigate a potential face threat.

Netanyahu’s post praises a woman of Ethiopian descent who has reached a high rank in the IDF, setting her as an example for young people of the same origin.2323.Compared to Israelis of other descents, generally speaking, the Ethiopian community suffers from a lower socio-economic status, lower rates of higher education and a lower level of representation in white collar professions (see the data from 2016 in https://​diversityisrael​.org​.il​/wp​-content​/uploads​/israeliethiopia​.pdf).

Commenter A supports Netanyahu (“Mr. Prime Minister, you have my vote in the elections”), but disagrees with what he considers to be the implied meaning of the post, “that it is not conceivable for an Ethiopian to make Lt. Colonel”, and indirectly asks Netanyahu to help this community.

This comment was followed by more exchanges (not detailed here) between A and other commenters, where he expressed similar stands. Commenter B, whose name and photo place him as another member of the Ethiopian community, answers A with love and praise: “I don’t know you but I already love you hhh I wish there were more people like you”. In terms of Brown and Levinson (1987)Brown, Penelope, and Stephen C. Levinson 1987 Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Brown, Penelope, and Stephen C. Levinson 1987 Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. , “hhh” in this co-text could be perceived as softening the potential threat to A’s negative face (and B’s positive face) that could result from explicitly declaring love for a total stranger.

4.4“Hhh” as an interpretation marker

As recalled, “hhh” was labelled an interpretation marker when signaling that the commenter has deciphered the pragmatic strategies employed in the politician’s post or in another commenter’s comment, which were mostly indirect meanings or softening strategies.

This function, much like that of contempt, was identified based on the interaction between the comment using the marker and the text to which it responded (see Examples 3, 9, 10 in this section). Although it was not common in the present corpus (8% – either as a sole function or with contempt or intention marking), its understanding is an important part of the study of “hhh”.

As expected, “hhh” used as an interpretation marker was found immediately after the post or comment it interpreted: either at the start of a new comment or as a sole message unit. It appeared only once at the end of a comment, right after an explicit lexical interpretation of the previous one.

All interpretation markers in our corpus reacted to previous comments, not to politicians’ posts. In most cases (six of eight occurrences), the strategy interpreted was irony or humor (see Examples 3, 9 in this section); only once was it softening a face threat or a non-ironic implicature (see Example 10 in this section).

Markers of this category did not signal only interpretation of an indirect message, but also its appreciation,2424.For strategies interlocutors use to express appreciation of humor, see Hay (2001)Hay, Jennifer 2001 “The Pragmatics of Humor Support.” Humor 14 (1): 55–82. Hay, Jennifer 2001 “The Pragmatics of Humor Support.” Humor 14 (1): 55–82. . and thus always conveyed some kind of a positive affective reaction – an inference supported by the fact that there were no victims of irony or humor of previous comments who used “hhh” to mark their understanding of the message targeting them. Nonetheless, as will be subsequently shown, the intensity of the emotion varied greatly – its expression being sometimes minor or even half-hearted (see Example 10), and interestingly, the appreciation of the message was not necessarily a sign of agreement with its content.

Interpretation markers of irony and humor usually presented a mixed affective stance: positive (at least to some extent) towards the interpreted content and its author – the previous commenter – but negative towards a third party, the victim of the interpreted indirect message. As other studies have shown (Kuipers 2011Kuipers, Giselinde 2011 “The Politics of Humour in the Public Sphere: Cartoons, Power and Modernity in the First Transnational Humour Scandal.” European Journal of Cultural Studies 14 (1): 63–80. Kuipers, Giselinde 2011 “The Politics of Humour in the Public Sphere: Cartoons, Power and Modernity in the First Transnational Humour Scandal.” European Journal of Cultural Studies 14 (1): 63–80. ; Tsakona and Popa 2011Tsakona, Villy, and Diana Elena Popa 2011 “Humour in Politics and the Politics of Humour.” Studies in Political Humour: In between Political Critique and Public Entertainment 46: 1–30. Tsakona, Villy, and Diana Elena Popa 2011 “Humour in Politics and the Politics of Humour.” Studies in Political Humour: In between Political Critique and Public Entertainment 461: 1–30. ; Friedman and Kuipers 2013Friedman, Sam, and Giselinde Kuipers 2013 “The Divisive Power of Humour: Comedy, Taste and Symbolic Boundaries.” Cultural Sociology 7 (2): 179–195. Friedman, Sam, and Giselinde Kuipers 2013 “The Divisive Power of Humour: Comedy, Taste and Symbolic Boundaries.” Cultural Sociology 7 (2): 179–195. ), aggressive humor against the outgroup plays an affiliative function for the in-group, solidifying their own political views and emphasizing the differences between them and others. Thus, in our corpus, by marking a successful interpretation of the previous commenter ironic or humoristic criticism, the one interpreting the message was actually joining them in targeting the same victims of the opposite political camp. Although occurring in a different digital setting, this result is in line with König’s (2019)König, Katharina 2019 “Stance Taking with ‘Laugh’ Particles and Emojis – Sequential and Functional Patterns of ‘Laughter’ in a Corpus of German WhatsApp Chats.” Journal of Pragmatics 142: 156–170. König, Katharina 2019 “Stance Taking with ‘Laugh’ Particles and Emojis – Sequential and Functional Patterns of ‘Laughter’ in a Corpus of German WhatsApp Chats.” Journal of Pragmatics 1421: 156–170. observation that markers can signal both “laughing with” (supporting the humorous stance) and “laughing at” – common particularly in group conversations where users can join forces against one participant.

Diagram 11 shows the distribution of the victims shared by the author of the indirect message and the commenter interpreting it.

As shown, the shared victims were usually other commenters, either as individuals or as part of an entire political wing. This demonstrates that commenters used the laughter marker to form a coalition inside their own political wing against the common enemy – commenters of the rival one.

Diagram 12 presents the markers’ length.

As demonstrated, interpretation markers in this corpus were rarely short and never standard, but usually long and less often overlong. This also shows the significant affective aspect of interpretation markers, as a way to signal to the previous commenter a positive reaction to their message.

Finally, it should be noted that – as was the case of functioning simultaneously as a contempt and an intention marker – “hhh” can be understood both as a contempt and an interpretation marker. This may occur under the specific following conditions: (1) the previous comment includes an indirect strategy; (2) the stance expressed in the comment in which the marker appears is different from (and usually opposing to) the one of the previous comment.

“Hhh” may also be deciphered as both an interpretation and an intention marker but only in cases where the following applies: (1) the previous comment includes an indirect strategy; (2) the comment in which the marker appears includes an indirect strategy; (3) the marker is positioned at the beginning of the comment and is followed by the indirect strategy, and therefore can be perceived as either a response to the previous comment or as a signal of the intention of the same comment. As in the two previously described situations of potential double function, we opted not to settle on a single interpretation.

The following examples demonstrate different interpretations marked by “hhh”. In Example 3, “hhh” marks the interpretation of a comment employing both irony and humor.

After Netanyahu welcomes Macron to Israel, commenter A playfully implores him to share some of the wealth with Lapid, and thus positions Netanyahu as much superior to the latter. The comment includes two insincere speech acts, serving as cues (Weizman and Dascal 2005Weizman, Elda, and Marcelo Dascal 2005 “Interpreting Speaker’s Meanings in Literary Dialogue.” In Dialogue Analysis IX: Dialogue in Literature and the Media. Part 1: Literature, ed. by Anne Betten, and Monika Dannerer, 61–72. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer. Weizman, Elda, and Marcelo Dascal 2005 “Interpreting Speaker’s Meanings in Literary Dialogue.” In Dialogue Analysis IX: Dialogue in Literature and the Media. Part 1: Literature, ed. by Anne Betten, and Monika Dannerer, 61–72. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer. ) for irony (Haverkate 1990Haverkate, Henk 1990 “A Speech Act Analysis of Irony.” Journal of Pragmatics 14: 77–109. Haverkate, Henk 1990 “A Speech Act Analysis of Irony.” Journal of Pragmatics 141: 77–109. ): concern for Yair Lapid – “And what about Yahir (arrogant) Lapid..??” – and an indirect request to help him – “Aren’t you going to set a little rendezvous for him and Macron”.

In addition, A employs a humorous word play, replacing the politician’s first name, Yair, with the Hebrew word yahir, which means “arrogant” or “pretentious”. Another humorous effect may be ascribed to the clash between the real political sphere and the imaginary script described here, where Lapid only cares about his Facebook updates.

The graphic laughter marker in B’s comment, “hhhh totally!!!” can hence be a signal that s/he has deciphered the indirect message and is in agreement with it. This is an example of forming solidarity at the expense of a mutual victim, in this case Lapid. Note, however, that the commenter feels the need to stress his/her agreement with the previous comment (“totally”), and that may mean that this aspect is not a salient inherent meaning of “hhh”.

In the following example, the co-text of “hhh” emphasizes the commenter’s appreciation of the previous indirect message.

This post by Netanyahu describing Gantz as an irresponsible politician is supported by A, who implies the latter’s mental health is unstable. As other previous examples, this message combines the use of both irony and humor (see Hirsch 2020Hirsch, Galia 2020 “Irony, Humor or Both? The Model Revisited.” In The Discourse of Indirectness: Cues, Voices and Functions (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series 316), ed. by Zohar Livnat, Pnina Shukrun-Nagar, and Galia Hirsch, 19–38. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Hirsch, Galia 2020 “Irony, Humor or Both? The Model Revisited.” In The Discourse of Indirectness: Cues, Voices and Functions (Pragmatics and Beyond New Series 316), ed. by Zohar Livnat, Pnina Shukrun-Nagar, and Galia Hirsch, 19–38. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. ): irony – an insincere request (Haverkate 1990Haverkate, Henk 1990 “A Speech Act Analysis of Irony.” Journal of Pragmatics 14: 77–109. Haverkate, Henk 1990 “A Speech Act Analysis of Irony.” Journal of Pragmatics 141: 77–109. ) to publish Gantz’s medical records – and humor – script opposition (Raskin and Attardo 1994Raskin, Victor, and Salvatore Attardo 1994 “Non-literalness and Non-bona-fide in Language: An Approach to Formal and Computational Treatments of Humor.” Pragmatics and Cognition 2 (1): 31–69. Raskin, Victor, and Salvatore Attardo 1994 “Non-literalness and Non-bona-fide in Language: An Approach to Formal and Computational Treatments of Humor.” Pragmatics and Cognition 2 (1): 31–69. ) between a politician with an agenda and a leader suffering from mental illness.

The comment is replied with an overlong number of Heths, which in this co-text may signal solidarity and appreciation of the gibe directed at Gantz – a message that is also conveyed directly with the lexical marker “big like”. Similarly, in the next example identification and appreciation of indirectness is marked by “hhh”.

After Gantz asks his readers for their vote (see also Examples 1 and 4), commenter A declares to have withdrawn his/her support from the party ever since Ahmad Tibi, an anti-Zionist member of the Knesset, has supposedly taken over it.

The claim that Tibi has taken over the cockpit ironically echoes (Sperber and Wilson 1981Sperber, Dan, and Deirdre Wilson 1981 “Irony and the Use-Mention Distinction.” In Radical Pragmatics, ed. by Peter Cole, 295–318. New York: Academic Press.Sperber, Dan, and Deirdre Wilson 1981 “Irony and the Use-Mention Distinction.” In Radical Pragmatics, ed. by Peter Cole, 295–318. New York: Academic Press.) the original use of this metaphor, which was created by the four senior politicians of Kahol Lavan party as a praise of their leadership. It may be regarded also as humor employed against the party’s leaders, based on the incongruity between the realistic script (Raskin and Attardo 1994Raskin, Victor, and Salvatore Attardo 1994 “Non-literalness and Non-bona-fide in Language: An Approach to Formal and Computational Treatments of Humor.” Pragmatics and Cognition 2 (1): 31–69. Raskin, Victor, and Salvatore Attardo 1994 “Non-literalness and Non-bona-fide in Language: An Approach to Formal and Computational Treatments of Humor.” Pragmatics and Cognition 2 (1): 31–69. ) of political influence and the action-movie like script in which someone takes over an airplane.

Commenter B marks with “hhh” the identification of the indirect message, and even to some degree its appreciation, but ironically marks his/her disagreement with the message’s content: “you’re not manipulating the people reading the comments at all”.