Typology and Linguistic Representation of Communicative Reactions to Insults in the Context of American Social-Political Discourse

Abstract

This article is based on the research dedicated to eliciting, analyzing and classifying communicative reactions to the insults as well as researching interpersonal verbal interaction in a communicative situation of the insult on the whole. It focuses on the main aspects of the research: the review of the latest tendencies in (im)politeness research; substantiation of the discursive approach in (im)politeness research that presupposes the emphasis on direct verbal interaction and victim’s reactions to insults rather than on opponents’ intention; consideration of the social nature of insults and of culturally predetermined acceptability / unacceptability of verbal behavior in a conflict communicative situation of insult as well as the developed typology of communicative reactions to insults, linguistic representation of these reactions and some possible algorithms of the progress of a communicative situation of insult. The data for the research is represented by American social-political discourse, namely 25 transcripts of such American social-political talk-shows as “Real Time with Bill Maher”, “Hannity”, “Burnett Outfront”, “Piers Morgan Tonight” etc. of the last decade. The choice of the data for the research is based on the proposition that social-political discourse aimed at wide public, its values and ideals allows to study culturally specific acceptability / unacceptability of an opponent’s communicative behavior in the context of a communicative situation of insult. Refs 24.