Cover not available

Article published In: Discourses of Discrimination: Language aggression in the construction of otherness
Edited by Angeliki Alvanoudi and Marianthi Georgalidou
[Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict 14:1] 2026
► pp. 78–97

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload EPUB
authorization required

Conventionalized impoliteness formulae in third-party assessments

Uniting offenders against (national) others

ORCiD logo with link | Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
Published online: 22 October 2024
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlac.00126.alv
Abstract
The paper examines the ideological work accomplished by the use of conventionalized impoliteness formulae in third person reference, when the person being criticized or brought into disrepute is not present in the here-and-now of interaction. Drawing on Interactional Linguistics and data from audio-recorded informal face-to-face Greek conversations, the study shows that speakers mobilize conventionalized impoliteness formulae, along with other linguistic resources, in the course of third-party assessments to evaluate sociocultural experience, and establish interlocutors’ shared negative affective stance toward the third party picked on due to their national group membership. This practice reproduces everyday nationalism that unites offenders against national ‘others’. The study enhances our understanding of the recontextualization of conventionalized impoliteness formulae in talk-in-interaction, and the role of affective stance in the discursive formation of (national) identities.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Affective stance and conventionalized impoliteness formulae
  • 3.Data and method
  • 4.Analysis
    • 4.1The affective construction of ‘togetherness’ against ‘others’
    • 4.2The affective construction of ‘Greekness’
  • 5.Discussion and conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (86)
References
Ahmed, Sara. 2004. The Cultural Politics of Emotion. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Allan, Keith, and Kate Burridge. 1991. Euphemism and Dysphemism: Language Used as Shield and Weapon. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2006. Forbidden Words: Taboo and the Censoring of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Andermahr, Sonya, Terry Lovell, and Carol Wolkowitz. 2000. A Glossary of Feminist Theory. London: Arnold.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Anderson, Benedict. 1991. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Antonsich, Marco. 2020. “Everyday Nation in Times of Rising Nationalism.” Sociology 54(6): 1230–1237. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Appadurai, Arjun. 2013. The Future as Cultural Fact. London: Verso.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Balantani, Angeliki. 2015. “Η Επικοινωνιακή Λειτουργία του Εντάξει [The Communicative Function of Entaksi].” In Ελληνική Γλώσσα και Προφορική Επικοινωνία [The Greek Language and Spoken Interaction], ed. by Theodossia-Soula Pavlidou, 43–60. Thessaloniki: Institute of Modern Greek Studies.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Besnier, Niko. 1990. “Language and Affect.” Annual Review of Anthropology 191: 419–451. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bien, Peter. 2005. “Inventing Greece.” Journal of Modern Greek Studies 23(2): 217–234. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Billig, Michael. 1995. Banal Nationalism. London: Sage.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bozatzis, Nikos. 1999. “Greek National Identity in Talk: The Rhetorical Articulation of an Ideological Dilemma.” Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Lancaster, UK.
Bousfield, Derek. 2008. Impoliteness in Interaction. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bucholtz, Mary. 1999. “You da Man: Narrating the Racial Other in the Linguistic Production of White Masculinity.” Journal of Sociolinguistics 3(4): 443–460. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bucholtz, Mary, and Kira Hall. 2005. “Identity and Interaction: A Sociocultural Linguistic Approach.” Discourse Studies 7(4–5): 585–614. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Christie, Christine. 2013. “The Relevance of Taboo Language: An Analysis of the Indexical Values of Swearwords.” Journal of Pragmatics 581: 152–169. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Christopoulou, Katerina. 2016. “Mια Λεξικολογική Προσέγγιση στο Περιθωριακό Λεξιλόγιο της Νέας Ελληνικής [A Lexicological Approach to Slang Vocabulary in Modern Greek].” Unpublished Doctoral Thesis, University of Patras.
Closs, Stephens A. 2016. “The Affective Atmospheres of Nationalism.” Cultural Geographies 23(2): 181–198. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth. 2009. “A Sequential Approach to Affect: The Case of ‘Disappointment’.” In Talk in Interaction: Comparative Perspectives, ed. by Markku Haakana, Minna Laakso, and Jan Lindström, 94–123. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Couper-Kuhlen, Elizabeth, and Margret Selting. 2018. Interactional Linguistics: Studying Language in Social Interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Culpeper, Jonathan. 1996. “Towards an Anatomy of Impoliteness.” Journal of Pragmatics 25(3): 349–367. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2005. “Impoliteness and Entertainment in the Television Quiz Show: The Weakest Link.” Journal of Politeness Research 1(1): 35–72. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2010. “Conventionalised Impoliteness Formulae.” Journal of Pragmatics 42(12): 3232–3245. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2011. Impoliteness: Using Language to Cause Offence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Culpeper, Jonathan, and Claire Hardaker. 2017. “Impoliteness.” In The Palgrave Handbook of Linguistic (Im)Politeness, ed. by Jonathan Culpeper, Michael Haugh, and Dániel Z. Kádár, 199–225. London: Palgrave. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Deignan, Alice. 2010. “The Evaluative Properties of Metaphors.” In Researching and Applying Metaphor in the Real World, ed. by Graham Low, Zazie Todd, Alice Deignan, and Lynne Cameron, 357–374. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dictionary of Standard Modern Greek (Λεξικό της Κοινής Νεοελληνικής). 1998. Thessaloniki: Institute of Modern Greek Studies.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Du Bois, John W. 2007. “The Stance Triangle.” In Stancetaking in Discourse: Subjectivity, Evaluation, Interaction, ed. by Robert Englebretson, 139–182. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dynel, Marta. 2012. “Swearing Methodologically. The Impoliteness of Expletives in Anonymous Commentaries on YouTube.” Journal of English Studies 101: 25–50. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2015. “The Landscape of Impoliteness Research.” Journal of Politeness Research 11(2): 329–354. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fox, Jon E., and Cynthia Miller-Idriss. 2008. “Everyday Nationhood.” Ethnicities 81: 536–563. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gal, Susan, and Judith T. Irvine. 1995. “The Boundaries of Languages and Disciplines: How Ideologies Construct Difference.” Social Research 62(4): 967–1001.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, Pilar. 2009. “Impoliteness and Identity in the American News Media: The Culture Wars.” Journal of Politeness Research 51: 273–304.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, Pilar, and Maria Sifianou. 2017. “Im/politeness and Identity.” In The Palgrave Handbook of Linguistic (Im)Politeness, ed. by Jonathan Culpeper, Michael Haugh, and Dániel Z. Kádár, 227–256. London: Palgrave MacMillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, Pilar, Patricia Bou-Franch, and Nuria Lorenzo-Dus. 2013. “Identity and Impoliteness: The Expert in the Talent Show Idol.” Journal of Politeness Research 9(1): 97–120. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, Pilar, and Dániel Z. Kádár. 2021. “Morality in Socio-pragmatics.” In The Cambridge Handbook of Sociopragmatics, ed. by Michael Haugh, Dániel Z. Kádár, and Marina Terkourafi, 385–407. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goodwin, Charles, and Marjorie Harness Goodwin. 1987. “Concurrent Operations on Talk: Notes on the Interactive Organization of Assessments.” IPrA Papers in Pragmatics 1(1): 1–54.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1992. “Assessments and the Construction of Context.” In Rethinking Context, ed. by Alessandro Duranti, and Charles Goodwin, 147–189. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2000. “Emotion within Situated Activity.” In Linguistic Anthropology: A Reader, ed. by Alessandro Duranti, 239–257. Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gourgouris, Stathis. 1996. Dream Nation: Enlightenment, Colonization and the Institution of Modern Greece. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Günthner, Susanne. 2011. “The Construction of Emotional Involvement in Everyday German Narratives — Interactive Uses of ‘Dense Constructions’.” Pragmatics 21(4): 573–592.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hamilakis, Yannis. 2007. The Nation and its Ruins: Antiquity, Archaeology, and National Imagination in Greece. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Haugh, Michael. 2013. “Im/politeness, Social Practice and the Participation Order.” Journal of Pragmatics 581: 52–72. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heritage, John. 1984. Garfinkel and Ethnomedology. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hobsbawm, Eric J. 1991. Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Holt, Elizabeth. 2000. “Reporting and Reacting: Concurrent Responses to Reported Speech.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 33(4): 425–454. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jay, Timothy, and Kristin Janschewitz. 2008. “The Pragmatics of Swearing.” Journal of Politeness Research 41: 267–288. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jefferson, Gail. 1978. “Sequential Aspects of Storytelling in Conversation.” In Studies in the Organization of Conversational Interaction, ed. by Jim Schenkein, 219–248. New York: Academic Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kádár, Dániel Z., Vahid Parvaresh, and Puyu Ning. 2019. “Morality, Moral Order, and Language Conflict and Aggression — A Position Paper.” Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict 7(1): 6–31. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Karachaliou, Rania. 2018. Η Προσφώνηση στις Συνομιλιακές Αφηγήσεις [Addressing in Conversational Narratives]. Thessaloniki: Institute of Modern Greek Studies.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2020. “Το Πραγματολογικό Μόριο α στην Πρόσληψη των Αφηγήσεων [The Pragmatic Particle ah in the Reception of Greek Narratives].” In Πραγματολογικά Μόρια στην Ελληνική και Άλλες Γλώσσες [Pragmatic Particles in Greek and Other Languages], ed. by Theodossia-Soula Pavlidou, 225–244. Thessaloniki: Institute of Modern Greek Studies.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lakoff, George, and Mark Turner. 1989. More Than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Leech, Geoffrey N. 1983. Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Littlemore, Jeannette. 2015. Metonymy: Hidden Shortcuts in Language, Thought and Communication. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mateo, José, and Francisco Yus. 2013. “Towards a Cross-Cultural Pragmatic Taxonomy of Insults.” Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict 1(1): 87–114. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Musolff, Andreas. 2015. “Dehumanizing Metaphors in UK Immigrant Debates in Press and Online Media.” Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict 3(1): 41–56. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nolan, Mary. 1997. “Against Exceptionalisms [Review of American Exceptionalism: A Double-Edged Sword, by Seymour Martin Lipset].” The American Historical Review 102(3): 769–774. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ochs, Elinor. 1992. “Indexing Gender.” In Rethinking Context: Language as an Interactive Phenomenon, ed. by Alessandro Duranti, and Charles Goodwin, 335–358. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1996. “Linguistic Resources for Socializing Humanity.” In Rethinking Linguistic Relativity, ed. by John J. Gumperz, and Stephen C. Levinson, 407–437. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ochs, Elinor, and Bambi Schieffelin. 1989. “Language Has a Heart.” Text 9(1): 7–25.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pavlidou, Theodossia-Soula. 2016. Καταγράφοντας την Ελληνική Γλώσσα [Making a Record of the Greek Language]. Thessaloniki: Institute of Modern Greek Studies.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Peräkylä, Anssi, and Johanna Ruusuvuori. 2006. “Facial Expression in an Assessment.” In Video Analysis: Methodology and Methods, ed. by Hubert Knoblauch, Bernt Schnettler, Jürgen Raab, and Hans-Georg Soeffner, 127–142. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Peräkylä, Anssi, and Marja-Leena Sorjonen (eds.). 2012. Emotion in Interaction. New York: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pomerantz, Anita. 1984. “Agreeing and Disagreeing with Assessments: Some Features of Preferred/Dispreferred Turn Shapes.” In Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis, ed. by J. Maxwell Atkinson, and John Heritage, 57–101. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Radden, Günter, and Zoltán Kövecses. 1999. “Towards a Theory of Metonymy.” In Metonymy in Language and Thought, ed. by Klaus-Uwe Panther, and Günter Radden, 17–59. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rampton, Ben. 1995. Crossing: Language and Ethnicity among Adolescents. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Reber, Εlisabeth. 2012. Affectivity in Interaction: Sound Objects in English. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sacks, Harvey. 1972a. “An Initial Investigation of the Usability of Conversational Data for Doing Sociology.” In Studies in Social Interaction, ed. by David Sudnow, 31–74. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1972b. “On the Analyzability of Stories by Children.” In Directions in Sociolinguistics: The Ethnography of Communication, ed. by John J. Gumperz, and Dell Hymes, 325–345. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1974. “An Analysis of the Course of a Joke’s Telling in Conversation.” In Explorations in the Ethnography of Speaking, ed. by Richard Baumann, and Joel Sherzer, 337–353. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Santa Ana, Otto. 1999. ‘“Like an Animal I was Treated’: Anti-Immigrant Metaphor in US Public Discourse.” Discourse and Society 10(2): 191–224. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schegloff, Emanuel A. 1996. “Some Practices for Referring to Persons in Talk-in-Interaction: A Partial Sketch of a Systematics.” In Studies in Anaphora, ed. by Barbara A. Fox, 437–485. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Selting, Margret. 1996. “Prosody as an Activity-Type Distinctive Cue in Conversation: The Case of So-Called ‘Astonished’ Questions in Repair Initiation.” In Prosody in Conversation: Interactional Studies, ed. by Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen, and Margret Selting, 231–270. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sifianou, Maria. 2019. “Im/Politeness and In/Civility: A Neglected Relationship?” Journal of Pragmatics 1471: 49–64. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sorjonen, Marja-Leena, and Anssi Peräkylä. 2012. “Introduction.” In Emotion in Interaction, ed. by Anssi Peräkylä, and Marja-Leena Sorjonen, 3–15. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stivers, Tanya. 2008. “Stance, Alignment, and Affiliation during Storytelling: When Nodding is a Token of Affiliation.” Research on Language and Social Interaction 41(1): 31–57. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Terkourafi, Marina. 2001. “Politeness in Cypriot Greek: A Frame-Based Approach.” Unpublished PhD dissertation. University of Cambridge, Cambridge.
. 2002. “Politeness and Formulaicity: Evidence from Cypriot Greek.” Journal of Greek Linguistics 3(1): 179–201. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Thompson, Andrew. 2001. “Nations, National Identities and Human Agency: Putting People Back into Nations.” The Sociological Review 49(1): 18–32. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Todorova, Maria. [1997] 2009. Imagining the Balkans. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tzanelli, Rodanthi. 2008. “The Nation has Two Voices: Diforia and Performativity in Athens 2004.” Cultural Studies 11(4): 489–508.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
van Dijk, Teun. 2006. “Politics, Ideology and Discourse.” In Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, Volume on Politics and Language, ed. by Ruth Wodak, 728–240. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wetherell, Margaret. 2012. Affect and Emotion: A New Social Science Understanding. London: Sage. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Whitehead, Kevin A. 2012. “Racial Categories as Resources and Constraints in Everyday Interactions: Implications for Racialism and Non-Racialism in Post-Apartheid South Africa.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 35(7): 1248–1265. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Whitehead, Kevin A., and Gene H. Lerner. 2009. “When are Persons ‘White’? On Some Practical Asymmetries of Racial Reference in Talk-in-Interaction.” Discourse and Society 20(5): 613–641. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wilkinson, Sue, and Celia Kitzinger. 2006. “Surprise as an Interactional Achievement: Reaction Tokens in Conversation.” Social Psychology Quarterly 69(2): 150–182. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Kulik, Maciej, Katarzyna Budzynska, He Zhang, Marie-Amélie Paquin & Barbara Konat
2025. Offensive language in reactions to public figures in polarised discourse online. Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 17 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue