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Article published In: Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict
Vol. 5:1 (2017) ► pp.1–29

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Linguistic impoliteness and religiously aggravated hate crime in England and Wales

 | Lancaster University, UK
 | Lancaster University, UK
 | Lancaster University, UK
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Published online: 16 October 2017
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https://doi.org/10.1075/jlac.5.1.01cul
Abstract
Despite its centrality to religiously aggravated hate crime recorded in England and Wales, the nature of the language used has been neglected in research. This paper, based on a unique dataset, aims to rectify this. It takes its approach from the field of linguistic impoliteness, a field that has yet to consider hate crime. Therein lies our second aim: To consider whether impoliteness notions can be usefully extended to the language of hate crime. In our data, we examine, in particular, conventionalized impoliteness formulae, insults, threats, incitement and taboo words. Whilst we reveal some linguistic support for the way religiously aggravated hate crime is framed in the law and discussed in the legal literature, we highlight areas of neglect and potential ambiguity. Regarding impoliteness, we demonstrate its effectiveness as an approach to these data, but we also highlight areas of neglect in that literature too, notably, non-conditional threats and incitement.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background: Hate crime, the law and impoliteness
    • 2.1Hate crime in the legal context of England and Wales
    • 2.2Linguistic impoliteness
  • 3.The data and method
    • 3.1Data
    • 3.2Method
  • 4.The building blocks of the language of hate crime
    • 4.1Prefabricated or creative?
    • 4.2The hate crime language mix: Coercive impoliteness
    • 4.3A focus on insults
    • 4.4A focus on threats
    • 4.5A focus on incitement and negative expressives
    • 4.6Intensification: Taboo words
  • 5.Identity attacks
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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