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Article published In: Pragmatics
Vol. 32:4 (2022) ► pp.489–517

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‘So many “virologists” in this thread!’

Impoliteness in Facebook discussions of the management of the pandemic of Covid-19 in Sweden – the tension between conformity and distinction

ORCiD logo with link | Stockholm University
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

Open Access publication of this article was funded through a Transformative Agreement with Stockholm University.

Published online: 8 February 2022
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https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.21014.and
Abstract
This paper embarks on a functional analysis of impolite language use in discussions about the response to the pandemic of Covid-19 on the official Facebook page of the Swedish national public television broadcaster in the spring of 2020. Having combined the existing models of impoliteness (. 2016. “Impoliteness Strategies.” In Interdisciplinary Studies in Pragmatics, Culture and Society, ed. by Alessandro Capone, and Jacob L. Mey, 421–446. Switzerland: Springer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) with the Appraisal theory (Martin, James R., and Peter White. 2005. The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) in a both quantitative and qualitative investigation, the study finds remarkable differences between supporters and opponents of the Swedish tactic in terms of enactment of value orientations categorized as different attitudes within the Appraisal framework. More specifically, opponents tend to voice more subjective and affectual sentiments, whereas supporters generally derive their attitude from the Swedish institutional norms and cultural standards, resulting in more judgement. As the study concludes, these findings are related to the inherent dichotomy of the Swedish welfare state paradigm, which integrates the concepts of both state and individual citizen liability.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Collectivism and distinction in Sweden – The source of the social conflict
  • 3.Background
    • 3.1The attitude system of appraisal
      • Affect (the domain of emotion)
      • Judgement (the domain of ethics)
      • Appreciation (the domain of aesthetics)
    • 3.2Combining impoliteness and Appraisal
    • 3.3(Im)politeness and Appraisal – Previous research
  • 4.Methodology
    • 4.1Material
    • 4.2Coding for impoliteness and Appraisal
  • 5.Results and discussion
    • 5.1Quantitative differences between supporters and opponents of the Swedish approach to the pandemic
    • 5.2The functional view on the difference between supporters and opponents of the Swedish approach to the pandemic
      • 5.2.1Judgement
      • 5.2.2Affect
      • 5.2.3Appreciation
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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This list is based on CrossRef data as of 30 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.

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