The impoliteness metadiscourse about a public apology: Evidence from Twitter/X

Ana Larissa Adorno Marciotto Oliveira and Monique Vieira Miranda
Federal University of Minas Gerais

Public apologies seek moral reconciliation with the victim and the broader audience. When published online, they also become the focus of impoliteness metadiscourse, particularly on Twitter/X. Drawing on the pragmatic approaches to apologies as moral acts and on impoliteness theory, we aim to analyze how users reacted to a public apology, issued by Formula One driver Nelson Piquet after he deployed the term “neguinho/nigger” to refer to Lewis Hamilton. Given the controversy about the term, we examined if users classified it as a racist slur or as a neutral form of address, as Piquet framed it. Our data comes from 469 tweets, published as replies to the apology. The findings show that 84.5% of the users classified the term as a racist insult and judged the apology as insincere. Processes of online public shaming were also identified in the posts, aiming at exposing Piquet for his misconduct.

Publication history

Date received: 28 September 2022

Date accepted: 22 October 2024

Published online: 3 June 2025

Table of contents

Impoliteness metadiscourse (Culpeper 2011) is rooted in the perception that the norms of verbal conduct were violated and needed to be restored. Insults, for example, particularly when uttered by public figures, tend to become the center of impoliteness metadiscourse on social media (Oliveira and Miranda 2022). For this reason, according to Ekström and Johansson (2008, 385), public figures “quickly learn to behave in the media in a way that does not create offense or public indignation”. When a large audience manifests rage against the verbal misconduct of public figures, apologies tend to be issued on social media to restore the reputation of the perceived offenders and promote their reconciliation with the victims and the public. The target of a public apology is thus considered abstract, usually consisting of the victim, third parties, social media followers, and public supporters of both the aggressor and the victim. In some situations, public apologies may also be addressed to international organizations or a whole nation, as Yoshitake (2004) and Renner (2011) note.

Full-text access is restricted to subscribers. Log in to obtain additional credentials. For subscription information see Subscription & Price. Direct PDF access to this article can be purchased through our e-platform.

References

Austin, John L.
1975 How to Do Things with Words. London: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bentley, Joshua
2015 “Shifting Identification: A Theory of Apologies and Pseudo-Apologies. Public Relations Review 41 (1): 22–29. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bilder, Richard B.
2008 “The Role of Apology in International Law.” In The Age of Apology: Facing Up to The Past, ed. by Mark Gibney, Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann, Jean-Marc Coicaud, and Niklaus Steiner, 13–30. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Blum-Kulka, Shoshana, and Elite Olshtain
1984 “Requests and Apologies: A Cross-Cultural Study of Speech Act Realization Patterns (CCSARP).” Applied Linguistics 5 (3): 196–213. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bouvier, Gwen, and David Machin
2021 “What Gets Lost in Twitter ‘Cancel Culture’ Hashtags? Calling Out Racists Reveals Some Limitations of Social Justice Campaigns.” Discourse & Society 32 (3): 307–327. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brown, Penelope, and Stephen C. Levinson
1987 Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bushman, Brad J., and L. Rowell Huesmann
2010 “Aggression.” In Handbook of Social Psychology, 5th ed., ed. by Susan T. Fiske, Daniel T. Gilbert, and Gardner Lindzey, 833–863. New York: Wiley & Sons.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 58: 152–169. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Claridge, Claudia
2011 Hyperbole in English: A Corpus-Based Study of Exaggeration. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Culpeper, Jonathan
2005 “Impoliteness and Entertainment in the Television Quiz Show: The Weakest Link.” Journal of Politeness Research: Language, Behaviour, Culture 1 (1): 35–72. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2010 “Conventionalized 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, Jim O’Driscoll, and Claire Hardaker
2019 “Notions of Politeness in Britain and North America.” In From Speech Acts to Lay Understandings of Politeness: Multilingual and Multicultural Perspectives, ed. by Eva Ogiermann, and Pilar Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, 176–200. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Culpeper, Jonathan, Michael Haugh, and Dániel Z. Kádár
eds. 2017 The Palgrave Handbook of Linguistic (Im)Politeness. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Culpeper, Jonathan, Michael Haugh, and Valeria Sinkeviciute
2017 “(Im)Politeness and Mixed Messages.” In The Palgrave Handbook of Linguistic (Im)Politeness, ed. by Jonathan Culpeper, and Daniel Kádár, 323–355. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eelen, Gino
2014 A Critique of Politeness Theory. Vol. 1. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ekström, Mats, and Bengt Johansson
2008 “Talk Scandals.” Media, Culture & Society 30 (1): 61–79. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, Pilar
2022 “Moral Emotions, Good Moral Panics, Social Regulation, and Online Public Shaming.” Language & Communication 84: 61–75. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, Pilar, and Patricia Bou-Franch
2019 “Emic Conceptualizations of Face (Imagen) in Peninsular Spanish.” In From Speech Acts to Lay Understandings of Politeness: Multilingual and Multicultural Perspectives, ed. by Eva Ogiermann, and Pilar Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, 301–327. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gill, Kathleen
2000 “The Moral Functions of an Apology”. The Philosophical Forum 31 (1): 11–27. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving
1967 Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face Interaction. Chicago: Aldine.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Govier, Trudy, and Wilhelm Verwoerd
2002 “The Promise and Pitfalls of Apology.” Journal of Social Philosophy 33 (1): 67–82. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Han, Bo, Paul Cook, and Timothy Baldwin
2014 “Text-Based Twitter User Geolocation Prediction.” Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research 49: 451–500. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hansberg, Olbeth
2000 “The Role of Emotions in Moral Psychology: Shame and Indignation.” The Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy 9: 159–167. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Haugh, Michael, and Valeria Sinkeviciute
2019 “Offence and Conflict Talk.” In The Routledge Handbook of Language in Conflict, ed. by Matthew Evans, Lesley Jeffries, and Jim O’Driscoll, 196–214. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Haugh, Michael
2014 Im/Politeness Implicatures. Berlin: De Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jahan, Md Saroar, and Mourad Oussalah
2023 “A Systematic Review of Hate Speech Automatic Detection Using Natural Language Processing.” Neurocomputing 543: 126232. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kádár, Dániel Z., and Michael Haugh
2013 Understanding Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kampf, Zohar
2009 “Public (Non-)Apologies: The Discourse of Minimizing Responsibility.” Journal of Pragmatics 41: 2257–2270. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2016 “All the Best! Performing Solidarity in Political Discourse.” Journal of Pragmatics 93 (3): 47–60. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Locher, Miriam A., and Brook Bolander
2019 “Ethics in Pragmatics.” Journal of Pragmatics 145: 83–90. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Matley, David
2018 “ ‘Let’s See How Many of You Mother Fuckers Unfollow Me for This’: The Pragmatic Function of the Hashtag #sorrynotsorry in Non-Apologetic Instagram Posts.” Journal of Pragmatics 133: 66–78. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McVittie, Chris, Rahul Sambaraju, and Freya Bain
2021 “ ‘I Love James Blunt as Much as I Love Herpes’–‘I Love That You’re Not Ashamed to Admit You Have Both’: Attempted Insults and Responses on Twitter.” Language & Communication 76: 23–34. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
O’Driscoll, Jim
2020 Offensive Language: Taboo, Offence and Social Control. Bloomsbury. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Oliveira, Ana Larissa A. M., and Marisa M. Carneiro
2020 “#elesim, #elenão, #elasim, #elanão: o Twitter e as Hashtags de Amor e de Ódio na Campanha Presidencial Brasileira de 2018.” Linguagem em (Dis)curso 20: 33–49. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Oliveira, Ana Larissa A. M., and Monique V. Miranda
2022 “ ‘Calling a Spade, a Spade’: Impoliteness and Shame on Twitter.” Journal of Research in Applied Linguistics 13 (2): 22–32.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Olshtain, Elite, and Andrew A. Cohen
1983 “Apology: A Speech Act Set.” In Sociolinguistics and Language Acquisition, ed. by Nessa Wolfson, and Elliot Judd, 18–35. Newbury House.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ott, Brian L.
2017 “The Age of Twitter: Donald J. Trump and the Politics of Debasement.” Critical Studies in Media Communication 34 (1): 59–68. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Poppi, Fabio I. M., and Marta Dynel
2021 “Ad Libidinem: Forms of Female Sexualisation in RoastMe Humour.” Sexualities 24 (3): 431–455. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Purohit, Hemant, Ashley Hampton, Valerie L. Shalin, Amit P. Sheth, John Flach, and Shreyansh Bhatt
2013 “What Kind of #Conversation Is Twitter? Mining #Psycholinguistic Cues for Emergency Coordination.” Computers in Human Behavior 29 (6): 2438–2447.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Renner, Judith
2011 “I’m Sorry for Apologising: Czech and German Apologies and Their Perlocutionary Effects.” Review of International Studies 37 (4): 1579–1597. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schumann, Karina, and Anna Dragotta
2020 “Is Moral Redemption Possible? The Effectiveness of Public Apologies for Sexual Misconduct.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 90: 104002. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Shannon, Geordan, et al
2022 “Intersectional Insights into Racism and Health: Not Just a Question of Identity.” The Lancet 400 (10368): 2125–2136. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Skoric, Marko M., Keng Hui Wong, Jia Ping Esther Chua, Pei Jue Yeo, and Meiyan Angeline Liew
2010 “Online Shaming in the Asian Context: Community Empowerment or Civic Vigilantism?” Surveillance & Society 8 (2): 181–199. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tagg, Caroline, Philip Seargeant, and Amy Aisha Brown
2017 Taking Offence on Social Media: Conviviality and Communication on Facebook. Cham: Springer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tavuchis, Nicholas
1991 Mea Culpa: A Sociology of Apology and Reconciliation. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Terkourafi, Marina
2002 “Politeness and Formulaicity: Evidence from Cypriot Greek.” Journal of Greek Linguistics 3 (1): 179–201. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2005 “Beyond the Micro-Level in Politeness Research”. Journal of Greek Linguistics 1 (2): 237–262.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Thompson, Janna
2007 “Apology, Justice and Respect: A Critical Defense of Political Apology.” In The Age of Apology: Facing Up to the Past, ed. by Mark Gibney, Rhoda E. Howard-Hassmann, Jean-Marc Coicaud, and Niklaus Steiner, 31–44. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vásquez, Camilla
2021 “I Appreciate U Not Being a Total Prick…: Oppositional Stancetaking, Impoliteness and Relational Work in Adversarial Twitter Interactions.” Journal of Pragmatics 185: 40–53. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vladimirou, Dimitra, and Juliane House
2018 “Ludic Impoliteness and Globalisation on Twitter: ‘I Speak England Very Best’ #agglika_Tsipra, #Tsipras #Clinton.” Journal of Pragmatics 134: 149–162. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yoshitake, Masaki
2004 “Critique of J. L. Austin’s Speech Act Theory: Decentralization of the Speaker-Centered Meaning in Communication.” Kyushu Communication Studies 2: 27–43.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zappavigna, Michele
2015 ”Searchable Talk: The Linguistic Functions of Hashtags.” Social Semiotics 25 (3): 274–291. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2017 “Twitter.” In Pragmatics of Social Media, ed. by Christian R. Hoffmann, and Wolfram Bublitz, 201–224. Berlin: De Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
 
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue