11TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE on IM/POLITENESS València, 4 - 6 July 2018
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11TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON IM/POLITENESS València, 4 - 6 July 2018 Book of abstracts 1 1. Plenary talks Smart mobs, cyber public shaming, and social justice Pilar G. Blitvich - University of North Carolina at Charlotte The aim of this presentation is to explore public shaming (PS) in the digital age. Different ways of PS have been implemented by culture groups as a response to transgressions (Goldman, 2014). Often PS had socialization (Fader, 2006) and reintegrative functions (Braithwaite, 1989) aimed at deterring future occurrences of the transgressive behavior and reinstating justice or public morality (Cheong & Gong, 2010; Boudana, 2014; Zingerle, 2015). Of particular interest are those transgressive behaviors that involve inappropriate use of language and more specifically language use that can be considered aggressive or demeaning, such as instances of hate speech. PS as a reaction to impoliteness or language aggression could then be theorized within extant models of responses to impoliteness (Culpeper et al., 2003; Bousfield, 2008 Dobs & Garces-Conejos Blitvich, 2013; Bou-Franch & Garces-Conejos Blitvich, 2014). Through the analysis of a case study involving a recent instance of cyber PS in which a crowdsourced smart mob (Harmon & Metaxas, 2010; Lazarus, 2017) emerged as a response to a call for a Human Flesh Search Engine (Gao, 2016), this presentation problematizes extant models of responses to impoliteness and argues that we need new ways to conceptualize the transgeneric, transmedia, transinstitutional, multimodal, multisequential trajectories through which phenomena such as cyber PS occur (Lemke, 2009; Cheong & Gong, 2010). Although cyber PS, smart mobs, cybervigilantes (digilantes) (Julilano, 2012; Nahn et al., 2017) and HFSE have received some attention recently in criminology, law, and related fields, it has been argued that we need to understand these phenomena from the point of view of participants who act as digilantes or members of a smart mob (Cheong & Gong, 2010). By analyzing user-generated comments in which participants engage in critical civic self-reflectivity (Cunliffe & Junn, 2005) regarding the scope and repercussions for the target in question of cyber PS, this presentation also aims to advance research. What emerges are crucial connections between language aggression and moral values; these connections are paradoxical as language aggression is seen as an instrument both to either destroy or to restore a community’s moral values by achieving social justice (Juliano, 2012). 2 Faces and face work: Mockery, irony and rapport in ‘ugly’ selfies Ruth Page - University of Birmingham In this paper, I explore the challenges and opportunities that multimodal forms of social media open up for the study of (im)politeness. I focus on selfies, which as a form of discourse entail both impression management and interpersonal potential as they circulate in different social media sites and services. ‘Ugly’ selfies are a particularly interesting subgenre, which appear to be a form of selfmockery that follow Leech’s (2014) modesty maxim to avoid praise of self, and which result in a range of different relational work for the selfie-taker and recipients including compliments and critique. I argue that in order to understand how and why ugly selfies achieve different kinds of relational outcomes we need to pursue a multi-layered, contextual approach centred on the participants’ perspectives of their interactions with these selfies. The data I report includes a focus group discussion with 12 students, 200 posts marked with the #uglyselfie hashtag extracted from Instagram using Netlytic (Gruzd, 2016), and an experiment with 160 participants which tested the effect of interpersonal space on the perception of ugliness. The results of these studies show the relational work of ugly selfies is embedded in different kinds of contexts, where as part of the students’ lived experience, ugly selfies were sent and resent as performances of relationality. The analysis of the Instagram interactions showed how the face-threatening potential of #uglyselfies was scaled up as forms of ironic resistance that critiqued beauty ideals (Widdows 2018) and was particularly marked in the context of Instagram’s aesthetic norms. Lastly, the experimental research showed how the camera angle and proximity was perceived as humorous, and hence might contribute to the rapport associated with the so-called ‘ugly’ images. "My friend thinks you are beautiful". Playfully aggressive interactions in a telecollaboration context Barry Pennock-Speck - Universitat de València In this talk, I explore facework and teasing in an exchange involving German and Spanish adolescents during synchronous task-based video-conferencing in the context of a secondaryschool language class. My approach to facework can be described as neo- Goffmanian (1967) and is also informed by the work of Craig, Tracy and Spisak (1986), Brown and Levinson (1987), Penman (1990) and Wood and Kroger (1994). Regarding teasing, I agree with most researchers who see it as both playful and aggressive (Keltner et al, 1998). Unlike Keltner, et al (2001), who state that teasing normally consists of one or more face-threatening acts that are offset by some kind of redressive paralinguistic or 3 extra-linguistic actions, the examples in the exchange under scrutiny begin with unadorned leading questions (Pawluk, 1989). These are of a very personal nature and might even be considered rude and do not seem to constitute instances of mockimpoliteness. In the literature, teasing is generally said to occur almost always among friends but in this case, the participants had never met. Nevertheless, my analysis shows that by the time the initial question and answer sequences had finished and before the teasing proper took place, an easy-going relationship had already been created. In this sense, I will explore the way the interaction moves from being essentially transactional to interpersonal. Along with Kowalski (2004), I found that an audience played an important role in the teasing sequences. From a facework perspective, I conclude that for a tease to be successful, it must not only enhance the teaser’s face but also that of the butt of the tease. So, what may look initially like aggressive facework actually contributes towards creating common ground among those participating in the tease. Variational pragmatics, pragmatic variation and im/politeness Klaus P. Schneider – Universität Bonn Verbal behaviour and perceptions of im/politeness vary not only across languages, but also across varieties of the same language. Speakers sharing a language often use it in markedly different ways, and notions of what is considered polite or impolite differ between communities and social groups (Schneider & Placencia 2017). This particular type of intra-lingual pragmatic variation is the focus of variational pragmatics. Variational pragmatics is aimed at establishing empirically and systematically recurrent patterns of language use and their distribution in geographical and social space (Barron 2017). Such patterns are interpreted as reflections of norms and expectations, stored in the long-term memory as cultural models which guide perceptions and productions in interaction (Schneider 2012). In the present talk, the original framework of variational pragmatics is briefly summarized, in which levels of analysis and social factors effecting variation are specified (Schneider & Barron 2008); later modifications and extensions of the framework are also outlined (e.g. Félix-Brasdefer & Koike 2012, Nilsson et al. 2018). Regarding the relevant social factors, it is important to note that neither an essentialist nor a constructionist approach is adopted. Instead, an emic first- order approach is advocated in which social factors are treated as displayed and perceived identities (Haugh & Schneider 2012). Methodological issues are also discussed, including a number of methodological innovations (Schneider 2010, forthc.). Responses to thanks in English-speaking communities serve as an example to demonstrate the theoretical and methodological questions addressed, most notably the scope of variation, the relevant pragmatic variables, and salient patterns of language behaviour reflecting notions of appropriateness (cf. Schneider 2005, Rüegg 2014, 4 Bieswanger 2015, Dinkin 2018, Schröder & Schneider in press). Further examples are taken from studies of phatic discourse, specifically in initial encounters, based on data collected by employing various experimentational and observational methods (Schneider 2008, Haugh & Carbaugh 2015, Schneider & Schröder forthc.). The overarching aim of variational pragmatics is the development of a theory of pragmatic variation which accounts for intergroup and interpersonal differences in language use and interactional behaviour. Im/politeness and in/civility: A neglected relationship? Maria Sifianou - National and Kapodistrian University of Athens Recent approaches to im/politeness have emphasised the importance of lay understandings of politeness and suggested that they should not be ignored in politeness research. Such lay views can be found in online newspaper articles dealing with issues of im/politeness and the comments they receive. These are worth exploring even though they may reflect stereotypical and ideological knowledge (Mills, 2009). The data for this presentation come from such an article entitled “Greek impoliteness: 10 things that kill you in this city” and the subsequent comments.