Abstract
This paper is a part of a larger research that pursues a global understanding of impoliteness in face-to-face electoral debates. That research distinguishes three essential axes, three complementary analytical perspectives: functional strategies of impoliteness, linguistic-discursive mechanisms to implement them and social impacts of impolite acts. In this frame, the present work develops an in-depth analysis of a special category of mechanisms, namely the rupture of politeness conventions, a subgroup within postliteral implicit mechanisms. This subgroup acquires its identity by the fact of carrying out a linguistic action that is conventionally associated with a polite attitude, but doing it in a rhetorically insincere way: the consequence is that apparent politeness becomes impoliteness. Relevant aspects in the characterization of ruptures are isolated and, on this basis, it is developed a detailed analysis of three specific kinds of mechanisms in which ruptures take shape: using ironic statements, developing different forms of overpoliteness and adopting a falsely collaborative attitude toward the interlocutor. The analysis of that group of mechanisms takes into account, simultaneously, the other two axes of the main research, strategies and social impacts.
Highlights
This paper is a part of a larger research that pursues a global understanding of impoliteness in face-to-face electoral debates
We articulate our analysis around three axes: (a) functional strategies of impoliteness used by speakers in order to attack the adversary, (b) linguistic-discursive mechanisms used to implement these strategies and (c) social impact of the attacks from the point of view of linguistic impoliteness
We proposed three objectives at the beginning of this work. Regarding the former, we have briefly presented the main lines of the research project in which this contribution is integrated, highlighting how the global understanding of the analysed phenomenon can be markedly enriched by the matched action of the three complementary analytical perspectives: strategies, mechanisms and social impacts
Summary
We proposed three objectives at the beginning of this work. Regarding the former, we have briefly presented the main lines of the research project in which this contribution is integrated, highlighting how the global understanding of the analysed phenomenon can be markedly enriched by the matched action of the three complementary analytical perspectives: strategies, mechanisms and social impacts. In the characterization of ruptures, we isolated two relevant aspects, namely: the type of mismatch that triggers them (internal/external), on the one hand, and the values they show in the three key variables that articulate the research (i.e., what strategies they implement, through what specific mechanisms they do and what social impacts they have), on the other hand. We have developed our third and crucial objective just from the identification of the three main types of mechanisms by which ruptures are carried out: an in-depth analysis of the specific features and different nature of each of them. In this sense, the main role of ironic statements has been highlighted, especially those located at the illocutionary level. That path has led us to a leisurely analysis on the nature of the linguistic means used for this purpose, with the result of making more transparent, even if only for a very specific aspect, the often cryptic means that move political discourse
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