Speech behaviour of Internet users in conflict communication

Abstract

This article explores the expression of impoliteness of Internet users in confrontational threads. This approach involves the identification of speech aggression markers typical of a certain type of discourse. This makes it possible to define the roles and attitudes of partici­pants in the conflict interaction. The authors employed methods of discourse analysis and corpus tools of data collection and marking. Seven confrontational threads in the communities of the social network "Vkontakte" were analysed. The authors identified language markers of the switch from cooperative to confrontational speech interaction. The authors investigated the typical roles of communicators in a confrontational thread, and observed the dynamics of using aggressive language tools for each of the proposed strategies. The article describes typi­cal situations for the confrontational threads: reliability of the information presented, lack of the user's intention to check facts, and the violation of spelling and punctuation rules. Con­frontations around these situations tend to lead to more complex conflicts and are character­ized as motives typical of impolite communication.