The speech genre of a criminal threat in online-communication

Abstract

The author attempts to explore the threat as a speech genre of verbal aggression. It is argued that the threat is most often found in the texts of modern online-communication, the characteristics of which are close to a synthetic oral-written form of communication and the colloquial genre. It is emphasized that in modern studies the threat is researched from a legal and linguistic point of view. The author proves the idea that there are two main types of threat statements – a threat-warning, including a causal action, and a threatpunishment. A specific sub-genre of threat is a blackmail, which includes manipulation by means of information compromising the addressee. Semantically, the threat can be explicit, clearly expressed, and implicit, whose  interpretation requires an appeal to the logics of the statement. Implicit threat in online-communication is the most difficult type to research, since its interpretation involves analyzing the logic of constructing a statement by identifying linguistic techniques presented in the text – the use of euphemisms, idioms, semantic convolution, metaphors, sarcasm, precedent case reference and non-verbal components of communication (images, emoji. Implicit threat is studied using data from various explanatory linguistic dictionaries and fragments of texts submitted for forensic linguistic examination. It is reported that the genre of a criminal threat should be distinguished from other genres such as promises, orders, warnings, verbally expressed suicidal intentions, malevolence, a threat in a broad sense, and calls to a violent action.

Keywords

• criminal threat
• menace
• verbal aggression
• speech genre
• online-communication
• linguistic device