Записки з романо-германської філології (Apr 2015)
Methodological approach to impoliteness research in German internet-discourse
Abstract
In this paper we review up-to-date approaches to impoliteness studies as well as to one of its strategies – aggravation. We outline some problem issues of constituting of impoliteness and aggravation – the status of intention, context influence and conceptualization as well as we present a critical review of two main methodological approaches to impoliteness study – first order approach and second order approach. We also present a methodological strategy of our research. The object of the study is the analysis the methodological approaches to the study of communicative strategy as subtype of impoliteness and the subject is the problematic parameters constituting impoliteness and methodological possibilities for solving these problems. The aim of this article is to analyze methodological approaches to the study of impoliteness offered by modern cognitive-discursive paradigm, to reflect critically on these approaches and to describe the stages of the proposed research methodology. The research is based on the theoretical work by linguists who develop approaches to the study of impoliteness, analyzing the parameters such as context and intention, which contibute to the impoliteness in discourse. The topicality is caused by rising social and cultural role of the phenomenon of impoliteness in modern communication (primarily - online communication), and also by the lack of elaborated methods for studying and analyzing the parameters that constitute impoliteness in discourse. We outlined the strategy, in our opinion, a researcher can use: Step 1. Study of the dictionaries which helps to determine which language units (lexemes, idioms and phraseological units) embody the concept BELEIDIGUNG. We have found that these are units: Beleidigung, Missachtung, Verachtung, Urteil, Spott, Angriff, Verletzung, üble Nachrede, Frechheit, Unterschätzung, Überhebung, Unhöflichkeit, verbale Aggression. Step 2. Analysis of the data from corps DWDS. We conducted a content analysis, i.e. quantitative search for specific lexical units, which according to the dictionary data embody the concept BELEIDIGUNG, namely: Beleidigung, Urteil, Spott, Aggression, Verachtung. Step 3. Study of the first order and searching comments with the explicit qualification of the expression as offensive by the addressee using lexemes mentioned in the preceding paragraph. The most frequent lexemes denoting the concept BELEIDIGUNG are the following - Beleidigung, Angriff, Verachtung, Verleumdung and Urtel. Step 4. The next step is the linguo-pragmatic analysis involving the methods of structural and semantic, logical-semantic, stylistic, transformative, contextual, intentional, interferential analysis, the methods of periphrasis, explication of implicit meaning and the elements of the method of formalization and quantitative method. Step 5. Finally, the influence of specific features of the online communications on the strategy of impoliteness and aggravation. In our study an integrated approach that combines the research of first and second order is used. Firstly, it involves the online discourse as a special context of communication and material for analysis, and secondly, it focuses on the interpretation of reaction of an addressee to the offensive statements about the speaker, as well as the intentions of the speaker. Finally, it analizes strategies of impoliteness from the point of view of cognitive, communicative and socio-cultural aspects of its implementation.
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