TIPA. Travaux interdisciplinaires sur la parole et le langage (Oct 2017)
Échange polémique et contre-discours en italien
Abstract
In a contemporary context, many linguistic exchanges are marked by various forms of antagonism, of disagreement, of verbal aggressiveness, confirming that conflict is a component of social reality that cannot be ignored. This explains the conceptual metaphor, proposed by Lakoff and Johnson (1980, fr. tr. 1985) and widespread in Western culture, according to which speech activity is structured in terms of debate, clash, and theses; a sort of verbal duel during which social actors occupy in turn the position of Agent and Patient.The conceptually prominent participant who speaks and wants to obtain the audience’s support to his/her thesis (Agent) develops his argumentation by objecting to the discourse of his/her adversary (Patient); that is to say, he/she absorbs, manipulates, and deforms the opposing thesis so as to place it in an unfavorable light, or he opposes his/her adversary’s argument using a counter-argument which disproves it. For his/her part, the subject who is involved in the dispute and suffers from the attack is pushed to react, to retort to his/her interlocutor, by transforming himself/herself into an Agent and adopting the same discourse strategies. This dynamics triggers a chain reaction with an alternation of Agent-discourse and Patient-discourse (Windisch, 1982; Maingueneau, 1983) in a discourse conflict whose aim is the legitimization of the former discourse and the delegitimization of the latter.Since conflictual discourse takes up another discourse with the purpose of objecting to it, the former is also envisaged as a counter-discourse, aimed, on the one hand, at metaphorically slapping the other’s face to give a depreciatory social representation of him/her (FTAs or Face Threatening Acts), and, on the other hand, at strengthening his/her own image of credibility and legitimacy.Based on two Italian case studies relating to the political-institutional domain, the current paper reflects on linguistic mechanisms engaged during a conflictual interaction, especially focusing on textual features and discourse strategies which social participants make use of in order to win the verbal battle, according to the model elaborated by Windisch (1982, 2007).The first case study consists in a polemical exchange, whose primary pragmatic aim is to discredit the contender involved in the dispute and his/her discourse (Kerbrat-Orecchioni, 1980).With regard to the textual form, among the main linguistic elements found in the two examined documents, we count the graphic signs of indirect speech: quotation marks (or dashes), suspension points, question marks, exclamation marks; signs used to point out that the Agent-subject limits him/herself to quoting and to reproducing in his/her own allocution his/her adversary’s arguments, by no means accepting them but keeping his/her distance from them, his/her only purpose being to discredit his/her adversary. Brackets are used too, sometimes with a purely explanatory function, sometimes to introduce some axiological remarks.As for lexicon, conflictual discourse is built on a rich repertoire of pejorative words which cover a varying register; reflecting the speaker’s conceptual activity, lexical choices give evidence of his/her mental attitude. In our specific case study, the two documents are sprinkled with derogatory expressions aiming to denigrating the antagonists, yet without producing extreme judgments or outrageous vocabulary, in accordance with the style of polemical exchanges whose main feature is not verbal violence but the confrontation of conflicting positions and opinions (Dascal, 1998; Garand, 1998; Amossy & Burger, 2011).As far as discourse strategies are concerned, the most prominent ones are: - quotation: speaker 1 (S1 – Agent-subject) uses direct speech or quotation in its strict sense, which consists in voicing explicitly the words of the adversary (S2 – Patient-subject) as well as indirect speech, resting on paraphrases preceded by introducing verbs; - concession: S1 validates S2’s thesis showing an apparent compliance with his/her arguments, but solely in order to reject the opposing opinion with more virulence; - refutation: S1 opposes the arguments of his/her adversary’s thesis proving that they are not relevant or are inadequate; - irony: S1 disparages his/her antagonist under the disguise of praise; indeed, he/she pretends to share his/her rival’s purposes in order to better denigrate them, with a parodic and depreciating aim; - simulation: S1 uses advisedly the context or the extra-linguistic situation in which conflict takes place so as to make his adversary ridiculous; - unmasking: S1 reveals the weak points and the unspoken elements of his/her interlocutor’s discourse to show him/her in a negative light. Unmasking counterbalances masking, which is the other side of a conflictual discourse: some faults, ideological aspects or negatively judged traits of S1’s personality are dissimulated or hidden, in order to score points against the competitor.Our second case study, belonging to the genre of ironical-conflictual discourse (Windisch, 2007), is represented by the counter-discourse of the Five Star Movement’s founder Beppe Grillo, which was broadcast on his blog on 31 December 2015, when and while Italian President Sergio Mattarella was delivering his end-of-year message. As we show in our analysis, linguistic devices such as irony, parody and satirical register turn out to be very efficient means, capable of supporting argumentation, devaluing the antagonist and undermining his/her credibility. Another important aspect that has to be taken into account is the communicative impact of the visual level which, going together with the verbal one, contributes to transmit the planned message and integrates perfectly with strategic speech construction.In conclusion, the power of words being evident, the stakes lie finally in their use and in the strategies brought into play. The success of a discourse depends upon the speaker’s capacity to take advantage of a variety of linguistic tools and to choose the most appropriate discursive devices, still more when the interaction is conflictual, characterized essentially by a dichotomous dualism between two parts, each of which tries to prevail over the other.
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