Understandings of impoliteness in the greek context

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Department of English Language and Literature

National and Kapodistrian University of Athens

Understandings of impoliteness in the greek context

Angeliki Tzanne and Maria Sifianou

Abstract

Interest in non-academic ways of understanding of im/politeness has so far been evident primarily in analyses of the sequential development of real-life interactions. However, understandings of im/politeness can be found in other sources such as related articles in on-line newspapers and their ensuing comments. The main aim of this paper is to contribute to this rather neglected area in im/politeness research, thus placing emphasis on the underexplored societal rather than individual level of im/politeness. The data to be investigated comes from two on-line articles and the comments they received. The articles appeared in a popular Greek free press on-line newspaper, LIFO, in 2014 and 2017 and were written by the same journalist. Both articles and ensuing comments express lay understandings of impoliteness and are discussed in the paper in terms of van Dijk's (1998, 2006a, b) ideological discourse analysis and `ideological square' that revolves around positive self-presentation and negative other-presentation. In exploring understandings of impoliteness in this context, we identified two emerging social identities, those of `polite' and `impolite citizen', dynamically co-constructed as binary opposites by the journalist and posters involved. Despite the fact that on-line newspaper articles and their accompanying comments reflect stereotypical thinking, they also depict pervasive views and are worth exploring because they concern the societal level of im/politeness.

Keywords: Impoliteness, lay conceptualisations, ideological discourse analysis, identity construction, on-line newspaper articles, Greek

Аннотация

Понимание невежливости в греческом контексте

Ангелики Цанне и Мария Сифиану

Афинский национальный университет им. Каподистрии, Греция

Анализ понимания (не)вежливости на бытовом уровне обычно проводится на основе исследований реального взаимодействия. Однако для данных исследований можно использовать и другие источники, например, соответствующие статьи в онлайн газетах и последующие комментарии.

Основная цель данной статьи -- внести вклад в эту мало изученную область, сделав акцент на социальном, а не индивидуальном уровне (не)вежливости. Материалом для исследования послужили две онлайн-статьи и комментарии к ним. Статьи были написаны одним и тем же журналистом и опубликованы в популярной греческой онлайн-газете LIFO в 2014 и 2017 годах. Обе статьи и последующие комментарии выражают бытовое понимание невежливости и обсуждаются нами с точки зрения идеологического дискурс-анализа ван Дейка (1998, 2006a, b) и «идеологического квадрата», который вращается вокруг позитивной презентации себя и негативной презентации другого. Изучая понимание невежливости в этом контексте, мы определили две бинарно противоположные социальные идентичности -- вежливого и невежливого гражданина, совместно сконструированные журналистом и авторами комментариев. Несмотря на то, что статьи в онлайн-газетах и сопровождающие их комментарии отражают стереотипное мышление, они представляют широко распространенные взгляды и заслуживают изучения, поскольку затрагивают социальный уровень (не)вежливости.

Introduction

Discursive approaches to im/politeness have suggested a distinction between lay understandings of politeness or `first order' politeness and politeness as a theoretical construct or `second order' politeness. Despite the fact that over the years it has become clear that such a straightforward dichotomy is difficult to maintain, it has triggered academic interest in non-academic understandings of politeness and impoliteness which, as has been argued, should receive more attention in im/politeness research. Among various sources, such understandings can be found in articles and ensuing comments in on-line newspapers dealing explicitly with issues of im/politeness.

Despite the fact that the views expressed may reflect stereotypical and ideological thinking (Brown 2015, Culpeper 2011, Mills 2009, 2017), they are worth exploring because they concern the rather underexplored societal rather than the individual level of politeness. It is precisely to this neglected area in im/politeness research that our paper aims to contribute.

The data that will serve as the source of our discussion comes from two on-line articles written by the same journalist and dealing specifically with the issue of impoliteness, and the comments following these publications. In exploring lay understandings of impoliteness in this on-line context, we will be mainly concerned with the social group identities that the journalist and commenters appear to co-construct. From our analysis, impoliteness emerges from the system of social norms and values of politeness presumably shared by a group of citizens the identity of which is constructed explicitly in the discourse of both articles and ensuing comments. The group identity of `impolite citizen' is presented as the binary opposite of another group identity, that of `polite citizen', the identity of which is primarily constructed through implication and inference in the data examined.

The paper is structured as follows: We will start with a brief consideration of what lay conceptualisations of im/politeness involve and then add some key features of on-line newspaper comments and identity construction. We will then proceed with the data analysis and the presentation and discussion of findings.

1. Lay conceptualisations of im/politeness

As mentioned earlier, politeness researchers (e.g., Eelen 2001, Watts 1989, 2003, Watts et al. 1992) have drawn a well-known but also contested distinction between `first order' (or P1) politeness and `second order' (or P2) politeness, the former referring to `folk' or `lay' interpretations/understandings of im/politeness and the latter to a theoretical construct in a sociolinguistic theory (Watts 2003: 4). Although it has by now become evident that such a dichotomy can no longer be sustained (see, e.g., Haugh 2012, Haugh and Culpeper 2018, Kadar and Haugh 2013: 84, 104, Mills 2003: 8, Terkou- rafi 2011: 180), it has drawn scholarly attention to non-academic understandings of im/politeness which, as several studies argue, should receive more attention in im/politeness research (see, e.g., Culpeper 2011, Haugh 2012, Locher and Watts 2005: 16, Mills 2003, Watts 2003).

This distinction was the incentive for the emergence of research which analysed in detail examples from real-life interactions focusing on the assessments made by participants in the unfolding of these interactions. Despite their offering valuable insights into understandings of im/politeness, such assessments tend to emerge at textual moments of disagreement/conflict, are tied to a specific time and place and mostly reflect the heterogeneity of understandings (Davies et al. 2013: 275). Moreover, as Kadar and Haugh (2013: 199) and Locher (2013: 203) rightly point out, evaluations of im/politeness may not necessarily surface in interaction. Notwithstanding shortcomings, such interactional data is an appealing source for exploring understandings of im/politeness but one can also find understandings of im/politeness in on-line articles and ensuing comments dealing explicitly with issues of im/politeness. In the same way that non-linguists frequently talk about language issues, they also talk about im/politeness and what constitutes in/appropriate behaviour, talk which “comes under the umbrella of metapragmatics” which, as Kadar and Haugh (2013: 181) argue, is “of particular importance to the study of politeness” because it offers a broader perspective than interactional data. As Kadar and Haugh (2013: 202) note, a useful window into metadiscourses on im/politeness comes from analyses of comments or debates that arise in the media. Such sources have received some attention for instance in the work of Haugh (2010), O'Driscoll (2013) and Terkourafi et al. (2018) who analyse in-depth perceptions of the offensiveness of e-mails and tweets which received wide public attention. In such cases, judgements relate to evaluations of language as polite, impolite or offensive. Closer to our approach, in a very recent article, Locher and Luginbuhl (2019) explore the competing understandings of im/politeness discussed in on-line commentaries by German and Swiss posters. In other words, in both cases the topic of the discussion is im/politeness per se rather than some other issue which developed into a conflictual heated discussion.

Thus, even though there is a plethora of publications on on-line reader comments and impoliteness, what, to the best of our knowledge, has not received much attention are metadiscourses that deal explicitly with the concept of im/politeness in both the articles and the comments and more specifically with the lack of politeness shown to (usually unknown) others in public encounters. Such impoliteness metapragmatic comments are “articulations of prescriptive rules concerning behaviours in the light of particular social norms” (Culpeper 2011: 73) “or more broadly ideologies” (Haugh 2007: 307). Mills (2009, 2017 and elsewhere) maintains that statements about im/politeness at a cultural level tend to be ideological, conservative and based on stereotypes. Despite such valid concerns, such data is invaluable and worth exploring because even though lay descriptions may be inaccurate and based on stereotypes and prejudices, they embody pervasive beliefs and attitudes (Pinto 2011: 218, drawing on Preston 2005). For their part, Niedzielski and Preston (2003: 323) advocate that “the nonspecialist views of topics which touch the lives of all citizens are worth knowing for their bearing on public life”. Drawing on Jaworski et al. (2004: 3), Culpeper (2011: 73) maintains that the role of these metalinguistic representations is twofold: “on the one hand they are data for understandings, and on the other hand they become structured understandings. In other words, they both reflect thought and influence it”. We would like to add here that these understandings are worth exploring since they concern the societal level which has been rather neglected in im/politeness research. As is well-known, core concepts in impoliteness research are those of `face' and `face-threatening' acts/behaviour and their impact on individuals. At the societal level, individuals are not concerned with each other's face protection so much as they most probably do not know each other, nor do they aim at constructing or establishing a relationship. As Davies et al. (2013: 271) contend “local negotiations of politeness and the identities they construct are important, but these negotiations are always played out against a backdrop of societal and cultural beliefs”. Impoliteness at the societal level has to do more with the breach of social norms and conventions. Such norms constitute “authoritative standards of behaviour, and entail positive or negative evaluations of behaviour as being consistent or otherwise with those standards” (Culpeper 2011: 36). This difference is evidenced in that comments relating to impoliteness at the societal level are usually accompanied by other-condemning emotions, such as anger and contempt rather than self-conscious emotions such as embarrassment and shame which would be the result of violations of face wants (Culpeper 2011: 62). Lakoff (2005), Grainger and Mills (2016) and Mills (2017) contend that the term `in/civility' could be used to describe im/politeness phenomena at the social level, since the term `im/politeness' is better suited to describe such phenomena at the individual level. This is an interesting suggestion that has not been taken up in the relevant literature and, in our view, merits further exploration (but see Sifianou 2019). Such concerns can also be found in the in/civility literature expressed in the distinction between `proximate' and `diffuse' civility. Proximate civility is often equated with `politeness' or its absence in interaction and covers both verbal and non-verbal communication. Diffuse civility involves a broader spectrum of behaviours which impact on others even without their presence (Fyfe et al. 2006: 855). Related is Boyd's (2006: 864) distinction between `formal' and `substantive' civility; the former is limited to manners, politeness, courtesies and other interactional formalities, whereas the latter “denotes a sense of standing or membership in the political community with its attendant rights and responsibility”.

As it transpires from the above, exploring and encompassing (though not reifying) various lay understandings/theorisations of im/politeness in our quests is a promising perspective that should be considered. Therefore, in this paper, we will focus on lay understandings of impoliteness in Greek found in two on-line articles and ensuing comments referring to this topic and hope to show the significance of such understandings for the construction and maintenance of social group identities vis-а-vis im/politeness.

2. On-line newspaper communication and impoliteness

In their effort to encourage community dialogue, on-line newspapers offer public space for readers to voice their opinions through the comments they can post at the end of the articles written by journalists. Sometimes, these comments are civil, but research on on-line communication has raised serious concerns about the incivility in most such contexts. As Barnes (2018: viii) notes, even though the internet has brought new means of communication, “it is often the darker side of communication--incivility, abuse and harassment--that is synonymous with this new frontier” (see also Reader 2012, Upadhyay 2010).

This presumed dominance of impoliteness in the media is mostly attributed to the anonymity and the subsequent deindividuation afforded by on-line platforms. Dynel (2015: 338) contends that Internet users' anonymity infuses “a sense of impunity and lack of inhibitions” and these facilitate the occurrence of impoliteness (see also Bou-Franch and Garcйs-Conejos Blitvich 2014, Hardaker 2010, Hardaker and McGlashan 2016, Lorenzo-Dus et al. 2011, Reader 2012, Thurlow et al. 2004). Research has indeed shown that incivility is more common in contexts where users can retain their anonymity (see, e.g., Oz et al. 2017, Rowe 2015, Santana 2014). However, most researchers agree that “there are multiple factors that influence online commenting culture” (Barnes 2018:114) such as the varying affordances of the platforms and the fact that they attract different types of audiences rather than anonymity alone. In addition, they contend that comments regarding morally loaded, sensitive topics (e.g., same-sex marriage) were more impolite than comments to less sensitive topics (e.g., technology). Thus the topic of the discussion appears to be a significant variable in exploring the quality of interaction (Berg 2016). impoliteness social ideological

As can be gleaned from the above, some scholars argue that anonymity exacerbates aggressiveness and even hostility whereas others contend that anonymity has benefits as it encourages the expression of unconventional views and thus promotes a pluralistic dialogue, free speech and broader participation (see, e.g., Papacharissi 2004, Reader 2012, Scott, 2004). What is more relevant for us here is that anonymity may also lead to an increase in the salience of social identity since “deindividuated contexts are conducive to individuals constructing themselves mostly as members of relevant social categories, i.e. to social or collective identity construction” (Lorenzo-Dus et al. 2011: 2581). As we shall show below, posters construct their identities in relation to like- minded others and in opposition to others who are not members of this in-group.

As previously mentioned, impoliteness has been found to proliferate especially when contentious topics are involved (see, e.g., Bou-Franch and Garces-Conejos Blitvich 2014, Mutz and Reeves 2005, Oz et al. 2017, Santana 2014). Im/politeness itself can be such a topic, not only because people have different views as to what it is and how it is manifested, but also because journalists and alarmists love to draw sweeping overgeneralisations that magnify what is seen as impolite and thus draw attention and instigate comments. Discursive approaches to im/politeness research have emphasised the inherent variability in evaluations of behaviour as polite, impolite and so on while at the same time stressing that these individual variabilities can be recognised in juxtaposition to more general societal norms. Yet there are contexts such as that examined here where, as we will see later, impressive homogeneity and unanimity dominate (cf. Locher and Luginbuhl 2019).

3. Identity construction

The relationship between language and identity has been of concern to social scientists for years but they mostly viewed identity as based on stable relationships between linguistic and social variables. In recent years, this stability has been challenged not least because of large-scale sociocultural and political changes (see, e.g., Archakis and Tsakona 2012, Archakis and Tzanne 2009, Benwell and Stokoe 2006, Bucholtz and Hall 2003, 2005, Canakis 2007, Garces-Conejos Blitvich and Sifianou 2017, Joseph 2004, Locher 2008). Researchers have shown how “we build images of ourselves through language, how society moulds us into different categories, and how we negotiate our membership of those categories” (De Fina et al. 2006). Johnstone (2008: 151) sees identity as referring “to the outcome of processes by which people index their similarity to and difference from others, sometimes self-consciously and strategically and sometimes as a matter of habit”. In other words, identity work has been seen as both active and passive with the former referring to cases “when individuals are relatively aware of their self-constructions”, and the latter to work which “occurs through more routine processes” (Wieland 2010: 507). The breadth and complexity of the relationships between identities and their discursive constructions has led to distinctions such as that between personal and collective or group identity (see, e.g., Hardaker and McGlashan 2016, Joseph 2004, Watson 2008, Wieland 2010), a distinction, however, which is not as clear-cut as it first appears (Joseph 2004: 6). As Joseph (2004: 5) explicates, one's “personal identity is made up in part of the various group identities to which you stake a claim”. Moreover, as Garces-Conejos Blitvich and Sifianou (2017: 247, drawing on Hall and Du Gay 1996 and Mouffe 2005), point out, “identities are the product of difference and exclusion rather than unity, as it is only in relation to the other, to what one is not, that recognition is produced” (see also Joseph 2004: 46). As Bucholtz and Hall (2005: 605) argue “identities emerge only in relation to other identities within the contingent framework of interaction”. The concepts of `identity' and `identity work' are highly complex and the literature diverse (see, e.g., Howard 2000, Garces-Conejos Blitvich 2013, Locher 2008, Locher and Bolander 2017) so it is impossible to paint an overall picture (Howard 2000: 387).

What is more, cyberspace has foregrounded issues of identity construction, making the social construction of identity more visible and in some cases at least more selfconscious (Luzon 2018, Marwick 2013). Given the mostly public nature of interactions, visibility has emerged as a core property of the system reinforcing posters' concern with identity construction, “an ongoing performance of identity” in order to connect with like-minded others (Zappavigna 2012: 38).

In this paper, we approach identity as dynamically co-constructed in social interaction rather than as a permanent and stable feature of individuals, differentiating between explicit and implicit identity construction (Bolander and Locher 2015) and showing that implicitness is often preferred over explicitness.

4. The data

As mentioned earlier, the data for this paper comes from two on-line articles and ensuing comments. Both articles appeared in one of the popular Greek free press on-line newspapers, LIFO, and were written by the same journalist. The first, entitled KounXapovxac; an' r^v ayeveia... `Being intimidated by impoliteness...' (https://www.lifo.gr/team/apopseis/51270?comments_page=2&comments_order= o#comments) appeared in September 2014 and the second entitled EXX^viK^ ayeveia: 10 npay/uam nov ae okotwvovv o' amnyv хщу поХц `Greek impoliteness: 10 things that kill you in this city' (https://www.lifo.gr/articles/health-fitness_articles/158512/elliniki- ageneia-10-pragmata-poy-se-skotonoyn-s-aytin-tin-poli) appeared three years later in September 2017. The first article is accompanied by a screenshot, most probably from a Greek film, depicting a young girl with her tongue sticking out in front of two elderly men. The second article is accompanied by a screenshot of the late, Harry Klynn, very popular Greek stand-up comedian and singer. The photo, drawn from the TV series Made in Greece, depicts him performing a very popular obscene gesture. In fact, one poster commented on this photo saying that the article is very good but the photo is even better.

The first of these articles received only 16 comments whereas the second one received 35 comments and was shared 265 times. The numbers were accurate at the time of collecting our data but are slightly different today. There was no mention of shares for the first one. In both cases, all posters used nicknames. After downloading the articles and the comments, each post was coded as either an initial post, where the poster addressed the content of the article in a new “thread”, or as a reply, where the poster directly addressed a comment from another poster, or another participant. The number of likes/dislikes a comment received was also recorded. All comments, with a couple of exceptions, as we will see below, endorsed the journalist's views and received many more likes than dislikes. We will not provide a detailed account of all of this, but instead restrict ourselves to a very brief overview and concentrate on the practices that relate to the construction of the `im/polite citizen' identity.

4.1 The first article: "Being intimidated by impoliteness..."