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Conversational Agents (CAs) are becoming part of our everyday lives. About 10 percent of users display aggressive behavior toward CAs, such as swearing at them when they produce errors. We conducted two online experiments to understand user aggression toward CAs better. In the first experiment, 175 participants used either a humanlike CA or a non-humanlike CA. Both CAs worked without errors, and we observed no increased frustration or user aggression. The second experiment (with 201 participants) was the focus of this study; in it, both CAs produce a series of errors. The results show that frustration with errors drives aggression, and users with higher impulsivity are more likely to become aggressive when frustrated. The results also suggest that there are three pathways by which perceived humanness influences users' aggression to CAs. First, perceived humanness directly increases the frustration with the CA when it produces errors. Second, perceived humanness increases service satisfaction which in turn reduces frustration. Third, perceived humanness influences the nature of aggression when users become frustrated (i.e., users are less likely to use highly offensive words with a more humanlike CA). Our research contributes to our theoretical understanding of the role of anthropomorphism in the interaction with machines, showing that designing a CA to be more humanlike is a double-edged sword—both increasing and decreasing the frustration that leads to aggression—and also a means to reduce the most severe aggression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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In this paper, I argue for a nuanced, context-sensitive approach to the question of trash talk, based on the Kantian principle of respect for persons and an emphasis on first-person action-guidance. I also suggest that we understand trash talk to have several varieties. On my proposed approach, there is no simple answer to the question of whether trash talk is morally permissible; rather, context-sensitive judgment can help us to determine what we ought to do when the possibility of various forms of trash talk arises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate experimentally whether the perceived offensiveness of slurs survives when they are reported, by comparing Italian slurs and insults in base utterances (Y is an S), direct speech (X said: "Y is an S"), mixed quotation (X said that Y is "an S"), and indirect speech (X said that Y is an S). For all strategies, reporting decreases the perceived offensiveness without removing it. For slurs, but not insults, indirect speech is perceived as more offensive than direct speech. Our hypothesis is that, because slurs constitute hate speech, speakers employ quotation marks to signal their dissociation from slur use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the role of language in the scientific study of politics. Conceding that politics is naturally an arena of heated disputation, it examines linguistic manifestations of factional polarisation by interpreting words, phrases, and sentences used by the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) politicians during the party's acrimonious splits of 2005 and 2014 and subsequent re-union of 2017. I contend that the use of vituperative, exclusionary and inflammatory language fuelled personality clashes; ethnic chauvinism; sexism; racism; ideological discord and intraparty violence. This often derailed attempts to reconcile the party's bickering factions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Enslavers utilized various methods of physical and psychological violence to effect emotions of terror and fear in their African captives in order to create and maintain systems of enslavement throughout the Atlantic World. But these methods also produced emotions in the victims which could act against the systems of enslavement. One such emotion was anger and its visible display towards the enslavers was forbidden throughout the Atlantic World. But the extreme domination of enslavement also resulted in challenges to the system. In this article, I will document and analyse visible displays of the emotions of anger and vengeance by the enslaved in the colonies that became British Guiana. The emotion of vengeance in these cases was conducted through open insults which allowed slaves a way to assert themselves and belittle their enslavers. This study is based on documented complaints of the enslaved during the nineteenth century in the colony of British Guiana, housed at the National Archives of the United Kingdom. These documents are unique in the annals of British West Indian slavery as they give voice to the enslaved on a variety of topics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This note reconsiders Myles na gCopaleen’s uses and abuses of Hiberno-English through some of the columnist’s favourite insults – such as thooleramawn, thullabawn, and gawshkogue. A master of both of Ireland’s ‘official’ languages, Myles had a unique relationship with the unofficial hybrid, which provided him with, among other things, a rich repertoire of verbal disparagement. Not only did he have an apparent monopoly of some of these terms but, like a Hiberno-English Humpty Dumpty, he may have had exclusive rights to decide what, if anything, they meant.

The treatment of insults –understood as words within offensive language whose function is hurting the addressee's feelings (Ávila-Cabrera, 2016)– in audiovisual translation (AVT) always poses a challenge to audiovisual translators: because of the semantic/pragmatic load these terms have in the source text (ST), the effect caused in the target text (TT) and culture, and because of the difficulty in transferring them in an idiomatic way. Certain formulas do not always maintain the effect that some words have in the ST. In addition, the translation techniques used may not even be faithful to the original dialogue exchanges. This paper aims to analyse all the insults uttered in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Tarantino, 2019), and in its dubbed and subtitled versions into European Spanish. In order to do so, I will pay particular attention to the speaker's intention (Grice, 1969), whether the insults found in the ST can be viewed as examples of friendly banter or whether, by contrast, the speaker's intention was offending. Ávila-Cabrera's (2023) taxonomy of translation techniques will be used to delve into the manner in which insults were translated to the TT to determine whether or not the semantic/pragmatic load of these terms is transferred (being toned up, maintained or toned down) or not (being neutralised or omitted). The point of departure of this case study resorts to the initial hypothesis that dubbing transfers more insults into European Spanish than subtitling due to the technical features of the former. The aims of the study are: to determine (1) how faithful the dubbed and subtitled version insults were towards the ST, that is, whether or not the load of the insults is transferred to the TT and to what degree; (2) which AVT mode transfers the greatest number of insults to the TT; (3) if the insults transferred had the intention of offending or not; and (4) if the insults tend to foreignisation or domestication. In order to do so, a multidisciplinary methodology will be used based on a descriptive translation studies (DTS) and pragmatics approach. • Dubbing and subtitling transfer insults to European Spanish mostly faithfully. • Dubbing has slightly transferred more insults than subtitling. • The function of insults depends on its linguistic form, sociopragmatics and context. • Insults aimed at offending have been present in the TT closely in both AVT modes. • The audio and visual channels help distinguish insults as offence vs. friendly banter. • The same professional did the dubbing and subtitling, hence the similar results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Published in 1775, Dareau's Traité des injures proposes to codify the regulation of insults based on the articulation between authorities, hierarchies, and masculine honor. Starting with insults, he sketches out plural masculinities, whose general governance is based on the domus model. At the pinnacle of this masculine hierarchy are the "men of law", who encompass the professions associated with justice in the broadest sense. While he mobilizes several features inherited from the Renaissance magistrate, Dareau also bears witness to the influence of new gender norms of liberal and bourgeois inspiration. Starting with the entry on insults, the legal treatise thus helps to promote a new discourse on the virile ideal in the last third of the 18th century.

This essay examines the initiation ceremonies to which new recruits were often subjected in late medieval universities. These ceremonies theatricalised and ritualised violence, playing with metaphors and symbols and toying with the fine line between representation and reality. Why draw quite such attention to the notion that one was de-bestialising a new student (in the case of Heidelberg, Avignon, and others), re-clothing a country bumpkin (in the case of Siena, for example), or policing imagined violence by a hapless freshman (Pavia)? It was, I argue, because these ceremonies were engaging with the ways in which universities provided spaces to think about violence. The student perpetrators (both consciously and unconsciously) took aim at the hypocrisy of academic claims to represent a civilising space; they challenged the boundaries between physical violence and cruel words; and they parodied and drew attention to the hypocrisy of university regulations in institutions which in many ways continued to glorify violence. The parodic, subversive ruliness of the initiation ceremonies was a way to engage with ideas about violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exchanges of insults are rare in the European Parliament (EP). The process of self-rationalisation that presided over the rise of the institution affects all interactions between parliamentarians – including the civility of their exchanges. Yet, as in all parliamentary institutions, insult remains possible because of pluralism and publicity. Through the analysis of certain mediatised episodes, the contribution highlights factors more specific to the EP likely to generate verbal tension, namely: the presence of Eurosceptic representatives, the lack of cultural agreement on what can be said, the multiplicity of traditions of political rhetoric and the defence of certain European taboos such as peace and the usefulness of Parliament.

As one of the most used social media platforms, twitter has become a powerful tool for a number of purposes, including personal and business promotions as well as social communication. As for the political celebrities, it is considered to be the fastest way to communicate with their fans, friends or even their haters. Donald Trump is the former of 45th President of the United States and also a frequent user of twitter who often posts controversial or false statements. On July 16, 2019, the House of Representatives voted to censure him for "racist comments". Therefore, the purpose of this study is to analyze the utterances of insults on Donald Trump's Twitter account using descriptive qualitative research method, before and after Trump became the president of the United States and will look at the utterances, forms and references. The insult utterances of Trump's illocutionary speech acts that were found and then to be classified into (1) abusive swearing, (2) swearing, (3) obscenity, focusing on Searle's five classification of speech acts which consist of (1) representatives, (2) directives, (3) commissives, (4) expressives, and (5) declarations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The domestic and international crises of recent times seem to have stimulated some leading political actors to use personal attack and launch "warning arrows" at their counterparts in the nations with which they are in conflict and beyond. The undiplomatic or even bellicose attitudes of some leaders and diplomats were and are usually caused by an exacerbated ego, by the desire for notoriety and also by their moral and professional strongness. Tensions and even international conflicts were and will continue to be provoked by decisions taken under the influence of emotions, by leaders insufficiently trained in the art of leadership and diplomacy. An inadequate language and the undiplomatic behaviour of community leaders generated and can continue to generate states of tension that can evolve into political, diplomatic, economic, financial and other sanctions, or even to armed confrontations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exchanges of insults are rare in the European Parliament (EP). The process of self-rationalisation that presided over the rise of the institution affects all interactions between parliamentarians – including the civility of their exchanges. Yet, as in all parliamentary institutions, insult remains possible because of pluralism and publicity. Through the analysis of certain mediatised episodes, the contribution highlights factors more specific to the EP likely to generate verbal tension, namely: the presence of Eurosceptic representatives, the lack of cultural agreement on what can be said, the multiplicity of traditions of political rhetoric and the defence of certain European taboos such as peace and the usefulness of Parliament. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to propose a typology of replies to insults based on data retrieved from Twitter, which is ripe with offensive comments. The proposed typology is embedded in the theory of impoliteness, and it hinges on the notion of the perlocutionary effect. It assumes that what counts as an insult depends primarily on whether or not an utterance is evaluated as offensive by the insultee. The evaluation can be signalled behaviourally or verbally and includes expressed replies as well as so-called silent replies. The insults, regardless of the presence or absence of an insulting intention of the insulter (potential insult), that are not rendered as offensive by the target are only attempted insults, while those that are experienced as offensive amount to genuine insults. The analysis has illustrated select types of reactions and has shown that potential, attempted and genuine insults may be further divided into: in/direct insults, explicit/implicit, non-/pure, and non-/vocatives, whilst reactions can be subsumed by three overarching strategies: agreeing, attacking and rejection.

Naming of a kind that relegates unwelcome poor strangers is a current challenge in countries that continue to experience substantial migration of destitute individuals. On the basis of African moral philosophy, and specifically an ubuntu/hunhu ethical theory, I examine the ethics of naming and particularly the concern that some names relegate unwelcome poor strangers in the host society. First, I discuss the problem of terms such as “foreign” and the relegation of poor migrants. Secondly, I draw attention to the ethic I am going to use to evaluate names, probing the African philosophy’s understanding of stranger and brother in terms of human dignity. Thirdly, I apply my favored dignity-based ethic to contemplations of naming, demonstrating which kinds of names are demeaning, which instead are apposite, and how various agents should change theirpresent practices. What is distinct and new in this philosophical investigation on naming and the relegation of poor immigrants is that I appeal to ubuntu moral theory and propose positive alternatives about which names should be used along with recommendations for change of practice.

Verbal insults go against a universal moral imperative not to inflict harm on others, and they also pose a threat to one's face or reputation. As such, these “verbal slaps in the face” provide a unique opportunity to explore the interface between language and emotion. We used electroencephalography (EEG) and skin conductance (SC) recordings to compare the short-term impact of verbal insults such as “Linda is an idiot” or “Paula is horrible” to that of more positive evaluations (e.g., “Linda is an angel”, “Paula is impressive”) and neutral factual descriptions (e.g., “Linda is a student”), examining how responses to these various speech acts adapt as a function of massive repetition. By using either the participant's or somebody else's name, we also explored how statement impact depended on who was being evaluated. Multilevel ERP analysis with three predesignated latency ranges revealed an early insult effect in P2 amplitude that was highly robust over repetition and also did not depend on who the insult was about. This P2 effect points to a very rapid and stable capture of emotional attention, plausibly triggered by the retrieval of evaluative word meaning from long-term memory. Insults also elicited a larger late positive potential (LPP), again regardless of who the insult was about, but this later effect did not withstand repetition. Skin conductance responses showed that insults did not lead to more arousal than compliments did. In all, our findings suggest that in a standard psycholinguistic comprehension experiment without real interaction between speakers, insults deliver lexical “mini-slaps in the face,” such that the strongly negative evaluative words involved (e.g., “idiot”) automatically grab attention during lexical retrieval, regardless of how often that retrieval occurs.

This paper presents the results of the survey of fourth-grader to eight-grade students in primary schools in the Republic of Serbia on the attitude towards verbal peer bullying in the digital environment. Communication via the internet and mobile phones was quite prevalent during the state of emergency and online classes. Therefore, during the research, the period immediately after the last cycle of online teaching from April to June 2021, was targeted. The assumptions we started from in our research are based on some previous research. Therefore, in the first and second part of the paper we refer to the research results and conclusions of other authors. The third part of the paper analyzes the results of our research conducted in 2021 on the basis of an anonymous survey. In this way, we tried to give recommendations for improving the prevention of verbal peer bullying in the digital environment among students from the fourth to the eight grade of primary school.

This study explores the abusive use of animal names in reference to people in Bosnian, their level of offensiveness and negative meanings associated with them, as well as potential gender-related differences in regard to these issues. The analysis is based on the results of two online surveys conducted among two groups of Bosnian university students (142 and 61, respectively). Although a total of 39 animal names have been used in reference to male and female targets, most of the respondents (over 70%) used only three for each gender, when asked to think of the most despised male and female person, and to use an animal name in reference to each of them. The results indicate that the most frequently used female-directed animal names are more associated with bad character and less with a lack of manners than those which are male-directed. The results also show different levels of offensiveness of different animal names, which is particularly evident in the case of female-directed ones. Certain statistically significant gender-related differences in the use and perception of animal names as insults have also been noted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While linguistic prejudice is commonly understood to concern individuals or social groups because of the way they speak, we can also see it as damaging language used about individuals or social groups. In this article, I start by looking at the traditional sociolinguistic understanding of linguistic prejudice, then go on to look rather widely at various forms of prejudicial/sexist language about women. In doing so, I identify various lexical asymmetries and associated “lexical gaps”. The main part of the article takes this further by exploring how certain insults to men draw on an understood prejudice again women. I illustrate this with a “telling case”: three naturally occurring examples of prejudicial, sexist language recently used by British prime minister Boris Johnson: big girl’s blouse, man up and girly swot. For all three to work, they draw on what we might call a discourse of “Women as ineffectual”. I conclude with a discussion of intentionality as regards this sort of prejudicial language use, what it is intended to achieve and how it can be resisted.

Linguists consider insults/swear words as interjections carrying an expressive, cathartic, function, through which the enunciator manifests emotions. We provide a contrastive study of insults/swear words, investigating whether there are specific morphological/syntactic structures pertaining to insults/swear words and discuss the cross-cultural similarities/differences in the pragmatic use of this kind of language, focusing on the perspective of politeness. To do so, we analyse examples drawn from Hergé’s TinTin and their translation into Greek and English, this comic being rich in insults /swear words due to the particularities of the genre of discourse and Captain Haddock’s expressive character. The question is whether the implicit pragmatic/cultural values are the same in all the texts or there are important differences, which can be traced, deriving from the particularities of each of the languages of study. It emerged that the Greek chosen utterances reflect all the parameters influencing the original: phonological, semantic, pragmatic, stylistic. The English version seems to be more distant on all levels of analysis. The (non)preservation of the parameters depends on the peculiarities of the Greek, French and English languages and on the collective images of the recipients. Our conclusions match previous researches, proving Greek as positive politeness oriented, opposed to English (see also Romero 2000; Sifianou 2001).

Australia is rich in population datasets generated to manage convicts, civilians, stock, land and the colonised and displaced First Nations people. It has also preserved all service and pension data from both world wars. Through nominal linkage using volunteers and paid research staff, it has been possible over the past twenty years to build four cradle-to-grave datasets derived from administrative cohorts: poor white babies born in a charity hospital 1858–1900; Aboriginal Victorians from 1855 to 1988; convicts transported to Van Diemen’s Land 1818-1853 and servicemen who embarked for World War I from the State of Victoria. The abundance of digitised historical sources from government archives to historical newspapers enables the practice of demographic prosopography, with a wide range of variables that have yielded new insights into Australia’s population and social history.

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This qualitative study, grounded in the ethnography of communication, aims to describe how Italian young adults construct their individual and group identity through the use of insults. The existing literature has extensively investigated the communicative practice of insults, but no research has been done so far on insults in relation to the construction of identity in Italy. Therefore, this study enriches the literature, taking a linguistic, communicative, and pragmatic approach to the topic. In order to collect data, I conducted participant observation, one focus group, and three individual interviews. I applied thematic analysis to analyze the data. By interpreting members’ meanings, I identified four main functions of insults: construction of identity through gender; construction of identity depending on social context; construction of identity through the light use of insults; and construction of identity through the offensive use of insults.

Quest’articolo indaga il rapporto tra affronto verbale, genere e agentività legale nella Bologna della prima età moderna. Per molto tempo gli studiosi hanno trascurato di considerare l’impegno delle donne nell’attività criminale, o ne hanno sottolineato la distinzione. In tale contesto l’insulto è spesso stato caratterizzato una forma criminale tipicamente femminile e considerato in rapporto all’incapacità delle donne di agire in altri ambiti sociali, economici e politici della vita. Il presente studio intende sottoporre a meditazione critica tale assunto, esaminando il linguaggio e la pratica dell’affronto verbale quale discorso deviante attraverso il casellario giudiziario del Tribunale del Torrone, la corte penale di Bologna nella prima età moderna. Mentre tale fonte conferma l’esistenza di un lessico altamente sessista degli insulti, si sostiene che l’insulto maschile e femminile non vadano trattati distintamente, dal momento che i protagonisti maschili e quelle femminili attinsero a un ampio spettro di convenzioni e pratiche culturali condivise che vale la pena di esplorare.

This study looks into the role that eye contact plays in helping people to control themselves in social settings and to avoid breaking social norms. Based on previous research, it is likely that eye contact increases prosocial behavior via heightened self-awareness and increased interpersonal synchrony. In our study, we propose that eye contact can also support constructive social behavior by causing people to experience heightened embarrassment when they are breaking social norms. We tested this in a lab experiment (N = 60) in which participants read insults at the experimenter (i.e., they exhibited norm breaking behavior). In the experimental condition, participants maintained eye contact with the experimenter. In the control condition, the experimenter did not maintain eye contact. We measured embarrassment with a self-report measure, heart rate to capture arousal, and two observational indicators of embarrassment (hesitation and laughter). In line with our hypotheses, having eye contact during norm breaking behavior as compared to no eye contact led to a stronger increase in self-reported embarrassment, a higher heart rate as well as more hesitation and more laughter. We conclude that eye contact does indeed lead to more embarrassment, while breaking social norms. This implies that eye contact gives people the power to punish norm breaking in others by inducing an aversive emotional experience.

This study looks into the role that eye contact plays in helping people to control themselves in social settings and to avoid breaking social norms. Based on previous research, it is likely that eye contact increases prosocial behavior via heightened self-awareness and increased interpersonal synchrony. In our study, we propose that eye contact can also support constructive social behavior by causing people to experience heightened embarrassment when they are breaking social norms. We tested this in a lab experiment (N = 60) in which participants read insults at the experimenter (i.e., they exhibited norm breaking behavior). In the experimental condition, participants maintained eye contact with the experimenter. In the control condition, the experimenter did not maintain eye contact. We measured embarrassment with a self-report measure, heart rate to capture arousal, and two observational indicators of embarrassment (hesitation and laughter). In line with our hypotheses, having eye contact during norm breaking behavior as compared to no eye contact led to a stronger increase in self-reported embarrassment, a higher heart rate as well as more hesitation and more laughter. We conclude that eye contact does indeed lead to more embarrassment, while breaking social norms. This implies that eye contact gives people the power to punish norm breaking in others by inducing an aversive emotional experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The aim of the article is to study simple nominal derivatives created from the acronym of the Polish political party Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (Law and Justice). In some forms of media discourse, these derivatives function as insults and are among many instruments of hate speech.

Abstract: Compliments and insults play an important role in our daily lives, and even more when a high part of it is in social networks. Some authors have focused on research on responses to compliments (Holmes, 1986) responses to compliments on-line (Maíz-Arévalo, 2013), compliments in Japanese (Adachi, 2011), or compliments in audio-recorded, face-to-face conversations (Maíz-Arévalo, 2012). Nevertheless, little research has been done on how English compliments and insults are constructed in the comments section of famous people posts in social media. This is the aim of this text, as well as answering the following questions: what kind of compliments do fans use? What kind of insults do users employ? Do they change depending on the sexual preference of the celebrity that social networks users address? Results display that compliments and insults can be used explicitly and implicitly, although the explicit way is the most frequent type, both among compliments and insults. Also, regarding the sexual preference of celebrities, we can find that a there is a low influence over social media users when complimenting and insulting famous individuals in social networks. Keywords: compliments, insults, social networks, English, celebrities, Facebook, post. Resumen: Los halagos e insultos desempeñan un papel importante en nuestra vida cotidiana, incluso más cuando gran parte de ella está publicada en las redes sociales. Algunos autores se han centrado en investigar las respuestas a halagos, respuestas a halagos en línea, halagos en japonés o halagos en conversaciones cara a cara grabadas en audio. Sin embargo, poco se ha investigado acerca de cómo se construyen los halagos en insultos en inglés a lo largo de la sección de comentarios de las publicaciones de famosos en redes sociales. Este es el objetivo de este texto, así como responder a las siguientes preguntas: ¿Qué tipo de halagos usan los fans? ¿Qué tipo de insultos se usan? ¿Cambian dependiendo de la orientación sexual de los famosos? Los resultados demuestran que los halagos e insultos pueden ser usados explícitamente e implícitamente, aunque la forma más común es la explícita, tanto en halagos como en insultos. Además, en cuanto a la orientación sexual de los famosos, vemos que los usuarios de redes sociales se ven poco influenciados a la hora de halagar o insultar a famosos –Donald Trump y Neil Patrick Harris– en redes sociales. Palabras clave: halagos, insultos, redes sociales, inglés, celebrities, Facebook, publicación.