Identity and impoliteness

in computer-mediated reader responses*

SHIV R. UPADHYAY

Abstract
This paper investigates the connection between linguistic impoliteness and
identity in computer-mediated communication through the examination of
reader responses to ideas and views expressed by professional journalists
in the online media. The study finds that respondents may use linguistic
impoliteness strategically to communicate disagreements, to argue against
an out-group’s ideological views, or to discredit ideological opponents. The
analysis of reader responses within a social psychological theory of identity
indicates that the use of impoliteness is linked to the respondent’s identifica-
tion of him/herself with a group and its ideological position and his/her
willingness to act toward the achievement of a goal desired within that
group.

Keywords: linguistic impoliteness, social and psychological identity, com-

puter-mediated communication, online reader response

1. Introduction
This paper explores the link between speaker identity and the phenome-
non of linguistic impoliteness through the examination of computer-me-
diated reader responses. Such responses are comments posted online by
readers of a news story, article, or editorial. Research on the link between
identity and linguistic impoliteness is now beginning to gain momentum
as researchers realize that there are many questions that remain unan-
swered. Brown and Levinson (1987) built their politeness framework
upon the notion of face, derived from Goffman’s (1967: 5), “the positive
social value a person effectively claims for himself ”, and many subse-
quent studies have investigated the link between various attributes of
face and linguistic politeness. The link between identity and impoliteness

Journal of Politeness Research 6 (2010), 105⫺127 1612-5681/10/006⫺0105

DOI 10.1515/JPLR.2010.006 쑕 Walter de Gruyter
106 Shiv R. Upadhyay

has, however, not received adequate attention from researchers, al-

though studies (Simon 2004; Graham 2007; Spencer-Oatey 2007, inter
alia) suggest that speaker identity plays an important role in impolite-
ness behavior.
Face and identity have been treated as different notions by some re-
searchers although they agree that both are relevant to language use and
behavior. In Goffman (1967), face is principally a social notion. Thus,
face is to be understood in terms of “approved social attributes” (Goff-
man 1967: 5) of one’s self. It is not only a “positive social value” (1967:
5) that individuals claim for themselves, but also “something that is dif-
fusely located in the flow of events in the encounter” (1967: 7). Likewise,
members of every social group “may be expected to have some knowl-
edge of face-work and some experience with its use” (1967: 13). Lim
(1994: 210) underscores the social orientation of face by maintaining
that a face claim is not “unilateral” and that it is “the claim that the
other should acknowledge, whether explicitly or implicitly, that one pos-
sesses the claimed virtues”. Identity, on the other hand, has been con-
strued as a psychological notion. Arundale (2005, in Spencer-Oatey 2007:
643) argues that, while both face and identity are relevant to communica-
tion, the former is “a dyadic phenomenon” (and hence social) while the
latter is “an individual (and much broader) phenomenon”. In my discus-
sion of Simon’s (2004) Self-Aspect Model of Identity (SAMI) later on, it
will, however, be indicated that the notion of identity can include both
individual and collective aspects of the self.
Online reader responses may be a relatively new phenomenon, but
they have already become a pervasive discursive practice. This phenome-
non involves individuals who participate in current social and political
discourses by voicing their own views and emotions in response to politi-
cal and ideological views expressed in such media features as newspaper
articles and editorials. In doing so, respondents tend to reveal their own
political and ideological views, often identifying themselves as members
of a group. Many such responses are viewed as appropriate since they
apparently conform to socially perceived norms of politeness while many
others are seen as inappropriate/impolite, because they are perceived as
violating these norms. Despite being a common practice, computer-me-
diated language use and behavior has been an inadequately explored
area in linguistics (Herring 2007a). This paper accordingly addresses the
need to explore the phenomenon of linguistic impoliteness in computer-
mediated communication. Now, let us consider the following examples
to get a preliminary understanding of what impolite reader (or viewer)
responses look like.
 Identity and impoliteness in computer-mediated reader responses 107

Example (1)
Krauthammer is the village idiot. It’s difficult to understand why
someone so gullible and without wit or intelligent thought can have a
column in a major newspaper. Seriously, you need to seek help.
(The Washington Post, September 19, 2008)

Example (2)
What’s the next thing this liar is going to do? Is he going to hide
behind Palin’s skirt? The show must go on! Where is all that experi-
ence now? Coward! (CNN’s Cafferty File, September 24, 2008)

Example (1) is an online reader response to an article by journalist Kraut-

hammer, in which he wrote that George W. Bush will be reevaluated
positively in the future for his work as president just as Truman was
after he left office. Likewise, Example (2) is an online reader response to
CNN journalist Cafferty’s question to viewers, “In light of the financial
crisis, should the first presidential debate be postponed?”, after Republi-
can presidential candidate John McCain decided to postpone his presi-
dential campaign in order to participate in a financial bailout meeting
in Washington, D.C. “This liar” in the example refers to McCain. The
respondents in (1) and (2) have written disapprovingly about the journal-
ist and the politician. In this study, examples like these will be viewed as
verbal expressions of impoliteness in the sense that they constitute ex-
plicit, face-aggravating behavior most generally, to be further explained
below.
In fact, I should hasten to point out that public perceptions of (im)po-
liteness can vary and that they pose a problem for (im)politeness theory.
Eelen (2001: 39) notes that speakers tend to see themselves as polite and
that impoliteness is “almost always attributed to others”. More recent
studies, including Tracy (2008), Graham (2007), Mills (2005), Watts
(2005) and Locher (2004) have corroborated the variability in the percep-
tion of linguistic politeness. Arguing that the traditional binary view of
polite and impolite behavior taken in politeness research is not rational,
Watts (1989: 51) proposes a model of politeness that discerns human
interactional behavior as politic (unmarked behavior geared toward con-
structing or maintaining normal interpersonal relationships), non-politic
(marked behavior that leads to “communicative breakdowns”), or polite
(marked behavior that enhances “ego’s standing with respect to alter”).
I agree with Watts’ (1989) categorization of politeness behavior and with
the view held in politeness research that lay interpretations of linguistic
(im)politeness must be adequately accounted for within a theoretical
framework.
108 Shiv R. Upadhyay

While researchers agree that impoliteness is a form of “face-aggravat-

ing” behavior (Locher and Bousfield 2008: 3), there is a lack of agree-
ment on what constitutes impoliteness. Terkourafi (2008), who argues
that impoliteness is face-threatening behavior in which the hearer attri-
butes “no face-threatening intention” (2008: 70) to the speaker, contrasts
impoliteness with “rudeness proper”, in which the speaker attributes “a
face-threatening intention” to the speaker (2008: 62). Accordingly, she
treats “rudeness proper” as “face-attack” (2008: 63). On the contrary,
Culpeper (2008: 31) takes the view that impoliteness and rudeness are
“intentionally” and “unintentionally” caused offences, respectively. De-
spite the debate about how to construe “impoliteness” and “rudeness”,
it appears that both Terkourafi and Culpeper, along with those who
work on linguistic (im)politeness, would agree that there are intention-
ally and unintentionally carried out offensive behaviors. Such behaviors
can be viewed as marked since they violate certain socially accepted
norms of behavior within a given interactional context. While the behav-
ior of a speaker can be seen as marked or unmarked within a context, it
is important to realize that access to his/her intention may not always
be possible. According to Terkourafi (2008: 58), while face-constituting
and face-threatening “may rely on recognition of the speaker’s inten-
tion” in some cases, they can occur “independently of whether a face-
constituting/threatening intention was even there to begin with”. Face
can sometimes be constituted or threatened based on the perlocutionary
effect of the speaker’s behavior on the listener. While I agree that there
are cases of behavior in which Terkourafi’s view is tenable, the computer-
mediated reader responses examined in this study present a different
context of language use in which the perlocutionary effect of these re-
sponses on the target person (for example, a journalist or a public figure)
is usually unavailable. However, these reader responses, despite the un-
availability of their perlocutionary effect on the target individual, can
generally be viewed as instantiations of offensive linguistic behavior as
they constitute blatant face attacks in which socially accepted norms of
behavior are violated.
As this study will suggest, language users, on a socio-psychological
level, might resort to linguistic impoliteness in order to identify them-
selves as social agents committed to supporting an ideological position.
My view of linguistic impoliteness is in agreement with Watts’ (2005:
xlii) view of impoliteness as “negatively marked” and “inappropriate”
behavior, as perceived by participants (or by viewers and readers) in
certain social and interactional contexts as inappropriate or impolite.
Thus, face-attacking linguistic behavior directed against an individual
will be labeled as impolite behavior in this study on the assumption that
the severity and bluntness of the attack would generally be regarded
 Identity and impoliteness in computer-mediated reader responses 109

as negatively marked and inappropriate by American readers of online

newspapers.
Over the years, studies have shown that computer-mediated language
is variable. In her investigation of Usenet discourse, a type of computer-
mediated communication (CMC), Baym (1996: 320) found that the lan-
guage use was hybrid in that it shared elements of “oral, written, inter-
personal, and mass communication”. Androutsopoulos (2006: 421) ob-
serves that language users resort to various CMC features in order to
construct “discourse styles in particular contexts”. Herring (2007b: 3)
refers to computer-mediated discourse as being “complex and variable”.
Her faceted classification scheme (Herring 2007b) accordingly takes into
consideration technological and social factors in the variability of com-
puter-mediated discourse. Herring (2007b: 11) points out that, while
technological factors may not exert “a determining influence on com-
munication in all cases”, social/situational/contextual factors “can shape
communication in significant ways”. My analysis of reader responses
corroborates the significance of situational/contextual factors in com-
puter-mediated discourse and suggests that such factors as participant
characteristics, purpose, topic/theme, and tone (which are among the
various components of the faceted classification scheme) are relevant to
understanding impoliteness in computer-mediated reader responses.
Verbal disagreement can be a component of discourse that involves
interactants’ conflicting interests (Locher 2004). It can manifest itself as
“an oppositional stance” that an interactant takes to a prior verbal or
non-verbal act (Kakavá 1993: 36), as “incompatible goals, negotiations,
and the need to coordinate self and other actions” (Waldron and Apple-
gate 1994: 4), and as an “incompatible” position that language users
take in relation to the message to which they do not consent (Baym
1996: 325). While my analysis of impolite reader responses essentially
supports these views of disagreement (namely, it is conflictive, incompat-
ible, and oppositional), they do not, however, reveal some of the charac-
teristics attributed to disagreement. For example, there are no discursive
indications in the reader responses analyzed in this study that suggest
that the respondents made any effort “to coordinate self and other ac-
tions” (Waldron and Applegate 1994: 4). Instead, the responses appear
to be tokens of what Pomerantz (1984) calls “strong disagreement” that
lack such indicators of dispreferred disagreement as hesitations, clarifi-
cation requests, and partial repeats. Kotthoff (1993) has also reported
that preferred disagreement tends to use fewer hedges and other markers
of dispreference.
Based on the analysis of reader responses, this paper indicates that
a respondent’s collective identity can be relevant to a deep and clear
understanding of linguistic impoliteness as social psychological behavior.
110 Shiv R. Upadhyay

The analysis of impolite reader responses within a social psychological

theory of identity suggests that linguistic impoliteness can be a function
of the respondents’ collective identity in the sense to be discussed in
Section 4 and the subsequent intent for him/her to strategically act as an
agent for the achievement of a collectively desired goal. In what follows
next, I briefly describe the CMC data analyzed in this study (Section 2).
The data description will then be followed by a discussion of linguistic
impoliteness (Section 3) and of identity (Section 4) from theoretical per-
spectives. In the rest of the paper, a number of reader responses are
analyzed (Section 5) and conclusions are drawn (Section 6).

2. The data
This study examines several tokens of impoliteness in online reader re-
sponses to ideas and views expressed in newspaper articles and editorials.
It is important to note that online reader responses result from a speaker
participation framework that is different from that of face-to-face in-
teraction or that of regular print media. When speakers come together
face-to-face to talk, they are subject to what Goffman (1967: 11) calls
“the rule of self-respect and the rule of considerateness”, which creates
a situation in which each speaker tends to save his/her own face and that
of the other. Their language use and behavior are consequently moder-
ated by these rules. On the other hand, reader responses are posted on-
line by those who do not come into face-to-face contact with the author
or with other respondents. In the absence of face-to-face contact, and
given their desire to put their views and opinions across, it is plausible
that respondents may consider the rules of self-respect and considerate-
ness to be less relevant than their urgent desire to communicate with the
intent of achieving a goal. Unlike talk, which is essentially produced as
speech when two or more speakers come face-to-face to verbally interact
in real time, reader responses are generally computer-mediated and pro-
duced as text. Most online reader responses are produced as single shots.
While reader responses are prompted by ideas and views expressed in
the media (or its online version), response writers do not usually engage
in dialogic interaction with the author of the article publicly. Even when
they address the author of an article directly in their posting, it is reason-
able to assume that their responses are meant not just for the author but
for a much larger readership. In addition, the author does not generally
post a response back to a reader’s comments unlike in a face-to-face or
synchronous conversation in which the participants can, and generally
do, continue to respond to each other. Reader responses can, however,
be influenced by the response writers’ anticipation that their postings
 Identity and impoliteness in computer-mediated reader responses 111

will be read by others, including other response writers, who may react
in agreement or disagreement with their views.
The reader responses analyzed in this study are from the online ver-
sions of the Washington Post and New York Times, two widely read
American dailies, as well as from the online version of CNN’s Cafferty
File. A total of eleven reader responses from these sources are examined.
All of the reader responses revolve around the US presidential election
of 2008 and cover the period from April to November of the same year.
The eleven reader responses examined in this study are representative of
the fifty reader responses that were initially selected out of approxi-
mately three hundred reader responses I surveyed in the three media
sources. The fifty reader responses, which were chosen because they ex-
pressed critical views about a public figure and/or the author of a media
article, served as a corpus of data from which the eleven examined in
this study were taken. The critical views communicated in these reader
responses were blatantly face-aggravating in the sense discussed earlier
on, as well as in the following section.
Each of the reader responses examined in this study was a one-shot
and from a different respondent. Many of the reader responses from the
Washington Post were posted under such pseudonyms as “Concerned2”
and “LiberalPatriot” or under made-up names consisting of a possible
human name and something else as in “daniel13715”. On the other hand,
reader responses from the New York Times and CNN’s Cafferty File
tended to reveal respondents’ first and last names or just their first
names.
A caveat about the data analyzed in this study, and also a limitation,
is that they are all about the American presidential election of 2008. It
is fair to assume that those who watched this election closely would
agree that the election generated an unusual degree of interest among
the American people of all political stripes and that it was perhaps the
most fiercely contested election in decades. Many communicated their
concerns and stakes associated with this election through their responses
to newspaper articles and editorials on various aspects of the election. A
number of those who chose to respond to such articles and editorials
did so with linguistic impoliteness; for this reason, their responses are
considered appropriate data for analysis in this study.

3. (Im)politeness and theoretical frameworks

Many studies of linguistic (im)politeness over the last twenty or so years
have treated politeness behavior as central and impoliteness behavior as
peripheral. These studies include three of the most discussed and influen-
tial politeness studies, namely Lakoff (1973, 1979, 2005), Leech (1983),
112 Shiv R. Upadhyay

and Brown and Levinson (1987). Lakoff (1979: 64) views politeness as
“a device used in order to reduce friction in personal interaction”. Build-
ing upon Grice’s (1968) maxims of conversation, Lakoff (1973, 2005)
formulates politeness in terms of pragmatic rules and sub-rules that
speakers follow to be polite. Similarly, Leech’s (1983: 82) framework,
which is also built upon the Gricean Cooperative Principle, lays out a
set of conversational maxims that “maintain the social equilibrium and
the friendly relations” among interactants. Leech (1983: 105), however,
suggested that linguistic impoliteness was a rather marginal phenomenon
when he observed that “conflictive illocutions tend, thankfully, to be
rather marginal to human linguistic behaviour in normal circumstances”.
Likewise, Brown and Levinson’s (1987) framework, perhaps the most
seminal and most extensively discussed one, is essentially built upon
Goffman’s (1967) notion of face and its positive and negative needs.
Their framework explicates different positive and negative politeness
strategies based on positive and negative face needs. Brown and Levin-
son’s (1987: 69) framework, however, lists three situations in which face-
threatening acts can be performed without redress: (1) when face con-
cerns are “suspended in the interest of urgency or efficiency”; (2) when
face threat is “very small” (their italics); and (3) when the addressor is
“vastly superior in power” or can use “audience support to destroy” the
addressee’s face “without losing his own”. In other words, committing
face-threatening acts without mitigating devices in the first and second
scenarios may not necessarily result in the perception of impoliteness. In
the third scenario, while the addressor may commit face-threatening acts
without fearing retribution from the addressee because of asymmetrical
power, the addressee and onlookers may perceive the addressor as be-
ing impolite.
While Brown and Levinson’s (1987) politeness framework provides
some understanding of how impoliteness can ensue, politeness research-
ers have recently pointed out its inadequacy, particularly when it comes
to accounting for linguistic impoliteness. Watts (2008: 290) has observed
that in many politeness approaches, including Brown and Levinson’s
(1987 ), impoliteness is “hardly ever focused on”. Locher and Watts
(2005: 10) consider Brown and Levinson’s framework inadequate in that
they see it as “a theory of facework, dealing only with the mitigation of
face-threatening acts” and argue that the framework “does not account
for those situations in which face-threat mitigation is not a priority, e. g.
aggressive, abusive, or rude behavior …” Instead, they propose a
broader framework of relational work within which, as they claim, the
politeness strategies proposed in Brown and Levinson (1987) and strate-
gies that reflect impolite behavior can be accommodated. Similarly, Cul-
peper et al. (2003) argue that Brown and Levinson’s (1987) politeness
 Identity and impoliteness in computer-mediated reader responses 113

framework, particularly the strategy of committing face-threatening acts

on record and without redress, is inadequate. They accordingly propose
a framework which focuses on impoliteness and which they view “as
partly a complement to politeness theory (specifically to the classical
theory of Brown and Levinson, 1987), and partly a revision of parts
of it” (Culpeper et al. 2003: 1546). Recently, Culpeper (2008: 41) has
acknowledged that relational work, particularly as adopted and devel-
oped by Locher and Watts in a series of work including Locher (2004),
Watts (2005), and Locher and Watts (2005, 2008), “offers an all-embrac-
ing framework” for understanding polite, impolite, and other types of
human behavior, while he cautions that “some aspects of relational work
are underspecified and/or lacking in empirical support”. I agree that
relational work, while still evolving, provides a comprehensive frame-
work that captures various types of human verbal behavior. I will there-
fore refer to this framework in the identification of impolite reader re-
sponses in the analysis section. Essentially, a reader response will be
identified as impolite when it is likely to be interpreted by a general US
readership as negatively marked and inappropriate behavior due to its
blatant face-aggravating character in the context of public, online news-
paper responses.

4. Attributes of identity
There are different views of identity as a relevant aspect of social behav-
ior. Spencer-Oatey (2007: 640) observes that face is linked to the notion
of self and that identity theories “can offer very useful insights for both
the conceptualization and the analysis of face.” The relationship between
face and self has been previously pointed out by Goffman (1967: 5) in
his definition of face as the “image of self ” and by Brown and Levinson
(1987: 61) in their view of face as “the public self-image that every mem-
ber wants to claim”. While the social, psychological, and cognitive na-
ture of self is suggested in these views, there is a lack of agreement in
terms of how the self is construed. Simon (2004: 26) notes that the self
in North America is conceptualized principally in “individual(istic)
terms” and that in Europe the preferred term is “identity” with its em-
phasis on “the role of group memberships and intergroup relations”.
Scollon and Scollon (1995: 36), who posit that the self is reflected as an
individual’s identity in communication, point out that in Asian societies,
including China and Japan, the self is “more collectivistic” and “con-
nected to membership in basic groups such as the family or one’s work-
ing group […]”.
The self, as conceptualized in the North American psychological tradi-
tion, has been attributed a number of characteristics some of which are
114 Shiv R. Upadhyay

relevant to how we make sense of linguistic impoliteness. Accordingly,

the self is identifiable, inter alia, in terms of such personal attributes as
aspirations and abilities (Allport 1968), in terms of “a set of self-schemas
that organize past experiences and are used to recognize and interpret
the relevant stimuli in the social environment” (Markus et al. 1985:
1495), and in terms of an “agent and regulatory system” that directs
people to behave in ways that lead to their survival or the achievement
of their “desired goals” (Simon 2004: 30).
The issue of how identity figures in verbal interaction continues to be
a controversial issue. According to Bucholtz and Hall (2005: 588), “iden-
tity is best viewed as the emergent product rather than the pre-existing
source of linguistic and other semiotic practices […]”. Other researchers
take a different view. Spence-Oatey’s (2007) work, for instance, appears
to suggest that speakers’ sense of who they are, hence their identity, can
influence how they behave linguistically, which implies that some aspects
of identity that may not always be actively present can be activated and
made central in interactional situations. I would argue that, while some
aspects of identity can influence a speaker’s linguistic behavior, particu-
larly after they are rendered central and brought to the foreground in
order to deal with the demands of an interactional situation, others,
possibly those that are ascribable and contestable by interactants, may
emerge interactionally, as some have argued (e. g., Bucholtz and Hall
2005; Haugh, this issue).
As my analysis will show, Simon’s (2004) Self-Aspect Model of Iden-
tity offers insights into a deeper understanding of linguistic impoliteness
in computer-mediated communication. The premise of this model is that
individuals engage in interpreting their experiences by assigning them
“coherence and meaning” (Simon 2004: 45). An important feature upon
which this model is built is Linville’s (1985) notion of self-aspect, a cogni-
tive notion that “serves to process and organize information and knowl-
edge about oneself ” (Simon 2004: 45). Self-aspects relate to people’s be-
liefs about their attributes, including psychological traits (e. g., outgo-
ing), physical features (e. g., skinny, brown haired), abilities (e. g., good
swimmer), roles (e. g., mother), behaviors (e. g., late to go to sleep), atti-
tudes (e. g., pro-choice), and group membership (e. g., academic). Simon
(2004) also points out the social and cognitive characteristics of self-
aspects/identity. They are cognitive in that they are an individual’s cogni-
tive representations; they are social in that “their meanings emerge from
social interaction with other people” (2004: 46).
Simon’s (2004) theoretical framework allows for both individual and
collective (social) identities. Accordingly, individual identity results
“whenever self-interpretation is based on a more comprehensive set or
configuration of different, non-redundant self-aspects”, and collective
 Identity and impoliteness in computer-mediated reader responses 115

identity results “whenever self-interpretation is based primarily on a sin-

gle self-aspect that one shares with other, but not all other, people in the
relevant social context” (Simon 2004: 49⫺50). More importantly, Simon
observes that the notion of social identity is to be understood “as a
(social) psychological concept and not as a sociological concept in a
Durkheimian sense” (Simon 2004: 49). When social (collective) identity
becomes salient in certain contexts, “the similarity or interchangeability
of oneself with other people sharing the same self-aspect moves into the
psychological foreground”, while other self-aspects become irrelevant; as
a consequence “perceived ingroup homogeneity” is promoted (Simon
2004: 49). The point about the foregrounding of a particular self-aspect
that an individual shares with other people in a certain social context is
similar to Schlenker and Pontari’s (2000) argument that, while attributes
of an individual’s identity always remain active, they may be placed
either in the background or in the foreground.
Simon (2004) points out that identity has several functions and that
various social psychological processes are involved in carrying them out.
The five functions, which Simon associates with both individual and
collective identity, manifest themselves in (1) validating the place of indi-
viduals in society; (2) defining and reinforcing their distinctiveness; (3)
acquiring their respect; (4) achieving a view of their social world from
which they can derive a meaningful understanding of the world and their
place in it; and (5) allowing them to recognize themselves as important
social agents. Also, identity functions through such social, psychological
processes as prejudice, discrimination, and stereotyping, which are asso-
ciated with collective identity. Furthermore, within Simon’s social psy-
chological framework it is assumed that members of the same group like
each other, thereby promoting mutual respect, and that the dislike they
receive from the outgroup “helps to immunize” them “against outgroup
members’ disrespect” (Simon 2004: 69). Prejudice as a social psychologi-
cal process is instrumental in the creation of respect among ingroup
members. Similarly, discrimination sets in when collective identity pro-
motes favor for ingroup members while disfavoring outgroup members.
Simon (2004: 69) argues that stereotyping is “a typical cognitive out-
come” of a tendency whereby members of an ingroup perceive them-
selves as having typical attributes which are different from those they
ascribe to members of an outgroup. As my analysis will show later,
reader responses involve one or more of these functions and/or reveal
one or more of the social psychological processes of identity.
Finally, Simon (2004: 168⫺169) posits a “dual pathway model” to
explain “people’s motivation or willingness to participate in social move-
ment activities”. In one pathway, people figure the “costs and benefits”
of their involvement, and, in the other, they collectively identify them-
116 Shiv R. Upadhyay

selves with a social movement. Simon points out that both pathways can
work simultaneously and that, when individuals’ collective identification
with a social cause is strong, they are likely to be involved in the cause
while they overlook their individual costs and benefits. Simon (2004:
184) also observes that, when people take a strong collective identifica-
tion path, they may become “diehards who support their group in word
and deed against all odds”. Now I turn to the analysis of reader re-
sponses.

5. Analysis of impoliteness in computer-mediated reader responses

In this section, I examine a number of computer-mediated impolite
reader responses and show that they are linked to some aspects of iden-
tity construable within Simon’s (2004) social psychological theory. Now,
let us begin by considering the following reader responses from the on-
line version of the Washington Post. These responses were made to a
Washington Post article by journalist Cohen (2008), in which he viewed
Hillary Clinton, a Democratic presidential candidate, as disingenuous
based on her response to her contestant Barack Obama’s statement in
which he said that small-town Americans who experience financial frus-
trations turn to guns and god and harbor bitterness towards immigrants.
In his article, Cohen reported Clinton as calling Obama’s statement “eli-
tist, out of touch and, frankly, patronizing”. Cohen reinforced his view
by stating that Hillary Clinton was “the personification of artifice”. This
characterization of Clinton triggered a number of reader responses, four
of which (Examples [3]⫺[6]) I analyze in detail.

Example (3)
What Barack said was an unfortunate truth (Many people in PA
ARE frustrated, angry, and yes, sometimes bitter.) and an opinion
poorly expressed. What much of what Hillary says are outright lies.
(The Washington Post, April 15, 2008)

Example (4)
Richard, thank you for a brilliantly expressed summary of the
Obama-Clinton moral fiber differences. Your description of the Clin-
ton values: “they are expressions of treacly nostalgia and not the life
of incredible affluence and situational morality she now enjoys” is a
work of art. We are sick of this slimey [sic] old time Clinton (and
McCain) neoconian ambush campaign. I hope the good people of
Pennsylvania will recognize the goodness of Obama and will end this
madness. (The Washington Post, April 15, 2008)
 Identity and impoliteness in computer-mediated reader responses 117

In both examples, the respondents, while agreeing with the journalist’s

unflattering view of Clinton, make their own impolite comments. The
respondent in (3) characterizes Clinton as a liar (What much of what
Hillary says are outright lies), and the respondent in (4) labels her as
slimey, thereby suggesting that she is insincere. Given their face-aggra-
vating nature, both of these comments can be viewed as negatively
marked and inappropriate, and hence impolite, by general American
readers. The comments in (3) and (4) also suggest the respondents’ rejec-
tion of Clinton and acceptance of Obama as the Democratic presiden-
tial candidate.
Now let us consider the following reader responses to the same article,
in which the respondents are critical of the journalist, as well as Obama
and Clinton.

Example (5)
Dick, come on man, what has ever been genuine with these two liber-
als? Oh wait a minute, there is one thing, they both are genuinely
LIBERAL. Let’s get real here bubba, we all know Hillary is a liar,
even you liberals know that, she just isn’t as good at it as Bill, but
what gets me, you will explain away everything/anything that Barack
Hussein Obama says. What he said, actually every time he opens his
mouth he reveals just a little more about who and what he is. Isn’t this
fun DICK? (The Washington Post, April 15, 2008)

Example (6)
Richard Cohen is rarely ever right, about anything.
If this schmuck is for Obama, then Obama is wrong for the country,
take that to the bank.
He pimped for the war in Iraq, the biggest debacle in the history
of our country and now he is pimping for Barack Obama, a person
who consorted with Chicago underworld slumlords and went to a
church that had an unpatriotic, racist preacher, for twenty years.
At least he is consistent. (The Washington Post, April 15, 2008)

In Example (5), the respondent makes condescending remarks appar-

ently to express his/her disagreement with the journalist. While such lexi-
cal items as Dick, man, and bubba may be viewed as normal when used
between two intimate individuals, they would be construed as negatively
marked when used between two mutually unfamiliar speakers, as is as-
sumed to be the case in this public forum. In addition, the respondent
casts the journalist as being unreal (Let’s get real here, bubba …) and as
someone who would rationalize anything (you will explain away anything
118 Shiv R. Upadhyay

…), thus implying the latter is untrustworthy. The respondent also labels
Obama and Clinton as unauthentic (what has ever been genuine with
these two liberals?) and characterizes Clinton as a publicly known liar
(we all know Hillary is a liar, even you liberals know that …). Further-
more, the respondent uses Obama’s middle name, Hussein, thereby asso-
ciating him with Arabs and possibly with potential terrorists in the cur-
rent US American rhetoric, and projects him as an unknown commodity
because the American people have yet to find out who Obama really is
(actually every time he opens his mouth he reveals just a little more about
who and what he is), thereby suggesting he is unfit to be president. All
these negative comments, along with the damaging implications they
make, are interpretable as negatively marked, face-aggravating linguis-
tic behavior.
In Example (6), the respondent likewise speaks of the journalist disap-
provingly. The former suggests that the latter is unreliable (Richard Co-
hen is rarely ever right, about anything.) and contemptible (If this
schmuck is for Obama). Once again, we thus witness blatant face-attack-
ing behavior addressed to the journalist. The respondent then uses his/
her own negative evaluation of the journalist as a basis for disapproving
of Obama as a candidate (If this schmuck is for Obama, then Obama is
wrong for the country […]). The condemnation of the journalist intensi-
fies as the respondent calls him a pimp for his initial support of the Iraq
war as well as his favorable treatment of Obama in the article. Similarly,
the respondent disapprovingly characterizes Obama as keeping bad com-
pany (a person who consorted with Chicago underworld slumlords and
went to a church that had an unpatriotic, racist preacher, for twenty years).
By labeling the journalist as a pimp and associating Obama with undesir-
able people, the respondent demonstrates a language behavior that is
clearly interpretable as negatively marked in its face-attacking force.
Simon’s (2004) Self-Aspect Model of Identity offers insights that help
to uncover the social psychological significance of these impolite reader
responses. Two of the functions of identity, according to Simon (2004),
are to validate an individual’s place in society and to allow individuals
to recognize themselves as important social agents. By demonstrating
his/her familiarity with the feelings and experiences of rural Pennsylva-
nians (Many people in PA ARE frustrated, angry, and yes, sometimes
bitter), the respondent in (3) appears to be presenting him/herself as
someone who is linked to the community and who can relate to its
plight. The respondent also projects him/herself as an individual who
can discerningly evaluate the two presidential candidates. Accordingly,
Obama is projected as a truth-teller (What Barack said was an unfortu-
nate truth), with the implication that he is a man of morality, whereas
Clinton is presented as a liar (What much of what Hillary says are out-
 Identity and impoliteness in computer-mediated reader responses 119

right lies), thereby implying that she lacks morality. By making a moral
distinction between the two candidates, the respondent can be seen, fol-
lowing Simon (2004), as taking on the role of a social agent who pro-
motes a “virtuous” presidential candidate. Likewise, the respondent in
(4) negatively portrays Clinton as slimey [sic] and as someone of whom
we are sick, but characterizes Obama as a man of goodness, a quality
that hopefully the good people of Pennsylvania will recognize. An implica-
tion in the portrayal of Obama as a man of “goodness” is that people
should choose him as president. The respondent, like the one in (3), can
thus be viewed within Simon’s (2004) framework as a social agent who
is involved in promoting a “qualified” presidential candidate.
Following Simon’s (2004) model, the respondents in (5) and (6) can
similarly be seen as social agents involved in the rejection of the two
Democratic presidential candidates. It is through their act of rejection
that they validate their place in society and project themselves as impor-
tant social agents. In (5), the respondent suggests that both Obama and
Clinton are disqualified to be president by framing them as unauthentic
(what has ever been genuine with these two liberals?). Clinton is charac-
terized as a publicly known liar (we all know Hillary is a liar), and
Obama is implicated as being an Arab, and hence not a typical Ameri-
can, through the mention of his middle name, Hussein. These negatively
marked characterizations can be reasons for a candidate to lose in
American presidential elections. Similarly, the respondent in (6) argues
that Obama is wrong for the country because he is propped by people
like the journalist whose character is questioned, as discussed above.
Now, let us consider the following reader responses in order to see
how they, as expressions of impoliteness, serve to reveal the respon-
dent’s identity.

Example (7)/Example (1)

Krauthammer is the village idiot. It’s difficult to understand why
someone so gullible and without wit or intelligent thought can have a
column in a major newspaper. Seriously, you need to seek help.
(The Washington Post, September 19, 2008)

Example (8)
Hey, Charlie, you and Bush must have shared some pretty potent weed
for that interview! In this context equanimity equals a good buzz.
Come on, Charles, you’ve kissed the backsides of everyone in this
administration long enough, stand up and face up to the fact that you
are nothing more than a parrot for their twisted and immoral ideology.
I can just imagine what the interview actually was like. No doubt you
120 Shiv R. Upadhyay

represented the fawning courtier who kept telling the naked king how
wonderful his clothes looked.
The final statement of unreality or THC induced euphoria was your
comparison of W to Truman. How could you possibly compare W,
narcissistic, self-absorbed, privileged (he does have Connecticut Yan-
kee roots), spoiled brat, who was bailed out of every failed venture he
ever got himself into, and unwilling to own up to any of his mistakes
to Truman, who had history thrust upon him and honorably made the
tough choices and unflinchingly took responsibility for them by actu-
ally believing that “the buck stops here?”
(The Washington Post, September 19, 2008)

Example (9)/Example (2)

What’s the next thing this liar is going to do? Is he going to hide
behind Palin’s skirt? The show must go on! Where is all that experi-
ence now? Coward! (CNN’s Cafferty File, September 24, 2008)

Both reader comments in (7) and (8) were made in response to an article
by journalist Krauthammer (2008) in the Washington Post. In essence,
Krauthammer opined that President Bush, despite his unpopularity now,
would be re-evaluated more positively in the future just as president
Truman was, who at the time he left office was “disparaged and highly
out of favor”. The comment in (9), which was posted in response to
CNN’s journalist Cafferty’s question “In light of the financial crisis,
should the first presidential debate be postponed?”, refers to the Repub-
lican presidential candidate John McCain.
The reader responses in (7) through (9) contain expressions that are
face-aggravating for the journalists as well as the candidates talked
about. In (7), the respondent’s characterizations of the journalist as the
village idiot, as someone so gullible and without wit or intelligent thought,
and as someone who needs to seek help are interpretable as negatively
marked due to the severity of the face-attack in this context. More im-
portantly, the respondent’s negatively marked language use against the
journalist is intensified through the use of the second person singular
pronoun, “you” (you need to seek help). Similarly, in (8) the characteriza-
tions of the journalist as a drug user in a personalized manner (Hey,
Charlie, you and Bush must have shared some pretty potent weed for that
interview!), as an obsequious person (Come on, Charles, you’ve kissed the
backsides of everyone in this administration long enough … No doubt you
represented the fawning courtier who kept telling the naked king how won-
derful his clothes looked, an apparent reference to Danish author Hans
Andersen’s fairly tale The Emperor’s New Clothes), and as a coward fol-
 Identity and impoliteness in computer-mediated reader responses 121

lower of bad ideology (stand up and face up to the fact that you are
nothing more than a parrot for their twisted and immoral ideology) would
be impolite since these characterizations are likely to be interpreted as
negatively marked and inappropriate language behavior by American
readers of online reader responses. The respondent in (8) also makes an
impolite comment about President Bush through his/her negatively
marked characterization of him as narcissistic, self-absorbed, and a
spoiled brat, besides other things. The comment the respondent in (9)
makes would likewise be seen as impolite since he/she negatively labels
John McCain as a liar and coward and by suggesting that he is a timid
evader (Is he going to hide behind Palin’s skirt?).
Earlier, I discussed Simon’s (2004) dual pathway model in the context
of social movement in which people who collectively identify themselves
with a group and its ideological views can become staunch supporters
willing to act toward the achievement of their group’s desired goal. The
American presidential election of 2008 may not have been driven by a
social movement, but the socio-political environment indicated that the
country was going to witness a historic change in American society and
politics. As I pointed out earlier, the election was vigorously contested
and ideologically divisive, and it aroused an unusual level of voter inter-
est and participation, possibly reflecting the degree of concern of those
Americans who seriously wanted to socially move on, but who feared
that the chance to bring in the change they wanted could be missed.
It is in the context of the vigorously contested and ideologically divi-
sive election with an unusual level of voter participation and interest in
change that the reader responses in (7), (8), and (9) can be meaningfully
understood. Since, as a conservative journalist, Krauthammer had made
it public through his previous columns in the Washington Post that he
was a McCain supporter, it is reasonable to deduce from the comments
in (7) that the respondent is a McCain opponent and possibly an Obama
supporter. This deduction is compatible with Simon’s (2004) observation
that members of an ingroup like each other, but dislike those of an
outgroup. By simply making impolite remarks and without giving a ra-
tional argument, the respondent in (7) is making an ad hominem argu-
ment, a sub-type of emotional argument (Kienpointner 2008), to dis-
credit the journalist’s credibility and to reject his positive view of Bush.
Within Simon’s (2004) dual pathway model, the impolite remarks sug-
gest the respondent’s identification of him/herself as a supporter of the
ideological view of the political party (in this case the Democratic party)
to which the journalist is opposed and as a willing agent to work toward
the achievement of the party’s collectively desired goal. Following the
same reasoning, the respondent in (8), given his/her remarks about the
journalist (in the first paragraph) as well as his/her counter argument (in
122 Shiv R. Upadhyay

the second paragraph), can be seen as aligning him/herself with the polit-
ical party that has set its goal to get Obama, not McCain, elected.
Through his/her face-aggravating comments, the respondent in (9) is
similarly suggesting that McCain is not fit to be president. Again, within
Simon’s (2004) framework, the respondent can be seen as making a case
against McCain, thereby identifying him/herself as one of those individ-
uals who would be involved in defeating the Republican presidential can-
didate.
Finally, let us consider the following reader responses to an online
New York Times editorial of November 5, 2008, that essentially attrib-
uted Obama’s presidential victory to his understanding of “what is wrong
with this country: the utter failure of government to protect its citizens”
and to his offer to the American people of “a government that does not
try to solve every problem but will do things beyond the power of individual
citizens.” The editorial also pointed out that the new president will need
to address “many other urgent problems,” including health care and im-
migration.

Example (10)
Now that you have succeeded in getting your candidate elected, what
will the NYT do to reclaim any modicum of journalistic integrity?
(The New York Times, November 5, 2008)
Example (11)
Dear NYT,
While you have successfully managed to get your candidate of choice
elected, you have lost much much more. That is, readers’ respect in
your journalistic integrity. It will be reflected in your readership
months to come. The American public is not as stupid as you think
they are. (The New York Times, November 4, 2008)

The respondent in (10) presupposes that the New York Times, which
endorsed Obama for president, has lost its journalistic integrity. This is
evident in the respondent’s query: what will the NYT do to reclaim any
modicum of journalistic integrity? The respondent in (11) directly alleges
that the newspaper lost its journalistic integrity and implies that it
wrongly assumes the American people to be gullible (The American pub-
lic is not as stupid as you think they are). The allegations about the loss
of journalistic integrity and the implication about the underestimation
of American people’s intellect can be seen as intentional, face-aggravat-
ing, and negatively marked linguistic behavior by American viewers of
online reader responses. They can also be seen as an effort to discredit
 Identity and impoliteness in computer-mediated reader responses 123

the newspaper’s standing. Within Simon’s (2004) Self-Aspect Model of

Identity, prejudice is one of the social psychological processes and is
expressed against outgroup members. The prejudice in (10) and (11) is
manifested in the respondents’ portrayal of the newspaper as lacking in
integrity and as supportive of a presidential candidate whom they iden-
tify as “your candidate”, and hence as an outgroup member.

6. Conclusions
This study examined impoliteness in computer mediated reader re-
sponses to ideas and views communicated in the media. The analysis of
online reader responses has shown that the respondents strategically
used linguistic impoliteness expressed through overtly face-aggravating
comments. The respondents were found to use blatant face-aggravation,
and hence impoliteness, to communicate disagreements, to argue against
an outgoup’s ideological views, or to discredit ideological opponents.
Within Simon’s (2004) social psychological theory of identity, their use
of impoliteness was seen as serving to identify them as individuals with
views opposed to those of outgroup members or as social agents under-
taking the task of promoting a view collectively held by ingroup mem-
bers.
The analysis of online reader responses has shown that identity can
be produced interactionally and that it can influence language behavior.
For instance, the respondents in this study revealed their identities as
either supporters or opponents of the presidential candidates and of the
ideological positions the candidates represented through their comments
made in response to views expressed in the media. My analysis would
thus concur with Haugh’s observation (in this issue) that “evaluations of
impoliteness are not made independently of the identities attributed to
the persons concerned”. On the other hand, the publicly known (hence,
cognitively based) identity of a journalist as a supporter of conservative/
Republican ideology (for example, journalist Charles Krauthammer) or
liberal/Democratic ideology (for instance, journalist Richard Cohen) ap-
pear to have influenced the face-aggravating, and hence impolite behav-
ior, of respondents. This finding would thus be in line with Spencer-
Oatey’s (2007) observation that identity is both social/interactional and
cognitive.
The analysis has also indicated that Simon’s (2004) social psychologi-
cal theory of identity can be useful in gaining a deeper understanding of
language use and behavior. While the respondents’ positioning of them-
selves as ingroup or outgroup members became apparent in their re-
sponses, Simon’s framework provided a socio-psychological explanation
of such positioning. Of course, more discourse analysis would be needed
124 Shiv R. Upadhyay

to explore the extent to which this framework can be used as an explana-

tory tool.
Finally, the variability reflected in impoliteness in reader responses
could be a feature of computer-mediated communication. I pointed out
earlier that many reader responses, including the ones analyzed in this
paper, from the Washington Post were posted under pseudonyms or
made-up names whereas those from the New York Times generally re-
vealed the respondent’s first name or both first and last names. Interest-
ingly, the negative comments in the Post were more harshly worded than
in the Times. If Goffman’s (1967: 11) “rule of self-respect” and “rule of
considerateness” work to moderate language behavior in face-to-face
communication, they do not appear to work that way with virtually
anonymous reader responses in the CMC context examined in this study.
The link suggested here between anonymity and impoliteness is in con-
formity with Herring’s (2007b: 16) observation that anonymity has “im-
portant effects in online discourse”, with the implication that it can affect
an individual’s (im)politeness behavior, and with Donath’s (1999) finding
of the possibility of online communication being antisocial.
To conclude, the study looked at linguistic impoliteness in one domain
of computer-mediated communication, namely online reader responses.
There are other domains in computer-mediated communication, includ-
ing those in which several medium-based factors may influence language
use and behavior; they need to be explored to see how linguistic impolite-
ness figures in them and how impoliteness is related to identity.

Bionote
Shiv R. Upadhyay is a faculty member at York University, Toronto,
Canada. He received his Ph. D. in Linguistics from Georgetown Univer-
sity. His research interests include sociolinguistics, critical discourse
analysis, linguistic politeness, intercultural communication, ESL and sec-
ond language acquisition. E-mail: [email protected]

Note
* I wish to thank Miriam Locher and the three anonymous reviewers as well as Brook
Bolander and Tanja Hammel for their valuable comments and suggestions on this
paper. Any remaining shortcomings are indeed mine.

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