Conventionalised impoliteness formulae used by tweeters against Trump

الملخص EN

Computer-mediated communication (CMC henceforth) is a fertile ground for research into impoliteness and face-threatening acts (FTAs).

additionally, CMC is inclined to be more confrontational than other modes of communication, such as face-to-face interaction (FTF) (Hardaker 2012: 71).

twitter is emerging as a rich research venue in studying a variety of disciplines, such as impoliteness towards politicians.

in this study, Donald j.

trump, the 45th president of the united states (POTUS) is the target of impoliteness by politicians and journalists on twitter during his first impeachment trial.

the current study is unique in that impoliteness against trump by politicians and journalists on twitter has not been investigated.

another significant rationale for opting for this topic is that “impoliteness formulae” research has been ignored in the Iraqi scholarly domain of impoliteness; most researchers are still employing Culpeper’s (1996; 2005) approach which handles strategies, rather than formulae.

using a corpus of 18469 words that constitute 409 tweets of participants, the study mainly investigates conventionalized impoliteness formulae directed against trump on twitter during impeachment.

it analyses tweets qualitatively, using Culpeper’s (2011 A) model of analysis.

the study aims at answering research questions relating to discovering the preferred conventionalized impoliteness structures and formulae used against a person of such power as the POTUS.

results are preliminarily in line with Culpeper’s model, and conclusions were reached successfully regarding questions asked and statements hypothesized