Impoliteness in Arab talk shows : a case studyof insult in the opposite direction

Abstract EN

This study aims at analyzing impoliteness as a sign of impoliteness in Arab television political talk shows.

Two episodesof the Opposite Direction, a famous talk show broadcast on Al-Jazeera Channel, have been selected.

Culpeper's (2011) model for analyzing impoliteness is used.

Hamed (2014: 218) argues that Aruse positive impoliteness strategies (i.

e.

"seek disagreement" and sarcasm or mock) which aim to damage the positive face of the addressee.

But impoliteness can have other manifestations than the ones that are stated by Hamed.

The study revealed that there are many instances of insult in the episodes covering all the categories of insult in the model, and this reflects impoliteness in interaction.

This study is concerned with linguistic 'politeness' and 'impoliteness' as technical pragmatic terms.

Politeness and impoliteness phenomena are intersecting and strongly related phenomena in contemporary pragmatic, however, politeness is more popular and more extensively studied than impoliteness.

In addition, impoliteness can not be studied without referring to the literature of politeness as a starting point to understand and study impoliteness.