Linguistic strategies for managing online reputation in the era of political trolling: the case of Twitter-discourse between Zimbabwean political actors.
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Date
2023
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Abstract
The issue of personal attacks is pronounced in political contexts, with the discourse being
instrumentalised for reputational warfare and reputational capital. In many cases, the victims of
such discourse are character assassinated, defamed, humiliated, and demeaned. Thus, currently,
there is an existing risk of losing a network of relationships which enables the political society to
function effectively, as expected in a democracy such as Zimbabwe. The study aims at establishing
strategies for linguistically managing online reputation within political discourses. It has the
following main objectives: (1) To identify the non-politic linguistic strategies utilised in political
trolling by Zimbabwean political actors on Twitter (now X). (2) To establish the component of face
predominantly targeted in personal attacks on Twitter by Zimbabwean political trolls and (3) To
establish linguistic strategies which can be utilised to redress face-threatening acts on digital
platforms such as Twitter.
The study takes a qualitative paradigm which informs the data collection and analysis, with the
selection of data based on purposive sampling. Three theories underlie this study, namely: the Face
Constituting Theory (FCT) (Arundale, 2010), the Politeness Theory (PT) (Brown & Levinson,
1987) and the Public Sphere Theory (PST) (Habermas, 1964) plus Culpeper (2011)’s four key
aspects of impoliteness and Culpeper (2005)’s super-strategies for obtaining impoliteness. The
research also takes a two-tier approach differentiating between a first- and a second-order level of
analysis.
The findings of this study are threefold. Firstly, there are six non-politic linguistic strategies
commonly employed in political trolling within the Zimbabwean Twittersphere; these include:
insults, pointed criticisms, unpalatable questions, condescensions, dismissals, and threats.
Secondly, the study reveals that the positive face is the predominantly targeted face in personal
attacks on Twitter. Thirdly, the study establishes three face-saving strategies. These are, claiming
common ground, conveying that speaker and addressee are co-operators and fulfilling the
addressee’s want.
Description
Doctoral Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.