<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p> Almost immediately after the Charlie Hebdo shootings of 7 January 2015, some print media made room for alternative opinions of what had happened. The articles and the discussions they inspired are replete with evaluations which lend themselves to analysis using methods and procedures of Politeness Theory. The paper examines an example of a metadiscourse of (im)politeness which questions the “moral orders” underlying the cartoonists’ as well as other participants’ social practices vis-à-vis their ideological foundations, esp. freedom of speech as one of the principal liberties of our society. To that end, the approach to politeness as “social practice” is employed which, while insisting on multiple understandings of politeness, places participants’ evaluations at the centre of politeness research.</p></abstract>

Almost immediately after the Charlie Hebdo shootings of 7 January 2015, some print media made room for alternative opinions of what had happened. The articles and the discussions they inspired are replete with evaluations which lend themselves to analysis using methods and procedures of Politeness Theory. The paper examines an example of a metadiscourse of (im)politeness which questions the “moral orders” underlying the cartoonists’ as well as other participants’ social practices vis-à-vis their ideological foundations, esp. freedom of speech as one of the principal liberties of our society. To that end, the approach to politeness as “social practice” is employed which, while insisting on multiple understandings of politeness, places participants’ evaluations at the centre of politeness research.

Je ne suis pas Charlie. Metadiscourses of impoliteness following “France’s 9/11” in selected print media

Inštitút anglistiky a amerikanistiky Filozofická fakulta Prešovskej univerzity Ul.17. novembra 1 080 01 Prešov Slovak Republic Phone: +421 51 75 70 801

Topics in Linguistics

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Almost immediately after the Charlie Hebdo shootings of 7 January 2015, some print media made room for alternative opinions of what had happened. The articles...

Je ne suis pas Charlie. Metadiscourses of impoliteness following “France’s 9/11” in selected print media

Published Online: Dec 30, 2015

Page range: 42 - 58

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/topling-2015-0010

Keywords
Charlie Hebdo shooting, impoliteness, metacomment, politeness as discursive struggle, politeness as social practice

© 2016

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Je ne suis pas Charlie. Metadiscourses of impoliteness following “France’s 9/11” in selected print media

Published Online: Dec 30, 2015

Page range: 42 - 58

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/topling-2015-0010

KeywordsCharlie Hebdo shooting, impoliteness, metacomment, politeness as discursive struggle, politeness as social practice

© 2016

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Keywords
Charlie Hebdo shooting, impoliteness, metacomment, politeness as discursive struggle, politeness as social practice