The Language of Facebook Comments on Political Articles in Jordan

Abstract

The present study aims to investigate the types of impoliteness strategies used by Jordanian Facebookers when commenting on some local political posts. To achieve this goal, one hundred comments were collected from ten political posts in Jordan. The types of impoliteness strategies were analyzed according to super and sub-strategies following the model of Culpeper (1996). The findings showed that most strategies were used by Jordanian Facebookers in political posts, including the following: bald on record, positive impoliteness, negative impoliteness, and sarcasm impoliteness. In addition, due to the religious orientation of most people, Jordanians often use supplications, a new strategy not mentioned in Culpeper (1996). Negative and sarcasm impoliteness are the most frequent super-strategies, while bald on record is the least frequently used super-strategy. Each negative and positive impoliteness has sub-strategies. Positive impoliteness is expressed into disassociating from the other, being disinterested, seeking disagreement, and using taboo words. Using taboo words is the most dominant type in positive impoliteness. Negative impoliteness is expressed into frightening, condescending, putting the other’s indebtedness on record, and associating the other with a negative aspect. Associating the other with a negative aspect is the most dominant type in negative impoliteness used by Jordanian Facebookers.