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“Trolling is not stupid”: Internet trolling as the art of deception serving entertainment

  • Marta Dynel

    Marta Dynel is Associate Professor in the Department of Pragmatics at the University of Łódź. Her research interests are primarily in pragmatic and cognitive mechanisms of humor, neo-Gricean pragmatics, the pragmatics of interaction, (im)politeness theory, the philosophy of overt and covert untruthfulness (irony and deception), as well as the methodology of research on film discourse. She has published internationally in linguistic journals and volumes, contributing over 70 articles in the space of the past 10 years. She also authored Humorous Garden-Paths: A Pragmatic-Cognitive Study (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009) and edited The Pragmatics of Humour across Discourse Domains (John Benjamins, 2011), Developments in Linguistic Humour Theory (John Benjamins, 2013), as well as Participation in Public and Social Media Interactions (with Jan Chovanec, John Benjamins, 2015).

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Published/Copyright: September 10, 2016
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Abstract

This paper aims to distill the essence of Internet trolling, a prevalent intercultural online communicative phenomenon which appears in many forms and guises. However, the label “trolling” tends to be (mis)used in reference to communicative practices which are not trolling in the traditional sense. It is argued that trolling necessarily relies on deception performed in multi-party interactions, which is conducive to (humorous) entertainment of self and/or other participants, at the expense of the deceived target. Taking data from email communications of the “DontEvenReply” troll, this account not only draws on the literature addressing the focal phenomenon but also integrates findings from several other fields of investigation (the philosophy of deception, humor theory, and the pragmatics of interaction) in order to demystify trolling.

About the author

Marta Dynel

Marta Dynel is Associate Professor in the Department of Pragmatics at the University of Łódź. Her research interests are primarily in pragmatic and cognitive mechanisms of humor, neo-Gricean pragmatics, the pragmatics of interaction, (im)politeness theory, the philosophy of overt and covert untruthfulness (irony and deception), as well as the methodology of research on film discourse. She has published internationally in linguistic journals and volumes, contributing over 70 articles in the space of the past 10 years. She also authored Humorous Garden-Paths: A Pragmatic-Cognitive Study (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009) and edited The Pragmatics of Humour across Discourse Domains (John Benjamins, 2011), Developments in Linguistic Humour Theory (John Benjamins, 2013), as well as Participation in Public and Social Media Interactions (with Jan Chovanec, John Benjamins, 2015).

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the two anonymous referees of this paper for their comments and suggestions. I am extremely grateful to Professor Istvan Kecskes for welcoming my paper proposal with enthusiasm and having it reviewed for Intercultural Pragmatics.

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Published Online: 2016-9-10
Published in Print: 2016-9-1

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