Home German Linguistics Implizite Aggression in Onlinekommentaren anlässlich der Debatte um rassistische Sprache in Kinderbüchern
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Implizite Aggression in Onlinekommentaren anlässlich der Debatte um rassistische Sprache in Kinderbüchern

  • Stefan Hartmann and Nora Sties
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Verbale Aggression
This chapter is in the book Verbale Aggression

Abstract

In early 2013, the publishing house Thienemann caused a quite heated controversy with the announcement to remove racist terms from a new edition of the popular German children‘s book “Die kleine Hexe” (The Little Witch). Drawing on a qualitative analysis of readers′ comments in eleven online news­portals, we argue that many of the utterances employ simplifying negative stere­otypes (so-called “limitiation stereotypes”) to devalue a de-individualized “out-group”. However, these stereotypes, as well as the inherent aggression against said “out-group”, are not spelled out explicitly but rather conveyed by means of humorous utterances or hyperbolic comparisons. In this paper, we analyze these implicitness strategies and discuss how the parameter of implicitness can be operationalized in discourse analysis more generally.

Abstract

In early 2013, the publishing house Thienemann caused a quite heated controversy with the announcement to remove racist terms from a new edition of the popular German children‘s book “Die kleine Hexe” (The Little Witch). Drawing on a qualitative analysis of readers′ comments in eleven online news­portals, we argue that many of the utterances employ simplifying negative stere­otypes (so-called “limitiation stereotypes”) to devalue a de-individualized “out-group”. However, these stereotypes, as well as the inherent aggression against said “out-group”, are not spelled out explicitly but rather conveyed by means of humorous utterances or hyperbolic comparisons. In this paper, we analyze these implicitness strategies and discuss how the parameter of implicitness can be operationalized in discourse analysis more generally.

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