Organised by Digital Scholarship at Oxford and the Maison Francaise d’Oxford.

Convened by Grégoire Lacaze (Aix-Marseille Université)

Programme – Pr. Johannes Angermuller (Open University)
‘Do post-truth and hate speech hang together? Discourse as socioepistemic valuation
Contemporary post-truth discourses are a challenge for both discourse and communication specialists and science and technology scholars who have been arguing for the constructed nature of scientific truth. In this talk, I will look into a few historical examples of science controversies since the Corpenican revolution in order to argue that not all knowledges are equal. Science is indeed always political but we would do well not to reduce epistemic to social hierarchies.

References
Angermuller, Johannes. ‘Accumulating Discursive Capital, Valuating Subject Positions. From Marx to Foucault’. Critical Discourse Studies 15, no. 4 (2018): 415–25.doi.org/10.1080/17405904.2018.1457551.
Angermuller, Johannes. ‘Truth after Post-Truth: For a Strong Programme in Discourse Studies’. Palgrave Communications 4, no. 30 (2018): 1–8.doi.org/10.1057/s41599-018-0080-1.

- Anna V.B. Terzi (Stockholm University)
‘The Hate-Pandemic: The role of discourse markers in the creation of hate speech in Italy’
In recent years, the concept of hate speech has sparked numerous debates, and it has attracted the attention of several researchers in different fields of knowledge. According to the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) the term hate speech refers to the use of any form of expression, conduct, or communication that offends, threatens, or insults a person or a group based on attributes such as race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or other characteristics (ECRI General Policy Recommendation N°15 – European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), n.d.). Given that hate speech has existed since the origin of societies and power conflicts, a particular approach in this field of research regards the analysis of a word’s historicity to define its current derogative function. In fact, the meaning of a term derives from the consolidation of the practices in which it has been employed across time. Therefore, the use of a word with a derogatory function does both provoke hatred and humiliation towards the recipient and express and foster the existence of stereotypes rooted in the speaker’s culture (c.f. Faloppa, 2015). On the other hand, from a pragmatic perspective, studying hate speech — particularly online hate speech — is valuable for highlighting the relationship between language use and extralinguistic factors such as context and personal background. This approach also aids in understanding ongoing linguistic changes and preventing the spread of deviant language models associated with hate (cf. Ambrisi, 2021; Bianchi, 2021).

Although several attempts have been made in grasping the hate speech phenomenon, its multifaceted nature has led scholars to address this issue through different research questions and analytical approaches, resulting, in turn, in the creation of a highly heterogeneous and somewhat ambiguous definition. Therefore, the present study has tried to contribute to an improvement of the conceptualization of hate speech by emphasising the usefulness of a rhetorical perspective in identifying its distinctive features. The analysis was conducted through a linguistic and qualitative approach to identify the key features of hate speech in contemporary Italian. Given that the majority of linguistic studies on discriminatory discourse have, so far, focused on aspects such as vocabulary and metaphorical structures, I chose to use a typical trait of oral communication as the object of study: the discourse marker (DM). Specifically, the goal has been to analyse the role of DMs and to determine whether these units do contribute to the construction of an offensive speech. A DM is a linguistic element that presents a “mitigated” original meaning to fulfil various tasks related with the definition of both the text’s and the interplay’s structural parts. The DMs’ multifunctionality is organised in two functional categories, depending on whether the element provides information on the speaker’s phatic scope and attitude towards the speech act (interactive functions) or if it relates to the discourse’s inner structure (metatextual function) (Bazzanella, 1995).

The inquiry has considered the choices and uses of DMs made by the participants of the radio show La Zanzara, including both the hosts and the interacting audience. The Italian radio show, broadcasted by Radio24 and lead by Giuseppe Cruciani, David Parenzo and Alberto Gottardo, offers a unique environment to study hate speech, as its explicit purpose is to provide a free zone for its listeners so that they can talk about socio-cultural and political issues, without fearing censorship. Moreover, the show presents itself as an enemy to everything that is linked to the concept of political correctness (Radio24, n.d.). To clearly showcase the radio program’s main intent and to define its relation to the participants’ usage of DMs, I decided to focus exclusively on the shows broadcasted in the second week of March 2020, period during which Italy was in a lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The leading hypothesis was that the numerous debates and ideological oppositions that arose following the spread of the pandemic and the establishment of the lockdown would be further amplified within the radio program. In conclusion, the study has aimed to advocate for the use of a rhetorical perspective as a common denominator among the various definitions of hate speech. Additionally, it has sought to assess how and to what extent DMs are currently employed in the construction of offensive speech in contemporary Italian.

References

Ambrisi, L. (2021). La lingua dell’odio. Deriva linguistica dell’italiano contemporaneo. Guida editori: Napoli.
Bazzanella, C. (1995). I segnali discorsivi. In L. Renzi, G. Salvi, & A. Cardinaletti (eds.), Grande grammatica italiana di consultazione (Vol. III, p. 225-257). Bologna: Il Mulino Bianchi, C. (2021). Hate speech. Il lato oscuro del linguaggio. Laterza: Roma-Bari.
ECRI General Policy Recommendation N°15 – European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI). (2015). The Council of Europe.
www.coe.int/en/web/european-commission-against-racism-and-intolerance/recommen dation-no.15
Faloppa, F. (2015). Razzisti a parole (per tacer dei fatti). Laterza Editore: Roma-Bari. Radio24. (n.d.). La Zanzara. Radio24.www.radio24.ilsole24ore.com/programmi/lazanzara?refresh_ce=1