Discourse, insult, and cultural values

Abstract

This dissertation addresses the importance of insult in the discourse of intercultural interaction encounters. Following previous interdisciplinary studies on the subject of tabooed language and insult this study points out the universal character of linguistic interdiction, and of the notion of impoliteness. By taking Brown and Levinson’s (1978) model of politeness as a departure point, and Mary Douglas’s (1975) concept of insult as ‘a reflexion of the values held by a particular culture’, this dissertation proposes a revision of the variables that need to be taken into consideration in a discourse model of impoliteness, in order to account for intercultural misunderstanding.