The language of insults: A look at Theme, Rheme and negative inferences

This paper examines the thematic structure of a corpus of insults using the inference-boundary model of Theme and Rheme. It focuses on the concept of negative inference—which must be generated for an insult to be successfully delivered—and shows how it allows us to better understand and characterize...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inExELL : explorations in English language and linguistics Vol. 10; no. 1; pp. 1 - 21
Main Author Ping Leong, Alvin
Format Journal Article Paper
LanguageEnglish
Published Filozofski fakultet Univerziteta u Tuzli 01.10.2022
Faculty of Philosophy of Tuzla University
Sciendo
Filozofski fakultet, Osijek; Filozofski fakultet, Tuzla
Subjects
Applied Linguistics
inference
inference-boundary model
insults
Language and Literature Studies
Rheme
systemic-functional linguistics
Theme
Theoretical Linguistics
Theme
systemicfunctional linguistics
insults
Rheme
inferenceboundary model
inference
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:This paper examines the thematic structure of a corpus of insults using the inference-boundary model of Theme and Rheme. It focuses on the concept of negative inference—which must be generated for an insult to be successfully delivered—and shows how it allows us to better understand and characterize the form that insults generally take. The analysis suggests that insults are typically structured to generate backward-looking negative inferences from the decoder, much in line with how new information (in this case, the thrust of the insult) is generally located in final position. The paper also proposes a summary statement capturing the general configuration of insults and suggestions for further research.
Bibliography:290776
ISSN:2303-4858
2303-4858
DOI:10.2478/exell-2022-0008