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AN ANALYSIS OF IMPOLITENESS STRATEGIES
ON DONALD TRUMP’S TWEETS AND REPLY POSTS OF HIS TWEETS
Kiki Firginia Talia Universitas Negeri Malang
kikithalia.kt@gmail.com
Abstract: Since social media platforms, a forum for online interaction and communication, provide freedom to express opinions, responds, and criticizes other people or somethings freely, impolite utterances on social media are often found. This study intends for examining the use of impolite expressions on Twitter, focusing on impoliteness strategies on Donald Trump's tweets and reply posts of his tweets. This study attempts to determine the types of Culpeper’s impoliteness strategies (1996) on four of Donald Trump's tweets and 244 replies of those four tweets. The findings indicate that impoliteness strategies are found on four of Donald Trump's tweets, and reply posts of those four tweets, including bald on record impoliteness, positive impoliteness, negative impoliteness, and sarcasm or mock politeness.
Keywords: Culpeper’s impoliteness strategies, tweets, reply posts.
Twitter, one of the most popular social networks, has become a communication platform to share opinions or messages. Users can interact with messages they shared called ‘tweets’. They can retweet, like, and comment on others’ tweets. People use Twitter for their interests: some people use it just for fun, to share news and experiences, business people use it for promotions, and even people with political interest take the chance to attract users with their messages. “Politicians are one group that has benefitted from Twitter and relied upon it for networking” (Ausserhofer & Maireder, 2013). Since Twitter is an open social media platform that allows the users to freely reply to others' tweets, so it is not surprising that politicians use Twitter to share their messages with the people. One of the politicians who use Twitter actively is Donald Trump, the current President of the United States.
Donald Trump’s official Twitter account is @realDonaldTrump with its followers of 71 million in January 2020. Since Twitter is one of the social media platforms that provide the freedom to express opinions, responds and criticizes other people or somethings freely, Donald Trump uses Twitter like other general people to share his opinions, but he is also known that he uses Twitter to attack his political opponents and news outlets. it is not surprising that his tweets always attract the attention of citizens so that his tweets always get responses by getting thousands of replies, retweets, and likes since he can be seen as the most influential and powerful person in the world at the moment. The responses to his tweets are varied: some users agree with his tweet, and some are not, some users respond politely, and some users respond using impolite language.
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In online communication, people are separated by distance so that they cannot see others they are communicating with, but what they see is the tool they use like computers or smartphones. That might be the reason why people dare to use impolite utterance on online platforms even though they have never met or they don't even know each other. When they were facing a famous person in real life, especially in this case the person is a president, usually they will not express what is on their mind directly. On the other hand, communicate or interact through social media does not make people afraid to use impolite expression since they do not see each other.
Since tweets and reply posts of tweets are considered as written communication in online platforms, the phenomenon of the use of impolite language in Twitter is necessary to be studied as impolite language phenomenon in one of social media platforms. This study is focusing on impolite utterances used by Donald Trump through his tweets and the impolite responses to Donald Trump’s tweets for several reasons. First, Twitter is used in this study as a medium that might show impoliteness in interactions via tweets and reply posts. Second, Donald Trump’s Twitter account is selected because he has a strong statement that generally seems controversial on Twitter. Since he is a famous person known by people all over the world, his activities on Twitter can be easily monitored by people. His position as a famous figure provokes many other Twitter users to respond to his tweets.
Based on the background of the study mentioned above, the problems of the study are: first, what are the impoliteness strategies used by Donald Trump on his tweet? and second, what are the impoliteness strategies found on reply posts of his tweets?
This study uses Culpeper's impoliteness strategies to examine the impolite utterance on Donald Trump’s Tweets and impolite utterance on reply posts of his tweets. Impoliteness strategy is defined as “communicative strategies designed to attack face, and thereby cause social conflict and disharmony” (Culpeper, 2003:1546). Culpeper (1996) reveals five main types of impoliteness strategies including bald on record impoliteness, positive impoliteness, negative impoliteness, sarcasm or mock politeness, and withhold politeness.
The first type of Culpeper’s impoliteness strategies is Bald on record impoliteness. It is an impoliteness strategy that “performed in a direct, clear, unambiguous and concise way in circumstances where the face is not irrelevant” (Culpeper, 1996:356). The second is positive impoliteness which “designed to damage the addressee’s positive face wants” (Culpeper, 1996:356).
According to Culpeper (1996:357), positive impoliteness strategy has several output strategies:
ignore the other; exclude the other from an activity; disassociate from the other; be disinterested, unconcerned, and unsympathetic; use inappropriate identity markers; use secretive language; and seek disagreement. The third impoliteness strategy is negative impoliteness. It is “designed to damage the addressee’s negative face wants” (Culpeper, 1996:356). There are several output strategies of negative impoliteness according to Culpeper (1996:358), they are: frighten;
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impoliteness strategy that “performed with the use of politeness strategies that are obviously insicere” (Culpeper, 1996:356). It can be said that sarcasm or mock politeness occurs when the speaker uses a smooth or polite utterance but it is actually to attack the addressee. The last Culpeper’s impoliteness strategy is called withhold politeness. It is the lack of polite utterance where it should be shown.
The purpose of this study is to identify the impoliteness strategies on Twitter, focusing on Donald Trump's tweets and reply posts of his tweets. Since this study belongs to pragmatics in the field of English, this study benefits practically for the English Department Students in particular, and the readers in general. They can be aware of impoliteness strategies used by Donald Trump and by people who reply to Donald Trump’s tweets. They also can avoid the expressions used in their impolite conversation.
METHOD
Design of The Study
As descriptive qualitative research, the study aims to provide factual explanations or descriptions. In this research, the writer analyzed the language phenomenon found on Twitter. This study aims to examine the use of impoliteness strategies on Donald Trump’s tweets and reply posts of his tweets.
Sources of Data
The data were taken from four Donald Trump tweets from his Twitter account,
@realDonaldTrump, about his responses to Robert Mueller's report on investigations into whether Donald Trump's campaign in the 2016 US presidential election conspired with Russia and obstructed justice. Those four tweets were posted by Donald Trump on 13th of May 2019. The reply posts were taken from those four of Donald Trump’s tweets. The data collection was done in one day since the viewable reply post might be different each day.
Instrument of the Study
Since the data were taken from Twitter, the writer used a computer to take Donald Trump’s tweets and the reply posts of Donald Trump’s tweets. The writer also used a checklist to analyze the data. First, several tables are created before collecting the data. Five tables were adjusted by the number of impoliteness strategies proposed by Culpeper. Each table has a "No" column to number the data obtained, the "Data Source" column contains information from which tweets the data were taken, the "Utterances" column is for the data obtained, and the "Code" column contains the code for each data obtained. For the tables of positive impoliteness strategy and negative impoliteness, columns for output strategies were provided to make it easier to analyze the output strategies. After the data were gathered, it was analyzed and then put into the provided tables. To analyze the data considered as output strategies of positive impoliteness strategy and negative impoliteness strategy, the researcher used a checklist in the column provided to clarify its division.
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Data Collection
The data collection process of this study includes the following steps. First, four of Donald Trump's tweets were selected on May 13, 2019, about the Democrats and Mueller report. The tweets were taken from the website https://www.twitter.com/realDonaldTrump. Second, reply posts under those four tweets that indicate impoliteness strategies by Culpeper were selected.
As replies to tweets can be replied again by any users and create long discussions, only direct replies to Trump’s tweets were used. The reply posts taken were in English only since this study analyzes the use of English. Approval to use the tweets and the reply posts are not required since Twitter is one of social media that is open to anyone in which the tweets and the reply posts can be seen or searched by anyone. Every reply post on selected Donald Trump’s Tweets was transcribed.
Data Analysis
Tweets from Donald Trump containing information about Democrats and Muller’s report were gathered according to the criteria mentioned in the data collection. Once all reply posts from each tweet were gathered, they were analyzed according to the main focus of this study, the use of Culpeper's impoliteness strategies.
Next, the data from the tweets and the reply posts were categorized by putting them on tables provided, and giving codes according to Culpeper’s impoliteness strategies (1996). The codes are made as follows: Bald on record impoliteness (BO); Positive Impoliteness (PI) and its output strategies, such as, be disinterested, unconcerned, unsympathetic (DI), use inappropriate identity markers (IA), seek disagreement (SD), use swear or taboo words (TS), and call the other names (ON); Negative Impoliteness (NI) and its output strategies, such as, frighten (FR), condescend, scorn, or ridicule (CSR), invade the other’s space (IV), and explicitly associate with negative aspect (EA); Sarcasm or mock politeness (SM); and Withhold impoliteness (WO).
After categorizing the data by using codes, the data from tweets of Donald Trump and reply posts of his tweets were discussed according to impoliteness strategies. Lastly, a conclusion was drawn that contains a summary of the findings and discussion of the study.
FINDINGS
The Use of Impoliteness Strategies Found on Donald Trump’s Tweets
Tweets regarding Donald Trump's response to Robert Mueller’s report were selected because he sent several tweets about this issue since Robert Mueller's report on investigations into whether Donald Trump's campaign in the 2016 US presidential election conspired with Russia and obstructed justice. These four tweets were posted by Donald Trump on May 13th, 2019. These four tweets are given below.
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Tweet #1:
“Despite two years and millions of dollars spent, the Democrats are acting like crazed lunatics ever since the results of the Mueller Report were made public. But they knew there was NOTHING even before the Report was started. It is all a big Hoax, the biggest in American history!”
This tweet was posted on May 13th, 2019 at 6:03 AM. It responds to volume I of Mueller's report which concluded that there is no evidence of Trump's campaign conspired with the Russian government. In this tweet, he explicitly associates Democrats with a negative aspect, one of the output strategies of negative impoliteness, stated "Democrats are acting like crazed lunatics" after the report was released. Here, he attacks Democrats by associating them with “crazed lunatics,”
which means people that look mentally ill or very crazy. Explicitly associating the other with a negative aspect is one of the output strategies of the negative impoliteness strategy. Thus, this tweet is considered using a negative impoliteness strategy.
Tweet #2:
“Ever since the Mueller Report showed No Collusion & No Obstruction, the Dems have been working overtime to damage me and the Republican Party by issuing over 80 demands for documents and testimonies, and with NO REASON. That’s all they want to do - don’t care about anything else!”
This tweet was posted on May 13th, 2019 at 6:10 AM. Before analyzing his tweet, it needs to be mentioned that volume II of Mueller's report about obstruction of justice shows ten episodes where Donald Trump could have obstructed justice. The report "does not conclude that the President committed a crime, but it also does not exonerate him." The report stated that Congress can decide whether Donald Trump obstructed justice. However, his tweet above shows that he concludes that the report showed no collusion and no obstruction. It also shows his opinion toward the investigation, which Democrats have been working on Trump's obstruction of justice and corruption, has no reason but to damage him and his party. It shows that he scorns his political opponents that could attack them and downgrade them. Therefore, this tweet is considered as scorning as one of the output strategies of negative impoliteness.
Tweet #3:
“When the Mueller Report came out showing NO Collusion with Russia (of course), it was supposed to be over, back to work for the people. But the Dems have gone “nuts,” and it has actually gotten worse! Hope the Republicans win back the House in 2020, or little will get done!”
This tweet was posted on May 13th, 2019 at 6:16 AM. The tweet shows that he asks people who have been working on the investigation to stop, and get to work for the public. He also directly attacks Democrats by stating that the Democrats “have gone nuts” meaning they have become extremely angry or crazy. Directly attack the addressees is viewed as bald on record impoliteness
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strategy. Thus, it shows that in this tweet Donald Trump uses Bald on record impoliteness strategy to attack his opponents.
Tweet #4:
“The ‘Constitutional Crisis’ is the Democrats refusing to work. Let them start by fixing the mess that their Immigration Laws have caused at the Southern Border.”
This tweet was posted on May 13th, 2019 at 6:19 AM. It is Donald Trump's response to Democrats which stated that government is a constitutional crisis after the government refused to cooperate with follow up investigations on Mueller's report. He responded by stating “The
‘Constitutional Crisis’ is the Democrats refusing to work.” This is the form of Donald Trump’s disagreement to refute what Democrats have said about the constitutional crisis. It can be said that what Democrats have said about a constitutional crisis triggers Donald Trump’s impolite tweet.
Therefore, this utterance is considered as “seek disagreement,” one of the output strategies of positive impoliteness strategy that affects the addressees.
From those four tweets, there are three impoliteness strategies found. They are negative impoliteness strategy, positive impoliteness strategy, and bald on record impoliteness strategies.
The Use of Impoliteness Strategies Found on Donald Trump’s Reply Posts
From those four tweets, 344 reply posts were collected. The researcher found 244 reply posts containing impoliteness strategies under four of Donald Trump’s tweets. Out of these 244 reply posts, 69 were collected from tweet #1, 41 were collected from tweet #2, 64 were collected from tweet #3, and 70 reply posts were collected from tweet #4. Four out of five types of impoliteness strategies were found on reply post of Donald Trump’s tweets. Withhold politeness could not be found from those reply posts of Trump’s tweets. There is also a part that presents a combination of impoliteness strategies. The percentage of impoliteness strategies found on reply posts of Donald Trump’s tweets are given below.
Table 1. The Impoliteness Strategies Found on Reply Post of Donald Trump’s Tweets
No. Type of Impoliteness Strategies Frequency Percentage
1. Bald on Record Impoliteness 7 3 %
2. Positive Impoliteness 87 36 %
3. Negative Impoliteness 124 51 %
4. Sarcasm or Mock Politeness 10 4 %
5. Withhold Impoliteness 0 0 %
6. Combination of Impoliteness Strategies 16 7 %
244 100%
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Bald on Record Impoliteness
Bald on record impoliteness is “an impoliteness strategy performed in a direct, clear, unambiguous that threatens the hearer's face” (Culpeper, 1996). From a total of 244 reply posts, 7 reply posts exemplify this strategy. Below is one of the examples.
Example:
“Your ‘presidency’ is a hoax and it’s driving you insane.”
The users replied on Tweet #1 which is Donald Trump’s response to the result of Robert Mueller's report that there is no evidence showed Donald Trump's campaign in the 2016 US presidential election conspired with Russia. In this tweet, Donald Trump stated that the prejudice to make the investigation against him is a hoax, which is why the user attacked him by stated: “Your
‘presidency’ is a hoax and it’s driving you insane.” It indicates that Donald Trump’s tweet is the one that triggered the user replied the post without considering the politeness strategy. The user straightforwardly and unambiguously employed this utterance to express hatred and anger toward Donald Trump or his tweet.
Positive Impoliteness
Positive impoliteness is “a strategy designed to damage the addressee’s positive face wants”
(Culpeper, 1996:1555). 87 reply posts are employed by Twitter users to attack him. The output strategies that can be found include: be disinterested, unconcerned, and unsympathetic, exclude the other from an activity, use inappropriate identity markers, seek disagreement, use taboo words, and call the other names. The percentage of output strategies of positive impoliteness is presented below.
Figure 1. The Percentage of Output Strategies of Positive Impoliteness Strategy Found on Reply Post of Donald Trump’s Tweets.
Be Disinterested, Unconcerned, Unsympathetic
There are 13 out of 87 reply posts illustrate this strategy. The example is given below.
Example:
“They have every reason! Muller's report gave 10 very real examples! Lock Him Up”
This reply post is found on tweet 2 where Donald Trump showed his opinion toward the investigation, which Democrats have been working on Trump's obstruction justice and corruption,
15%
9%
44%
1%
31%
Output Strategies of Positive Impoliteness Strategy
be disinterested, unsympathetic Using Inappropriate Identity Markers Seek Disagreement
Use Taboo/ Swear words Call the Other names
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has no reason but to damage him and his party. However, from the example above, the user had a different opinion from Donald Trump stated that Democrats have reasons doing the investigation by referring to ten episodes in Muller’s report indicating that Donald Trump could have obstructed justice. This user also delivered an unsympathetic utterance toward Donald Trump by stating “Lock Him Up.” It suggests that this user does not care what the statement has Donald Trump said, and has a belief that Donald Trump is guilty.
Use Inappropriate Identity Markers
Among all reply posts, 8 reply posts demonstrated this strategy. Below is an example.
Example:
“Cool story, bro.”
This example is found in reply post of Donald Trump’s tweet #3 which tweeted about Democrats have gone crazy ever since the Mueller’s report is released, and ask them, who have been working on the investigation against Trump, to stop and back to work to the people. The user replies with a short statement, “cool story, bro,” which indicates that the user is not really interested in him or his tweet. The user addresses Donald Trump as “bro,” the abbreviation of “brother.” It suggests that the user considers her/him a friend of Donald Trump which is somewhat inappropriate.
Thus, it is serving as an example of the use of inappropriate identity markers as an output strategy of impoliteness strategy.
Seek Disagreement
It is one of the output strategies of positive impoliteness which is most frequently found on reply posts of Donald Trump’s tweets: 38 out of 87 reply posts display this strategy. Below is an example.
Example:
“The humanitarian crisis at southern border was caused by you enacting policies with no prior planning before execution. You made refugee crisis critical by cutting Economic Aid, 1/2 in '17 and '18, balance this year. Desperate people will do desperate things to feed children.”
From the example above, the user disagrees with Donald Trump’s tweet stated that Democrats should start working by fixing the problem they caused at the Southern Border. While in the user’s opinion, the problem at the Southern Border is not the Democrats’ fault, but rather it is Donald Trump’s fault that cut economic aid for the refugees. The use of the pronoun “you” indicates that the user really blames Donald Trump. This is a form of disagreement with Donald Trump's statement since the user has a different opinion.
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Using Taboo Words
Among all reply posts, only 1 reply post demonstrates this strategy. Below is an example.
Example:
“Happy Impeach The Motherfucker’s Day!”
This example is taken from the reply post of Donald Trump’s tweet #1. The tweet is posted on May 13th which is marked as a mother’s day in the United States. Instead of stating “mother’s day,”
the user stated “motherfucker’s day” which is considered a swear word. The user also used the word
“impeach” before it which indicates his/her hatred toward Donald Trump. Because of the use of that swear word, this is serving as an example of one of the output strategies of positive impoliteness strategy, use taboo words.
Call the Other Name
Among all reply posts, 27 reply posts demonstrate this strategy. below is an example.
Example:
“Liar, Liar, Liar, Liar”
This example is from the reply post of Donald Trump’s tweet #2 that tweeted about Mueller’s report that shows no collusion and Democrats which in Donald Trump’s opinion do not care about anything else but to damage him and the Republican Party. It suggests that the user does not believe in Donald Trump’s statement. By addressing Donald Trump as a "liar", a person who tells lies shows that the users do not believe in what Donald Trump has tweeted and considered them as lies.
However, it is unknown whether he was lying or not. From 31 reply posts found as this output strategy, 10 of them are using the same word, "liar," which makes it the most frequent word for addressing Donald Trump.
Negative Impoliteness
Negative impoliteness is “a strategy designed to damage the addressee’s negative face wants” (Culpeper, 1996:358). In the reply sections, 124 reply posts indicate negative impoliteness strategies. The output strategies that can be found include frighten, condescend, scorn or ridicule, invade the other's space, and explicitly associate the other with negative aspects are found.
Figure 2. The Percentage of Output Strategies of Negative Impoliteness Strategy Found on Reply Post of Donald Trump’s Tweets.
15%
66%
15%3%
Output Strategies of Positive Impoliteness Strategy
Frighten
Condescend, Scorn, or Ridicule Invade the Other's Space
Explisitly Associate the Other with a Negative Aspect
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Frighten
This strategy is performed to frighten or horrify the addresses that something bad may come to them. 19 of 124 reply posts serve as examples of this strategy.
Example:
“
You must know something is about to happen and it must not be good for you and your family.”
This example is taken from the reply post of Donald Trump’s tweet #1. It shows that the user does not post a reply that is related to what Donald Trump has tweeted, but he/she scares Donald Trump that some bad things will happen not only to him but also will happen in his family. Thus this is part of frightening the addressees as one of the output strategies of negative impoliteness.
Condescend, Scorn or Ridicule
Among all reply posts, 82 reply posts are illustrations of this type. Below is an example.
Example:
“Why do you tweet about this a hundred times a day? Don’t you have work to do?”
This reply post is found on tweet 2 where Donald Trump showed his opinion toward the investigation, which Democrats have been working on Trump's obstruction justice and corruption, has no reason but to damage him and his party. It shows that the user is so done with Donald Trump that always posts tweets several times a day. The user scorns him by using interrogative sentence questioning whether he has work to do other than post tweets.
Invade the Other’s Space
It occurs when the speaker approaches the addressee more than the relationship allowed, or when the relationship between the addressee and the speaker is not close enough but the speaker persists to ask for more or deep information. Among 124 reply posts, 19 reply posts illustrate this strategy. Some examples are given below.
Example 1:
“Release the report and your tax returns - nothing to hide - nothing to see.
Example 2:
“Also, delete your account.”
Example 3:
“Wonder if you spent ANY time with the mother of your child today? Be best!”
Example 4:
“How about letting them do their Constitutional oversight? Give them what they are asking for.”
Those four examples of reply posts are found on Donald Trump’s tweet #1, tweet #2, tweet
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account. In the third example, the user is wondering if Donald Trump spent his time with his mother since the tweet was posted on Mother’s Day. The fourth example reveals that the user is asking Donald Trump to let the Democrats doing their constitutional oversight. Asking for information like the examples above is not appropriate since the relationship between the general people and Donald Trump is clearly not close enough. Thus, those Twitter users can be said that they invade Donald Trump's space.
Explicitly Associate With Negative Aspect
Among 124 reply posts, 4 reply posts illustrate this strategy. an example is given below.
Example:
“You tweet like a guilty moron.”
The user performs negative impoliteness because he/she does not like to see Donald Trump’s tweets which often criticize other people that can get more than 5 times a day. This example shows that the user associates Donald Trump with negative aspects explicitly by using the words
“like a guilty moron.” In this utterance, the user wants to underline that the way he tweets is similar to a moron or a very stupid person who is guilty.
Sarcasm or Mock Politeness
It occurs when the speaker uses polite utterances insincerely. 4% of 244 impolite reply posts are exemplifications of this strategy. an example is given below.
Example:
“Ahhh so cute.. he still doesn't realize.. HE is the biggest Hoax and joke in the WORLD'S history!”
This example taken is from Donald Trump’s tweet #1 stated that Democrats’ allegations against him are the biggest hoax in American history. This utterance is sarcastic. The use of the word
“cute” usually to express compliments. However, here, the user did not intend to compliment Donald Trump, but rather express his/her dissatisfaction with Donald Trump as a president.
Combination Strategies
In the reply sections, 16 reply posts exemplify combination strategies of bald on record impoliteness and positive impoliteness; bald on record impoliteness and negative impoliteness; bald on record impoliteness, positive impoliteness and negative impoliteness; positive impoliteness and negative impoliteness; and positive impoliteness and sarcasm or mock politeness are found. It indicates that Twitter users prefer the combination strategy of “positive impoliteness and negative impoliteness” over the other five combination strategies. Below is an example of the combination strategy of positive impoliteness and negative impoliteness.
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Example:
“Trump, There is no Hoax. Democrats are intelligent people who know what you have done and what you continue to do. It will catch up to you and I think you know it. You will be leaving in January 2021, even if you have to be pulled out.”
The reply post above clearly shows that the user uses an impolite statement that employs multiple impoliteness strategies. First, the user disagrees with Donald Trump’s tweet stating that what was said by one of the Democrats on a TV show about him who rejected many investigations led by Democrats “is all a big Hoax, the biggest in American history.” While in the user’s opinion, what Democrats stated is a fact, and the user also states that Democrats know what Donald Trump has done and what he will do because they are intelligent people. Thus, this serving as an example of one of the output strategies of positive impoliteness strategies, seek disagreement.
Second, the statement exemplifies one of the negative impoliteness output strategies, frighten. What the utterance “It will catch up to you and I think you know it. You will be leaving in January 2021, even if you have to be pulled out” intends to prove is that Donald Trump will not be elected in the next election. It suggests that the user instills the belief that something the addressee’s undesirable may happen, thus attacking the addressee’s negative face. So, this statement posted has two impoliteness strategies: one of positive impoliteness output strategies, seek disagreement, and one of negative impoliteness output strategies, frighten.
DISCUSSIONS
Impoliteness Strategies on Donald Trump’s Tweets
From four tweets taken as the data of this study, two of them are using a negative impoliteness strategy. Negative impoliteness found in these two tweets involves its output strategies:
scorning and associating others with negative aspects. The examples of negative impoliteness used by Donald Trump on his tweets can be found in tweet #1, and tweet #2. Several reasons that make Donald Trump use this strategy to attack his political opponent. First, Donald Trump wants to show that what his political opponents have thought about him has colluded with Russia in the 2016 presidential election is wrong. He might think that stating that he is innocent is not enough, so he decided to also attack his political opponents to refute their thoughts. Second, negative impoliteness strategies used by Donald Trump were about to embarrass his political opponents by showing or stating his negative thought about his political opponents to the public.
Bald on record impoliteness strategy is also found on Donald Trump’s tweet #3. He clearly insults Democrats stating that they “have gone nuts” meaning that they are gone crazy or insane.
The reason that encouraged him to use this impolite strategy could be because the Democrats could not accept that Mueller’s report stated that Donald Trump did not collude with Russia in the 2016
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Another impoliteness strategy that could be found is the positive impoliteness strategy. It is found on Donald Trump’s tweet #4. Donald Trump's response to Democrats which stated that government is a constitutional crisis after the government refused to cooperate with follow up investigations on Mueller's report. It shows his disagreement with Democrats’ statements. Donald Trump attacked them back by using the same marker, “constitutional crisis.” He stated Democrats refuse to work on the Southern border is the one that is called a constitutional crisis. It can be seen that the use of impoliteness strategy in his tweet was triggered by the political opponents that attacked him first.
Impoliteness Strategies Found on Reply Posts of Donald Trump’s Tweets
The findings show that most Twitter users use impoliteness strategies in response to Donald Trump’s tweets. From four Donald Trump tweets, the number of reply posts obtained is almost the same from each of the three tweets, tweet #1 got 69 impolite reply posts, tweet #3 got 64 impolite reply posts, and tweet #4 got 70 impolite reply posts. It is different from tweet #2 which got 41 impolite reply posts that a significant gap can be seen clearly. The reason of this difference could be influenced by Donald Trump’s tweets. For example, in tweet #1 Donald Trump attacks his opponent by stating “Democrats are acting like crazed lunatic,” in tweet #3 he clearly states “Democrats has gone nut” that could attack Democrats, in tweet #4 he stated Democrats refuse to work is called
“constitutional crisis.” It can be seen that Donald Trump used clear impolite words and phrases to attack his opponent through his three tweets. While in tweet #2, although he did not use literal impolite words, his statement could attack his political opponents. It can be said that impolite words that are clearly used by Donald Trump to attack his political opponents trigger the users especially the supporters of Democrats’ impolite expression to attack him.
The findings show that from five main strategies, negative impoliteness strategy is the most frequent strategy found on reply posts of Donald Trump's tweets. It is different from the result of previous studies of Rosanti (2017), Hammod & Abdul-Rassul (2017), and Zhong (2018) which shows positive impoliteness strategy as the most popular strategy among other five super strategies. The reason could be because of the different topics discussed. In study conduct by Rosanti (2017), the topic is about if particular celebrities are good looking, Hammod & Abdul-Rassul takes random topics in Facebook, and Zhong (2018) concern with users’ comments on posts of a celebrity who has purported tax fraud on Sina Weibo. Since the topic in this study is Donald Trump’s response to Mueller’s report which also use impolite language to attack the political opponent that attract Twitter users to attack him back, it might make the recent study is more sensitive than those previous studies.
The findings show that the frequency of negative impoliteness and positive impoliteness is higher than the other strategies meaning that those two strategies are mostly used by the users to
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attack Donald Trump. The reason is that each of those two impoliteness strategies has output strategies or sub-strategies. Therefore, they are in a higher position than the other strategies.
Withhold politeness could not be found in this study, and it supports the findings of Hammod
& Abdul-Rassul (2017), Rosanti (2017), and Zhong (2018) but differs from Erza & Hamzah (2018).
The reason can be that in this study the topic of all reply posts is about Donald Trump's campaign might conspire with Russia and obstructed justice. Although his tweets do not mean to deserve impolite reply posts, sincere politeness is hardly be expected because most users have a belief that Donald Trump is guilty and should be punished. That is why withhold politeness got 0%.
CONCLUSION
The findings show that Donald Trump uses impoliteness strategies based on Culpeper (1996) through his tweets. The result of this study shows that from four of Donald Trump’s tweets, bald on record impoliteness, positive impoliteness, and negative impoliteness occur. Negative impoliteness is most used by Donald Trump to attack back his political opponents who tried to downgrade his prestige as a president by not accepting Mueller’s report that shows he did not collude with Russia in the 2016 presidential election.
The findings also show that impoliteness strategies also found on reply posts of those four Donald Trump’s tweets. It suggests that the impolite expressions used by the users to reply to Donald Trump's tweets are triggered by impolite expressions of Donald Trump that he posts through his tweets. Impoliteness strategies that can be found on reply posts of his tweets are bald on record impoliteness strategy, positive impoliteness, negative impoliteness, sarcasm or mock politeness, and combination strategies of impoliteness strategies. Another possibility that makes people use impolite expressions to attack Donald Trump is because the interaction is in social media which does not make people afraid to use impolite expressions since they do not see each other, and make them bravely use impolite expressions.
Since impoliteness is dependent on various factors such as topics, the subject’s status or power, online platforms, and groups of netizens may influence the use of impoliteness strategies.
Therefore, future researchers are recommended to develop the use of impoliteness strategies on other social media platforms by varying those factors. Furthermore, when analyzing the data, the researcher finds some emojis, pictures, and the use of capital letters which indicate impolite expressions. Therefore, future researchers are recommended to investigate emojis, pictures, and the use of capital letters that indicate impoliteness strategies.
Moreover, impoliteness strategies happen in daily life not only in online communication but also in verbal communication. Therefore, reading this study is recommended not only to Twitter users but also to general readers to be aware of the use of impolite expressions, and to avoid the use of impolite expressions in their conversation. This study is also recommended to students especially
PROCEEDINGS
in Twitter, to be aware of the use of impolite expressions, and to avoid the use of impolite expressions to build good communication.
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