Deconstructing the language of online offence

Tue 23 January

Wolfson College

Research on offensive language in computer-mediated communication has already contributed a lot to our understanding of human interaction. However, to date little research has been conducted on what type of language is actually perceived as offensive. Drawing on a unique personally collected and transcribed corpus of language actually deemed offensive by the participants themselves, a three-layered comprehensive analysis of the make-up of offensive language will be offered. The analysis provided starts off with a corpus-assisted analysis of seminal words and expressions deemed offensive and then moves in the direction of semantic domains analysis, and on towards a pragmatic analysis. The findings of the study show a combination of conventionally offensive as well as contextually offensive forms of language use. The findings greatly contribute to our hitherto unknown aspects of offence and move the research on both linguistic politeness as well as to natural language processing forward.

Speakers:
Dr Vahid Parvaresh is Deputy Head of School for Humanities and Social Sciences, Associate Professor of Linguistics and Course Leader for ARU's BA (Hons) English Language and Linguistics. Vahid is interested in impoliteness studies, language aggression and hate speech.
Dr Tahmineh Tayebi is a Lecturer in Forensic Linguistics in the School of Social Sciences and Humanities and Aston Institute for Forensic Linguistics. Her research is on language aggression and impoliteness. She is interested in online offensive language, cyberbullying, online abuse and hate comments.

Details:
This is a hybrid event, which will take place in-person in the Gatsby Room (Chancellor's Centre) and also on Zoom.
If you would like to attend online, please register for the Zoom link: https://wolfson-cam-ac-uk.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwocuuhqjgsGdQSF_hSP3ilMbk476MsSEpV#/registration
Refreshments will be available for the in-person audience.

Access:
This event will take place in Gatsby Room on the first floor of the Chancellor's Centre. It has step-free access with a lift and there is an accessible toilet located each floor of the building.
For more details please view our AccessAble guide: https://www.accessable.co.uk/wolfson-college/access-guides/chancellor-s-centre

Cost: Free