Insults – between dysphemisms andmarkers of emotional closeness

The present investigative approach proposes an analysis of insults from a socio-, psycho- and pragmalinguistic perspective, aiming to reveal the complex character of this type of communication.
 Given that insults, as reactive acts of speech, are dependent on both the intentions of the speaker and the way the receiver decodes the statement, we suggested a classification based on the illocutionary point (motivated insults—with negative or positive illocutionary point—and unmotivated insults) and on the propositional content (direct insults—within this category, we analyzed the lexical innovations generated by the Covid-19 pandemic, especially the dysphemic use of the participle (substantivized) adjective covidat—and indirect insults).
 Although the oral communication provides the necessary data for the manifestation of insults, in addition to the sequences selected from TV shows, we chose messages written on various social networking sites and excerpts from online forums. Under the protection of anonymity, users are uninhibited and they violate socially imposed linguistic norms without fear of being held accountable for their actions.


Preliminary remarks
The paper aims at investigating the verbal act of insult, generally considered a dysphemic category. Dysphemisms are a pragmalinguistic phenomenon having a lexical form that is inconsistent with sociocultural standards. In certain discursive contexts, dysphemisms have both positive effects-at the intraindividual level (emotional discharge) and at the interindividual level (ensuring group identity)-and negative effects (loss of status).
The use of insults does not imply a transgression of a normative code because people's affective manifestations are interpreted according to a sociocultural scenario. Thus, insults are an emotionally bivalent linguistic phenomenon: (1) as face-threatening acts, insults produce negative emotions (shame, humiliation); (2) as an index of emotional closeness, insults indicate membership and they are part of the linguistic norm accepted by all the members of the group.
Our research is based on the theoretical support offered by socio-, pragma-and psycholinguisticssee the speech acts theory (Searle, 1992); the relevance theory (Grice, 1957;Wilson, 2016); linguistic politeness and impoliteness (Brown & Levinson, 1987;Kerbrat-Orecchioni, 1992, 2010)-and examines a series of insults taken from both the online environment (forums, social networks) and television shows or private conversations. Before the conversations transcribed, we presented the data that outline the communicative context: the place, the evolution of the communicative situation (prior to the fragment selected for analysis), the participants-age, gender, social or professional status-and the relationships between them. ‹ Email address: roxi.pasca@yahoo.com.

Co(n)text, participants and (inter)action
Insults are forms of social interaction, which imply a particular discursive configuration and a situation of enunciation, whose most important elements are the participants, their mental state and socio-professional status. Insults appear, most frequently, in conflictual contexts and signal a communicative blockage. Any possibility of cooperation is cancelled 1 due to the violation of the maxims of politeness. The speaker verbalizes his emotional state in a manner offensive to the interlocutor.
Insults are reactive speech acts triggered by a (verbal) behaviour or an attitude of the receiver, towards which the speaker expresses disagreement. In this context, we can notice a hierarchy between interlocutors, in terms of dominator/dominated, and the insult will be performed by the one in a higher social/discursive role.
The addresser of this speech act is in a dominant position 2 (Kerbrat-Orecchioni, 1992, p. 72), as they are considered legitimate to destroy the public face of the target person, by identifying and disqualifying non-compliant behaviours: "the goal is to reduce to silence the interlocutor, taken off the interaction scene, for the benefit of the aggressor" (Ganea, 2007, p. 131). Placed in a lower position, the receiver 3 can choose to counterattack or not. Therefore, insults are aggressive facework that threaten both the receiver and the speaker's face, through a possible counterattack or the negative social evaluation of the verbal action.

Insults -a combination of speech acts
Insults have a vocative character, being addressed by a sender to a target receiver, and a performative one because "by the simple fact that they are pronounced, they provoke, hurt and sometimes kill" (Bacot, 2007, p. 117).
On the other hand, Bourdieu (1982, p. 100) links insults to the social world theory. Like naming, they belong to acts of entitlement or dismissal. Used to negotiate the limits of what constitutes acceptable behaviour, this derogatory verbal act can serve as an instrument of social exclusion, and it confirms the rules of the recommended order. Chevalier & de Chanay (2009, p. 46-47) argue that insults are complex speech acts, which combine the assertive (B is associated with a devaluing trait and A assumes the truth-value of the asserted sentence), the expressive (A displays a hostile attitude towards B) and the directive (A requires a reaction from B).
Therefore, the insult, as an illocutionary act, implies the following pattern: • illocutionary point -to expose disagreement and emotion simultaneously; • propositional content -connotative linguistic tools, which express an unfavourable assessment of a (non) verbal behaviour/attitude/state/belief; • perlocutionary effect -the receiver decodes the offence, generating a reaction; • "the essential condition for success" (see Ionescu-Ruxăndoiu, 2003, p. 33) -the condition of sincerity, which implies an authentic psychological state. Grice (1957) considers communication a psychological phenomenon rather than a linguistic one, but, despite this approach, his analysis is based on the speaker's meaning, neglecting the receiver's level of understanding. The relevance theory is based on the principles enunciated by Grice (1957) 4 , but the approach highlights the receiver's perspective and the inferential process in an attempt to decode the speaker's intention. Wilson (2016, p. 82-83) defines two general notions, relevance in context and relevance to an individual. The aim is to define relevance not only for utterances but also for any external stimulus or internal mental representations, which can be a contribution to cognitive processes (not only utterances but also images, sounds, smells, thoughts or memories). Relevance is, therefore, "a property of the inputs of cognitive processes that makes them worth processing" (Sperber & Wilson, 1986, p. 229). The criterion by which the selection of inputs is made is that of "maximizing the positive cognitive effects" (Sperber & Wilson, 1986, p. 230), with a minimum processing effort 5 .

Decoding insults and relevance theory
What makes a contribution relevant to an individual is that it activates the available contextual information to produce considerable cognitive effects, and what makes it maximally relevant is that it produces significant cognitive effects for less effort than any other alternative input available at that time. A stimulus becomes relevant if: (a) "it is relevant enough to be worth the audience's processing effort; (b) it is the most relevant one compatible with communicator's abilities and preferences" (Sperber & Wilson, 2000, p. 231).
Some studies (see Lagorgette & Larrivée, 2004;Brenes Peña, 2009) consider that, in the case of insult, the emphasis should not be on the speaker, but on the hearer; if the latter does not correctly decode the speaker's meaning, the speech act issued may not be considered an insult.
(  4 "The first is that a sentence meaning is a vehicle for conveying a speaker's meaning, where a speaker's meaning is an overtly expressed intention that is fulfilled by being recognised. The second is that a speaker's meaning cannot be simply perceived or decoded, but has to be inferred from her behaviour, together with contextual information. The third is that in inferring a speaker's meaning, the hearer is guided by the expectation that communicative behaviour should meet certain standards: for Grice, a cooperative principle and conversational maxims, and for relevance theorists, a presumption of optimal relevance" (Wilson, 2016, p. 79). 5 "As a result of constant selection pressures towards increasing cognitive efficiency, the human cognitive system has developed a variety of mental mechanisms or biases (some innate, others acquired) which tend to allocate attention to inputs with the greatest expected relevance, and process them in the most relevance-enhancing way" (Sperber & Wilson, 1986, p. 260-266). The receiver correlates the propositional content with the contextual information she has available (the apparent seriousness of the speaker) and decodes as a compliment the first part of the speaker's remark because it produces significant cognitive effects (zîmbește, evident încîntată de ceea ce aude [A smiles obviously pleased with what she hears]), with less effort than the alternative input (Cu Lloyd. Îți lipsește numai un Harry [With Lloyd. All you need is Harry]). Alternative scenarios cannot be interpreted due to the lack of a common encyclopedic background (Nu știu cine e, dar mersi! [I don't know who that is, but thank you!]). The illocutionary point is not achieved because the speaker compares his colleague's hairstyle with the actor Jim Carrey's haircut playing Lloyd ( Fig. 1), in Dumb and Dumber. This statement is not relevant enough for the hearer "to be worth the cognitive effort" (Sperber & Wilson, 2000, p. 231). Therefore, the cognitive process stops when it identifies an input that requires less effort (Chiar semeni cu cineva faimos [You really look like someone famous]), the adjective famous becoming an illocutionary marker of compliment.

Classification of insults
Insults are classified in numerous studies according to lexico-semantic criteria or by reference to taboos. Insults, as reactive acts of speech, are dependent both on the illocutionary point and on the hearer's cognitive processes of decoding the utterance. Therefore, we propose a classification from a sociopragmatic perspective. 6 3.1.1. Motivated insults 3.1.1.1. Negative illocutionary point -offending the target. This category is based on negative emotions -anger, frustration -insults are usually uttered in a conflictual situation. In this case, the insulter will produce standardized/conventional/stereotyped insults, easily accessible to correct decoding 7 . Din cauza stării sale psihice, locutorul apelează la cel mai la îndemînă termen ofensator, cu scopul evident de a leza imaginea publică a colocutorului:  (Felecan, 2014, p. 176). This insult encrypts several symptoms of the disease, including loss of senses (smell, taste), extended to loss of common sense (tu nu ai acest simț, nici măcar ăla bun de la mă-ta, în cei 30 de ani de acasă [you don't have this sense, you don't even have the common sense from your mummy, despite the 30 years you've spent at home]).

Illocutionary point-based taxonomy
It is also worth noting the play on words with a pejorative illocutionary point, based on the p honetic similarity between the anthroponym (Ovidiu) and the common noun (Covid), formed based on the same derivative pattern of the proper name: Ovidel -Covidel.
3.1.1.2. Positive illocutionary point -strengthening social ties. These ritual insults 8 are not intended to offend the speaker but to mark a certain type of relationship between individuals in the same group, being an element of phatic communication, frequently used by teenagers (see Brenes Peña, 2009;Stenström & Jörgensen, 2008). The cognitive effects depend on specific signs of the non-offensiveness of these insults and the interlocutor's accessibility to contextual information. Žegarac & Clark (1999, p. 328) note that insults are used as a mode of action and the meaning of the seemingly offensive terms is irrelevant 9 : a Although we chose the term covidiot for the translation to convey the meaning of the insult, the term is a participleadjective in Romanian. 8 Fine (1981, p. 55-56) considers that interactional insults must be followed by other insults, being insults that build upon each other, increasing in a crescendo of abuse. [...] All speakers in this interaction are orienting their talk in the same direction... Friends are allowed and even expected to insult each other as a show of camaraderie. The nature of the insult is signalled by a smile or grin, permitting the target to accept the insult or even playfully act in accord with it. Participants in these interactions recognize that the overt meaning of the remarks is not what they really mean". 9 Ritualic insults have the following characteristics: "(a) the insult is used as a mode of action, rather than for the transmission of thoughts; (b) the whole situation in which the exchange takes place consists in, and is largely created by what happens linguistically; (c) the mere meaning of the insult is almost irrelevant; rather, the insult used fulfils a social function; (d) this social function may be to overcome the strange, unpleasant tension caused by silence and/or to establish an atmosphere of sociability and personal communion between people" (Mateo & Yus, 2000, p. 121 This conversational exchange is based on a series of ironic remarks, culminating in phatic insults. Liviu Vîrciu calls his friend prostul planetei [universal idiot] and he hesitates to address the insult chelie belită [egghead], turning it into a possible thought spoken out loud, which arouses the amusement of the hearer, who chooses to react using the same lexical register (Bine că n-ai zis, că ne făceam de rîs aicea.
[laughter] Go ahead, lunatic!]). His reply marks the acceptance of this type of relationship and the fact that the insults were decoded by the recipient according to the speaker's illocutionary point: emphasizing the emotional closeness between the participants in the dialogue. The speaker directs the discussion from specific, referential and subjective (Sîmbătă noaptea, dacă te duci să cînți, cum te întorci tu dimineață? [If you have to sing on Saturday night, how will you make it on the show in the morning?]), to general and indeterminate, involving the audience-which becomes part of the conversation accepting this type of relationship-by using the generic you 10 (Ce te-nvîrte ăsta, băi! [He's just pulling your leg!]) (see genericity vs referentiality in Zafiu, 2003).

Unmotivated insults
The speaker's intention is not to offend, but misinterpretations are caused by misunderstanding the extraverbal context or situations involving multiethnicity, as the speaker might not pay attention to some customs, habits, cultural or religious aspects of the interlocutors.  The speaker tries to highlight the inappropriate way the Romanian Government managed the official visit to the State of Israel without announcing the President. He insinuates the existence of secret agreements between Liviu Dragnea-the President of the Chamber of Deputies and the Social Democratic Party at the time-and the Israeli officials. Liviu Dragnea is known for his illegal business, and the fact that Israeli officials have been included in the same category, through a presumed alliance with Liviu Dragnea, generated strong reactions of this ethnic community. The terms used to describe the connection between the Romanian Prime Minister and the Israeli officials (strange features, secrecy, big secret, secret arrangements) put their discussions in a bad light. The speaker had to apologize to those who felt insulted, explaining that his statement was, in fact, a rhetorical question, that was intended to highlight the inappropriate nature of the visit. Klaus Iohannis justifies the erroneous interpretation of his discourse as being anti-semitic by the positive relations he has established within the Jewish community. The previous statement is marked by inconsistencies and lack of communication between the Government and the President: Being accused of anti-Semitism seems ridiculous to me. I have been praised and honoured by several Jewish associations, and I am sure everyone knows that the bilateral relations between Romania and the State of Israel have been excellent since the founding of the modern State of Israel. I certainly did not use pejorative words in my statement, but if someone feels offended, I apologize (ziare.com).

Propositional content-based taxonomy 3.2.1. Direct insults
This type of insult does not involve an inferential process on the part of the receiver, and it uses derogatory terms to disqualify the target: (8) Communicative context: Tudorel Toader, Minister of Justice, made a pronunciation mistake that generated a series of jokes in the media 11 ; Cheloo l-a "ievaluat" pe Tudorel: are două fețe. Ambele de prost! [Cheloo "ievaluated" Tudorel: he has got two faces. Both stupid!] (kmkz.ro).

Indirect insults
Indirect insults imply a complex inferential process because "they are often obtained by performing a verbal act through the linguistic means of another" (Zvirid, 2013, p. 118). The use of lexical structures specific to another category of speech acts compels the hearer to make an interpretive effort to decode the speaker's communicative intention. The irony implies a negative attitude, expressed through a seemingly appreciative propositional content. Simpson (2003, p. 22-28) considers that irony functions as an echo interpretation of a previous statement. The receiver must make certain assumptions based on the relevant knowledge he has about the speaker and the context to reach the ironic intention of the enunciator. In this example, the inferential process is based on a graphic context, the structure [text + image] representing the interference between verbal irony and the visual element. The image helps the receiver detect the ironic nature of the question Is their fasting ritual so strict?, which is in opposition to the physical appearance of overweight priests. (10)

Conclusions
At the level of social relations, we found a connection between decoding insults and their contextual elements (age and sex of interactants, number of participants (active/passive), socio-professional status, level of formality, symmetry/asymmetry of interactional roles). For a verbal act to fall into the category of insults, it must meet two essential conditions: (1) the speaker intentionally attacks the image of the hearer and (2) the hearer decodes this verbal behaviour as an attack on his public image.
In addition to conflictual contexts, in which insults have a dysphemic character and an offensive illocutionary point, the corpus under analysis also revealed contexts in which insults have phatic functions and signal a social/affective closeness between speakers (see §3.1.1.2, insults with positive illocutionary point).