With the advent of the internet and social media, car and vanpooling have become easily available alternatives to public transport
in many parts of the world. This paper draws on publicly available data from a Facebook car and vanpooling group used by Slovenian
cross-border commuters to make their journeys to and from Austria more economically sustainable. It examines public displays of
moral indignation following allegations of malpractice by relatively new members whose whole purpose in joining the group was to
earn a living from driving vans across borders. Vanpool users collaboratively denounce van service providers for transgressing
some of the social responsibilities that ought to bind members of the group together and for their lack of accountability. The
accusations which entail exaggerations, complaints, insults and threats, among other hostile verbal attacks, convey moral
indignation and are similarly resisted and challenged by the drivers. They offer a window into conflicting behavioural
expectations at a time of socioeconomic change and transition. The alleged lack of van providers’ accountability which, in turn,
informs the van users’ displays of moral indignation is indicative of the moral relativism that emerges as a result of the
relocalisation and, the nature of a contemporary global practice at a time when changes in social life are underway. The primacy
of the economic return that car and vanpooling offers service providers and cross-commuters with is oriented to by the former as
outstripping the social responsibilities typically related to the provision of the regulated services, and by the latter, as
morally unjustifiable despite acknowledging its economic value.
2014 “Moments of sharing: Entextualization and linguistic repertoires in social networking.” Journal of Pragmatics 731: 4–18.
Berger, Roni
1996 “Group work with adolescent immigrants.” Journal of Child and Adolescent Group Theory 6(4): 169–179.
Bizovičar, Milka
2016 “Top delodajalci: Pri največjih je pogodb o zaposlitvi manj.” [Top employers: The biggest companies are hiring fewer workers]. DeloMonday, 6June 2016 [URL] (accessed 30 October 2017).
Boltanski, Luc
2011On Critique: A Sociology of Emancipation (trans. by Gregory Elliott). Cambridge: Polity Press.
Boot, Nuria, and Guntram Wolff
2015 “Cross-border commuters and trips: the relevance of Schengen.” [URL] (accessed 15 November 2017).
Bou-Franch, Patricia, and Pilar Garcés-Conejos Blitvich
2014 “Conflict management in massive polylogues: A case study from YouTube.” Journal of Pragmatics 731: 19–36.
boyd, danah
2010 “Social network sites as networked public: Affordances, dynamics and implications.” In Networked Self: Identity, Community and Culture on Social Network Sites, ed. by Zizi Papacharissi, 39–58. Abingdon: Routledge.
Brody, Nicholas, and Vangelisti, Anita L.
2016 “Bystander intervention in cyberbullying.” Communication Monographs 83(1): 94–119.
Bruxelles, Sylvie, and Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni
2004 “Coalitions in polylogues.” Journal of Pragmatics 361: 75–113.
Cetinski, Andrej
2013 “Zakaj kriza v Sloveniji ne pojenjuje.” Dnevnik, published on 1June 2013 [URL].
Champoux, Valerie, Julia Dugree, and Lauren McGlynn
2012 “Corporate Facebook pages: when ‘fans’ attack.” Journal of Business Strategy 22(2): 22–30.
Charles, Kerwin K., and Patrick Kline
2001 “Love thy neighbor? – Carpooling, relational costs, and the production of social capital.” Working Paper. [URL].
Christiaens, Jan
2014 “Car use and ownership in Vienna declines, public transport benefits (Austria).” Eltis: The urban mobility observatory. [URL].
Culpeper, Jonathan
2011Impoliteness: Using Language to Cause Offence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Danesi, Marcel
2016The Semiotics of Emoji: The Rise of Visual Language in the Age of the Internet. London: Bloomsbury.
Dayter, Daria, and Sofia Rüdiger
2014 “ ‘Speak your mind, but watch your mouth’: Complaints in CouchSurfing references.” In Face Work and Social Media, ed. by Kristina Bedijs, Gudrun Held, and Christiane Maaß, 193–212. Münster: LIT Verlag GmbH.
Delaney, Tim
2008Shameful Behaviours. Lanham: University Press of America.
Desivilya, Helena. S., and Dana Yagil
2005 “The role of emotions in conflict management: The case of work teams.” International Journal of Conflict Management 16(1): 55–69.
Dynel, Marta
2012 “Swearing methodologically: The impoliteness of expletives in anonymous commentaries on YouTube.” Journal of English Studies 101: 25–50.
Edwards, Derek
2005 “Moaning, whinging and laughing: the subjective side of complaints.” Discourse Studies 7 (1): 5–29.
Garfinkel, Harold
1956 “Conditions of successful degradation ceremonies.” American Journal of Sociology 61(5): 420–424.
Georgakopoulou, Alexandra
2004 “To tell or not to tell? Email stories between on- and offline interactions.” Language@Internet 11, article 1.
Gibson, James J.
1979The Ecological Approach to Perception. London: Houghton Mifflin.
Goffman, Erving
1967Interaction Ritual: Essays on Face-to-Face Behavior. Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday.
Goffman, Erving
1981Forms of Talk. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
2017Politeness, Impoliteness and Ritual: Maintaining the Moral Order in Interpersonal Interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kádár, Dániel Z., and Rosina Márquez Reiter
2015 “(Im)politeness and (im)morality: Insights from intervention.” Journal of Politeness Research 11(2): 239–260.
Labov, William
1972Language in the Inner City. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Langlotz, Andreas, and Miriam Locher
2012 “Ways of communicating emotional stance in online disagreements.” Journal of Pragmatics 44(12): 1591–1606.
Márquez Reiter, Rosina
2005 “Complaint calls to a caregiver service company: The case of desahogo.” Intercultural Pragmatics 2(4): 481–514.
Márquez Reiter, Rosina
2009 “How to get rid of a telemarketing agent? Facework strategies in an intercultural service call.” In Face, Communication and Social Interaction, ed. by Francesca Bargiela-Chiappini, and Michael Haugh, 55–77. London: Equinox.
Márquez Reiter, Rosina, and Michael Haugh
2018 “Denunciation, blame and the moral turn in public life.” Discourse, Context & Media.
Márquez Reiter, Rosina, Sara Orthaber, and Dániel. Z. Kádár
2015 “Disattending customer dissatisfaction on Facebook: A case study of a Slovenian public transport company.” In International Management and Intercultural Communication: A Collection of Case Studies, ed. by Elizabeth Christopher, 108–127. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Meredith, Joanne
2014 “Chatting online: Comparing spoken and online written interaction between friends.” PhD dissertation, Loughborough University.
Nežmah, Bernard
2011Kletvice in psovke [Curses and Swear-Words]. Ljubljana: Družba Piano d.o.o.
Orthaber, Sara
2017 “(Im)politeness at a Slovenian call centre.” PhD dissertation, University of Surrey. [URL].
Orthaber, Sara, and Rosina Márquez Reiter
2011 “ ‘Talk to the hand’. Complaints to a public transport company.” Journal of Pragmatics 43(15): 3860–3876.
2010 “Complaining in cyberspace: The motives and forms of hotel guests’ complaints online.” Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management 19(7): 797–818.
Spencer-Oatey, Helen
(ed.)2000Culturally Speaking: Managing Rapport Through Talk Across Cultures (1st edn.) London: Continuum.
Spencer-Oatey, Helen
(ed.)2008Culturally Speaking: Culture, Communication and Politeness Theory (2nd edn.) London: Continuum.
Trosborg, Anna
1995Interlanguage Pragmatics: Requests, Complaints and Apologies. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Vásquez, Camila
2011 “Complaints online: The case of TripAdvisor.” Journal of Pragmatics 43(6): 1707–1717.
Vásquez, Camila
2014 “ ‘Usually not one to complain but…’: Constructing identities in user-generated online reviews.” In The Language of Social Media: Identity and Community on the Internet ed. by Phillip Seargeant, and Caroline Tagg, 65–90. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Vásquez, Camila
2016 “Intertextuality and authorized transgression in parodies of online consumer reviews.” Language@internet 131, article 6. [URL].
Wooffitt, Robin
1992Telling Tales of the Unexpected. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Cited by
Cited by 15 other publications
Blitvich, Pilar Garcés-Conejos & Dániel Z. Kádár
2021. Morality in Sociopragmatics. In The Cambridge Handbook of Sociopragmatics, ► pp. 385 ff.
Haugh, Michael
2022. (Online) public denunciation, public incivilities and offence. Language & Communication 87 ► pp. 44 ff.
Haugh, Michael, Dániel Z. Kádár & Rosina Márquez Reiter
2022. Offence and morality: Pragmatic perspectives. Language & Communication 87 ► pp. 117 ff.
2019. Aggressive humour as a means of voicing customer dissatisfaction and creating in-group identity. Journal of Pragmatics 152 ► pp. 160 ff.
Orthaber, Sara
2023. Structure of the Study and Methodology. In (Im)politeness at a Slovenian Call Centre [Advances in (Im)politeness Studies, ], ► pp. 71 ff.
Orthaber, Sara
2023. Conclusions. In (Im)politeness at a Slovenian Call Centre [Advances in (Im)politeness Studies, ], ► pp. 335 ff.
Orthaber, Sara
2023. On (Im)politeness. In (Im)politeness at a Slovenian Call Centre [Advances in (Im)politeness Studies, ], ► pp. 11 ff.
Orthaber, Sara & Rosina Márquez Reiter
2022. “I’m Your Guy”: Self-Promoting Behaviour in a Slovenian Translators’ Forum. In Self-Praise Across Cultures and Contexts [Advances in (Im)politeness Studies, ], ► pp. 17 ff.
Paternoster, Annick
2022. Defining Etiquette. In Historical Etiquette, ► pp. 97 ff.
2020. Karen Grainger and Sara Mills: Directness and indirectness across cultures. Intercultural Pragmatics 17:1 ► pp. 109 ff.
[no author supplied]
2021. Topics and Settings in Sociopragmatics. In The Cambridge Handbook of Sociopragmatics, ► pp. 247 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 29 february 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.