“Congratulations! You just won the title for ‘worse Tinder opening line’”
Inappropriate behaviour and impoliteness in online dating
Often preferred to its face-to-face counterpart, online dating has transformed the way we perceive practices
relevant to meeting people, mostly because it offers “a wider pool of potential partners” (Heino, Ellison, and Gibbs 2010, 428). Despite its popularity, however, online dating is an under-researched area in
general, crucially in linguistics. Looking at (mostly unsuccessful) naturally occurring initial interactions that have taken place
on the popular Tinder application, the aim of this study is to gain some insights into the relationship among language aggression,
impoliteness and communication failure in the context of flirting on Tinder. Results show that the most common way that users
initiate interaction in this dataset is through sexually loaded language, which seems to be understood as a breach of the norms of
appropriateness for first-time contact. Although Tinder has no manual to prescribe what should or should not be said in
interaction, it transpires from the data that avoiding overstepping in terms of sexual matters (i.e. refraining from using
sexually loaded language and/or innuendos) functions as an unwritten law which sparks impoliteness when not followed. Resulting
impoliteness manifests itself mostly through the strategies of sarcasm and ignoring/snubbing the other, used to counteract
(perceived) inappropriateness. Tracing this escalation of non-cooperative practices, from inappropriateness to impoliteness, also
provides the opportunity to examine the emergence of playfulness and creativity as language behaviours interwoven with aggression.
Therefore, online dating seems to lend itself well to the study of impoliteness and violation of norms of appropriate behaviour,
providing opportunities for an expansion of contexts for linguistic analysis.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Theoretical background
- 2.1Online dating and Tinder
- 2.2Impoliteness in recent theorising
- 3.Methodology
- 4.Findings
- 4.1Aggression on the part of the speaker: ‘Nightmarish’ pick-up lines
- 4.2Aggression on the part of the hearer: Negative evaluations and impoliteness
- 5.Discussion
- 6.Conclusions
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
-
References
References
Androutsopoulos, Jannis
2011 “
Language
Change and Digital Media : A Review of Conceptions and
Evidence.” In
Standard Languages and Language Standards in a Changing
Europe, edited by
Nikolas Coupland and
Tore Kristiansen, 145–161. Oslo: Novus.

Bayraktaroǧlu, Arın, and Maria Sifianou
2012 “
The
Iron Fist in a Velvet Glove: How Politeness Can Contribute to Impoliteness.”
Journal of
Politeness
Research 8 (2): 143–60.


Best, Kirsty, and Sharon Delmege
2012 “
The
Filtered Encounter: Online Dating and the Problem of Filtering through Excessive
Information.”
Social
Semiotics 22 (3): 237–58.


Bor, Stephanie, and Jan Boehmer
2002 “
The
Internet.” In
Communication Technology Update and
Fundamentals, edited by
August E. Grant and
Jennifer H. Meadows, 275–282. Boston: Focal Press.

Bou-Franch, Patricia, Nuria Lorenzo-Dus, and Pilar Garcés Conejos Blitvich
2012 “
Social
Interaction in YouTube Text-Based Polylogues: A Study of Coherence.”
Journal of
Computer-Mediated
Communication 17 (4): 501–521.


Bousfield, Derek
2008 “
Impoliteness
in the Struggle for Power.” In
Impoliteness in Language: Studies on
its Interplay with Power in Theory and Practice, edited by
Derek Bousfield and
Miriam A. Locher, 127–153. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.


Bousfield, Derek
2010 “
Researching
Impoliteness and Rudeness: Issues and Definitions.” In
Interpersonal
Pragmatics, edited by
Miriam A. Locher and
Sage L. Graham, 101–134. New York: Mouton de Gruyter.


Chayko, Mary
2008 Portable
Communities: The Social Dynamics of Online and Mobile Connectedness. New York: SUNY Press.

Culpeper, Jonathan
1996 “
Towards
an Anatomy of Impoliteness.”
Journal of
Pragmatics 25 (3): 349–367.


Culpeper, Jonathan
2005 “
Impoliteness
and Entertainment in the Television Quiz Show: The Weakest Link
.”
Journal of
Politeness Research 11: 35–72.


Culpeper, Jonathan
2008 “
Reflections
on Impoliteness, Relational Work and Power.” In
Impoliteness in
Language: Studies on its Interplay with Power in Theory and Practice, edited
by
Derek Bousfield and
Miriam A. Locher, 17–44. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Culpeper, Jonathan, Derek Bousfield, and Anne Wichmann
2003 “
Impoliteness
Revisited: With Special Reference to Dynamic and Prosodic Aspects.”
Journal of
Pragmatics 35 (10–11): 1545–1579.


del-Teso-Craviotto, Marisol
2006 “
Language
and Sexuality in Spanish and English Dating Chats.”
Journal of
Sociolinguistics 10 (4): 460–480.


Dynel, Marta
2015 “
The
Landscape of Impoliteness Research.”
Journal of Politeness
Research 11 (2): 329–354.


Ellison, Nicole B., Rebecca Heino, and Jennifer Gibbs
2006 “
Managing
Impressions Online: Self-Presentation Processes in the Online Dating Environment.”
Journal of
Computer-Mediated
Communication 11 (2): 415–441.


Fiore, Andrew T., Lindsay, Shaw T., Xiaomeng Zhong, G. A. Mendelsohn, and Coye Cheshire
2010 “
Who’s
Right and Who Writes: People, Profiles, Contacts, and Replies in Online
Dating.” In
Proceedings of the 43rd Hawaii International Conference
on System Sciences, 1–10. Los Alamitos, CA: Computer Society Press.


Fraser, Bruce
1990 “
Perspectives
on Politeness.”
Journal of
Pragmatics 14(2): 219–236.


Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, Pilar
2010 “
The
YouTubification of Politics, Impoliteness and
Polarization.” In
Handbook of Research on Discourse Behavior and
Digital Communication: Language Structures and Social Interaction, edited by
Rotimi Taiwo, 540–563. Hershey, PA: IGI Global.


Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, Pilar
2013 “
Introduction:
Face, Identity and Im/Politeness. Looking Backward, Moving Forward: From Goffman to Practice
Theory.”
Journal of Politeness
Research 9 (1): 1–33.


Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, Pilar
2018 “
Globalization,
Transnational Identities, and Conflict Talk: The Superdiversity and Complexity of the Latino
Identity.”
Journal of
Pragmatics 1341: 120–133.


Gatter, Karoline, and Kathleen Hodkinson
2016 “
On
the Differences between TinderTM versus Online Dating Agencies: Questioning a Myth. An Exploratory
Study.”
Cogent
Psychology 3 (1): 1–12.


Gershon, Ilana
2010 “
Breaking
Up Is Hard to Do: Media Switching and Media Ideologies.”
Journal of Linguistic
Anthropology 20 (2): 389–405.


Gibbs, Jennifer L., Nicole B. Ellison, and Chih-Hui Lai
2011 “
First
Comes Love, Then Comes Google: An Investigation of Uncertainty Reduction Strategies and Self-Disclosure in Online
Dating.”
Communication
Research 38 (1): 70–100.


Graham, Sage L.
2007 “
Disagreeing to Agree: Conflict,
(Im)politeness and Identity in a Computer-Mediated Community.”
Journal of
Pragmatics 39 (4): 742–759.


Graham, Sage L.
2008 “
A Manual for (Im)Politeness?:
The Impact of the FAQ in an Electronic Community of
Practice.” In
Impoliteness in Language: Studies on its Interplay with
Power in Theory and Practice, edited by
Derek Bousfield and
Miriam A. Locher, 281–304. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Graham, Sage L., and Claire Hardaker
2017 “
(Im)politeness
in Digital Communication.” In
The Palgrave Handbook of Linguistic
(Im)Politeness, edited by
Jonathan Culpeper,
Michael Haugh, and
Dániel Z. Kádár, 785–814. London: Palgrave Macmillan.


Grainger, Karen
2011 “
‘First
Order’ and ‘Second Order’ Politeness: Institutional and Intercultural
Contexts.” In
Discursive Approaches to
Politeness, edited
by LPRG, 167–188. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.


Hall, Jeffrey A., Steve Carter, Michael J. Cody, and Julie M. Albright
2010 “
Individual
Differences in the Communication of Romantic Interest: Development of the Flirting Styles
Inventory.”
Communication
Quarterly 58 (4): 365–393.


Hardaker, Claire
2010 “
Trolling
in Asynchronous Computer-Mediated Communication: From User Discussions to Academic
Definitions.”
Journal of Politeness
Research 6 (2): 215–242.


Hasinoff, Amy Adele
2013 “
Sexting as Media
Production: Rethinking Social Media and Sexuality.”
New Media and
Society 15 (4): 449–465.


Hasinoff, Amy Adele, and Tamara Shepherd
2014 “
Sexting
in Context: Privacy Norms and Expectations.”
International Journal of
Communication 8 (1): 2932–2955.
[URL]
Haugh, Michael
2010 “
When
Is an Email Really Offensive?: Argumentativity and Variability in Evaluations of
Impoliteness.”
Journal of Politeness
Research 6 (1): 7–31.


Haugh, Michael
2013 “
Im/Politeness,
Social Practice and the Participation Order.”
Journal of
Pragmatics 581: 52–72.


Haugh, Michael
2015 “
Impoliteness
and Taking Offence in Initial Interactions.”
Journal of
Pragmatics 861: 36–42.


Haugh, Michael
2016 “
‘Just
Kidding’: Teasing and Claims to Non-Serious Intent.”
Journal of
Pragmatics 951: 120–136.


Haugh, Michael, and Donal Carbaugh
2015 “
Self-Disclosure
in Initial Interactions amongst Speakers of American and Australian
English.”
Multilingua 34 (4): 461–493.


Haugh, Michael, and Danielle Pillet-Shore
2018 “
Getting
to Know You: Teasing as an Invitation to Intimacy in Initial Interactions.”
Discourse
Studies 20 (2): 246–269.


Haugh, Michael, Dániel Z. Kádár, and Sara Mills
2013 “
Interpersonal
Pragmatics: Issues and Debates.”
Journal of
Pragmatics 581: 1–11.


Heino, Rebecca D., Nicole B. Ellison, and Jennifer L. Gibbs
2010 “
Relationshopping:
Investigating the Market Metaphor in Online Dating.”
Journal of Social and Personal
Relationships 27 (4): 427–447.


Herring, Susan C., Kirk Job-Sluder, Rebecca Scheckler, and Sasha Barab
2002 Searching
for Safety Online: Managing “Trolling” in a Feminist Forum.
The Information
Society 18 (5): 371–384.


Kádár, Dániel Z., and Michael Haugh
2013 Understanding
Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.


Kiesling, Scott F.
2011 “
The Interactional Construction
of Desire as Gender.”
Gender and
Language 5 (2): 211–237.


Lea, Martin, Russell Spears, and Daphne de Groot
2001 “
Knowing
Me, Knowing You: Anonymity Effects on Social Identity Processes within Groups.”
Personality and
Social Psychology
Bulletin 27 (5): 526–537.


LPRG – Linguistic Politeness Research
Group
2011 “
Introduction: The Linguistic Politeness Research
Group”. In
Discursive Approaches to
Politeness, edited
by LPRG, 1–17. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.


Locher, Miriam A., and Derek Bousfield
2008 “
Introduction:
Impoliteness and Power in Language.” In
Impoliteness in Language:
Studies on its Interplay with Power in Theory and Practice, edited by
Derek Bousfield and
Miriam A. Locher, 1–13. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Locher, Miriam A., and Richard J. Watts
2008 “
Relational
Work and Impoliteness: Negotiating Norms of Linguistic
Behaviour.” In
Impoliteness in Language: Studies on its Interplay
with Power in Theory and Practice, edited by
Derek Bousfield and
Miriam A. Locher, 77–99. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Lorenzo-Dus, Nuria, Pilar Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, and Patricia Bou-Franch
2011 “
On-Line
Polylogues and Impoliteness: The Case of Postings Sent in Response to the Obama Reggaeton YouTube
Video.”
Journal of
Pragmatics 43 (10): 2578–2593.


McDaniel, Anita K.
2005 “
Young Women’s Dating Behavior:
Why/Why Not Date a Nice Guy?”
Sex
Roles 53 (5–6): 347–59.


Mortensen, Kristine Køhler
Mortensen, Kristine Køhler
2017 “
Flirting in Online Dating:
Giving Empirical Grounds to Flirtatious Implicitness.”
Discourse
Studies 19 (5): 581–597.


Murnen, Sarah K.
2000 “
Gender and the Use of Sexually
Degrading Language.”
Psychology of Women
Quarterly 24 (4): 319–327.


Ogiermann, Eva, and Pilar Garcés-Conejos Blitvich
2019 “
Im/Politeness
between the Analyst and Participant Perspectives : An Overview of the
Field.” In
From Speech Acts to Lay Understandings of Politeness:
Multilingual and Multicultural Perspectives, edited by
Eva Ogiermann and
Pilar Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, 1–24. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.


Pillet-Shore, Danielle
2011 “
Doing
Introductions: The Work Involved in Meeting Someone New.”
Communication
Monographs 78 (1): 73–95.


Reed, Lauren A., Richard M. Tolman, and L. Monique Ward
2016 “
Snooping
and Sexting: Digital Media as a Context for Dating Aggression and Abuse Among College
Students.”
Violence Against
Women 22 (13): 1556–1576.


Schneider, Klaus P.
1988 Small Talk: Analyzing Phatic
Discourse. Marburg: Hitzeroth.

Surra, Catherine A., and Jill M. Boelter
2013 “
Dating
and Mate Selection.” In
Handbook of Marriage and the Family, edited by
Gary W. Peterson and
Kevin R. Bush, 211–32. US: Springer.


Surra, Catherine A., Christine R. Gray, Tyfany M. J. Boettcher, Nathan R. Cottle, and Adam R. West
2006 “
From
Courtship to Universal Properties: Research on Dating and Mate Selection, 1950 to
2003.” In
The Cambridge Handbook of Personal
Relationships, edited by
Anita L. Vangelisti and
Daniel Perlman, 113–30. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.


Terkourafi, Marina
2008 “
Toward
a Unified Theory of Politeness, Impoliteness, and
Rudeness.” In
Impoliteness in Language: Studies on its Interplay with
Power in Theory and Practice, edited by
Derek Bousfield and
Miriam A. Locher, 45–74. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Turner, Tammara Combs, Marc A. Smith, Danyel Fisher, and Howard T. Welser
2005 Picturing
Usenet: Mapping Computer-Mediated Collective Action.
Journal of Computer-Mediated
Communication 10 (4).


Tyson, Gareth, Vasile C. Perta, Hamed Haddadi, and Michael C. Seto
2016 “
A
First Look at User Activity on Tinder.” In
2016 IEEE/ACM
International Conference on Advances in Social Networks Analysis and Mining
(ASONAM), 461–466. IEEE.


Ward, Janelle
2017 “
What
Are You Doing on Tinder? Impression Management on a Matchmaking Mobile App.”
Information
Communication and
Society 20 (11): 1644–1659.


Watts, Richard J.
2003 Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.


Cited by
Cited by 1 other publications
van der Zanden, Tess, Alexander P. Schouten, Maria B. J. Mos, Emiel J. Krahmer & Andrea Fronzetti Colladon
2022.
Originality in online dating profile texts: How does perceived originality affect impression formation and what makes a text original?.
PLOS ONE 17:10
► pp. e0274860 ff.

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 16 january 2023. 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.