Cover not available
Article published In:
Pragmatic perspectives on disagreement
Edited by Jennifer Schumann and Steve Oswald
[Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict 12:1] 2024
► pp. 17–40

Justifying the accusation

A descriptive comparative analysis of ordinary speakers’ accusations of trolling and bad faith

ORCID logo | Université de Neuchâtel , Switzerland

Accusations of trolling (deceiving participants about one’s communicative intention, conducted for amusement, Dynel 2016; Hardaker 2013) and bad faith (dishonestly denying a speaker’s committing meaning, de Saussure and Oswald 2009; Oswald 2022) abound in digitally mediated communication. The labels chosen by posters significantly impact the outcome of discussions, as accusations of trolling tend to result in more abrupt settlements of disputes compared to accusations of bad faith. However, proving these deceptive activities can be challenging for posters. As a result, they often substantiate the “bad faith” label by mentioning in their accusations what they perceive as strategies indicating their interlocutors’ bad faith.

In this paper, I examine 161 accusations of trolling and bad faith gathered from a forum. The analysis draws on Hardaker’s (2010, 2013) research and proposes a comparison of the strategies mentioned in these accusations. The aim is to describe the ways in which posters justify the label they opt for when confronted with deceptive activities.

Keywords: trolling, bad faith, accusations, strategies, digitally mediated communication
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction: How do ordinary speakers justify their accusation of deceptive activities?
    • 1.1Trolling and bad faith: Definitions
    • 1.2How do posters justify the label of their accusation?
    • 1.3Aiming at a descriptive analysis of the arguments mentioned in the accusations
  • 2.Dataset: Strategies mentioned in accusations of trolling and bad faith
    • 2.1The forum: Forum sceptique
    • 2.2The strategies and their constraints
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1Dividing accusations into settled and relaunched disputes
    • 3.2Establishing the categories
    • 3.3Two additional categories
    • 3.4Bad faith as a trolling strategy
  • 4.Analysis and results
    • 4.1Settling or relaunching the dispute
    • 4.2Comparison – similarities
    • 4.3Comparison – differences
  • 5.Concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 7 June 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlac.00095.lib
References
Benveniste, Émile
1966 “La nature des pronoms.” Problèmes de linguistique générale. Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Binns, Amy
2012 “DON’T FEED THE TROLLS!: Managing Troublemakers in Magazines’ Online Communities.” Journalism Practice 6 (4): 547–562. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bishop, Jonathan
2012 “The Psychology of Trolling and Lurking: The Role of Defriending and Gamification for Increasing Participation in Online Communities Using Seductive Narratives.” In Virtual Community Participation and Motivation: Cross-Disciplinary Theories, ed. by Honglei Li, 160–176. Hershey, PA: Information Science Reference. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bourcier, Danièle, and Oswald Ducrot
1980 Les mots du discours. Paris: Éditions de Minuit.Google Scholar
Coles, Bryn Alexander, and Melanie West
2016 “Trolling the Trolls: Online Forum Users Constructions of the Nature and Properties of Trolling.” Computers in Human Behavior 601: 233–244. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Doury, Marianne
2003 “L’évaluation des arguments dans les discours ordinaires: Le cas de l’accusation d’amalgame.” In Langage et société 105 (3): 9–37. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2008 “ ‘Ce n’est pas un argument !’ Sur quelques aspects des théorisations spontanées de l’argumentation.” In Pratiques 139–1401: 111–128. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dynel, Marta
2016 “ ‘Trolling Is Not Stupid’: Internet Trolling as the Art of Deception Serving Entertainment.” Intercultural Pragmatics 13 (3): 353–381. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Eemeren, Frans Hendrik van, Bart Garssen, Erik. C. W. Krabbe, Arnolda Francisca Snoeck Henkemans, Bart Verheij, and Jean Hubert Martin Wagemans
2014 Handbook of Argumentation Theory. Springer Reference. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goffman, Erving
[1973] 1996 Les relations en public. Paris: Éditions de Minuit.Google Scholar
Hardaker, Claire
2010 “Trolling in Asynchronous Computer-Mediated Communication: From User Discussions to Academic Definitions.” Journal of Politeness Research 6 (2): 215–242. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2013 “ ‘Uh… Not to Be Nitpicky,,,,,but…the Past Tense of Drag Is Dragged, Not Drug.’ An Overview of Trolling Strategies.” Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict 1 (1): 58–86. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Herring, Susan, Kirk Job-Sluder, Rebecca Scheckler, and Sasha Barab
2002 “Searching for Safety Online: Managing ‘Trolling’ in a Feminist Forum.” The Information Society 181: 371–384. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mazzarella, Diana
2015 “Pragmatics and Epistemic Vigilance: The Employment of Sophisticated Interpretative Strategies.” Croatian Journal of Philosophy XV (44): 183–199.Google Scholar
Müller, Misha-Laura
2016 Plausible Deniability: From Gricean Pragmatics to the Insights of Relevance Theory. Master thesis. Neuchatel University.
Oswald, Steve
2022 “Insinuation is Committing.” Journal of Pragmatics 1981: 158–170. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pinker, Steven, Martin A. Nowak, and James J. Lee
2008 “The Logic of Indirect Speech.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105 (3): 833–838. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Plantin, Christian
1996 L’argumentation. Paris: Seuil.Google Scholar
2002 “Argumentation Studies and Discourse Analysis: The French Situation and Global Perspectives.” In Discourse Studies 4 (3): 343–368. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Preece, Jennifer
2000 Online Communities: Designing Usability, Supporting Sociability. Chichester: John Wiley.Google Scholar
Rheingold, Howard
1993 The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar
de Saussure, Louis, and Steve Oswald
2009 “Argumentation et engagement du locuteur : Pour un point de vue subjectiviste.” Nouveaux cahiers de linguistique française 291: 215–243.Google Scholar
Spears, Russell, and Martin Lea
1992 “Social Influence and the Influence of the ‘Social’ in Computer-Mediated Communication.” In Contexts of Computermediated Communication, ed. by Martin Lea, 30–65. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf.Google Scholar
Sperber, Dan, and Deirdre Wilson
([1986] 1995) Relevance: Communication and Cognition, 2nd edn. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Sperber, Dan, Fabrice Clément, Christophe Heintz, Olivier Mascaro, Hugo Mercier, Gloria Origgi, and Deirdre Wilson
2010 “Epistemic Vigilance.” In Mind & Language 25 (4): 359–393. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wason, Peter Cathcart
1965 “The Contexts of Plausible Denial.” In Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 4 (1): 7–11. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wodak, Ruth, and Michael Meyer
(eds.) 2001 Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis: Introducing Qualitative Methods. London, Thousand Oaks [Calif.]: Sage. DOI logoGoogle Scholar