Article published In:
Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict: Online-First Articles

Microaggressions and impoliteness at the crossroads

EU academics in the UK facing hostility in the Brexit age

ORCID logo | University of Liverpool, United Kingdom
ORCID logo | University of Liverpool, United Kingdom
ORCID logo | University of Gloucestershire, United Kingdom
ORCID logo | University of Chester, United Kingdom
The Brexit process created a loss of rights and heightened hostility towards EU migrants within the UK, even among groups previously shielded from such animosity, notably EU academics. This paper is based on 24 clear instances of microaggressions, and two bordering hate speech involving EU academics in England and synthetises the psychology/philosophy literature on microaggressions with linguistic frameworks of “rapport management” and “impoliteness triggers” leading to a novel understanding of the phenomenon. Microaggressions are defined as a specific type of impoliteness “of the mild kind”, characterised by repetition at the individual and/or the collective level, which produces feelings of annoyance, irritation and shock. This study shows that Brexit-microaggressions usually involve social identity face and the breach of equity/association sociality rights. They mostly take the shape of formulae echoing slogans entrenched in the discourses of Brexit and arise out of a mismatch between pro-Brexit comments uttered in the presence of an EU migrant.
Keywords: Brexit, EU academics, microaggression, impoliteness, hostility
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The political context of Brexit
  • 3.Microaggressions
  • 4.Impoliteness frameworks
    • 4.1Face, rights and obligations
    • 4.2Impoliteness triggers
  • 5.Data
    • 5.1Identification of impoliteness events
    • 5.2Identifying microaggressions
  • 6.Microaggressions: Thematic analysis
    • 6.1Not a (valuable) part of society and assumption of criminality
    • 6.2Second class citizen and assumption of criminality
    • 6.3Discrimination based on language and accent
    • 6.4Assumptions about intelligence, competence or status
    • 6.5Denial of individual racism
  • 7.Impoliteness: Face, rights and obligations
  • 8.Impoliteness triggers
  • 9.Summary and Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 13 August 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlac.00113.gua
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