Politeness On Twitter: A Pragmatic Study of the Posts Made by President Donard Trump

Running head: POLITENESS ON TWITTER 1
(Im)politeness On Twitter: A Pragmatic Study of the Posts Made by President Donard Trump
Name
Institution

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Politeness On Twitter: A Pragmatic Study of the Posts Made by President Donard Trump
Introduction
Technology has revolutionized how humans learn, move, work, and communicate.
Notably, in the context of linguistics, it has changed how people make communications, interact,
and interpersonal connections. Sociolinguistics and online ethnography in social media are new
domains in language use studies which seek to question and analyze how intercultural
communication and interactions take place. Most importantly, the digital era with the emergence
of social platforms has annihilated both spatial and temporal distances by the use of a mix of
images and texts through mobile devices. Mobiles devices have been used to facilitate
communication in institutional meetings, politics, networking with friends, among other things.
The communication and language use are understood by the perspective of actors themselves and
the researcher who intend to question the context, text, and practice regarding pragmatism. The
pragmatic study of language use in social media forms a significant basis for understanding
norms in communications and social life.
In contemporary technological communications, social networking platforms are
undoubtedly the most prevalent methods of communication. The commonly used social
platforms are Facebook and Twitter. Although these platforms generally seem different in their
human interfaces in format and functions, they all share a common ground of giving users the
ability to make posts on their timelines and comments on their friends’ posts. The user-generated
content and ability to comment on other people’s posts, which subsequently brings about
conversations and interactions are the basis of pragmatic studies.
Twitter is the focus of this paper, as it seems the most famous in social networking. A
social media platform is a web-based service that allows people to create an online profile,

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connect with friends, share posting, either images or texts, and comment on other people’s posts.
Twitter satisfies the criteria of being called a social platform since it has capabilities to create a
user profile, connect with friends, interact, and exchange messages. The platform also allows
users to create and join groups and pages which they find a common interest. Such groups and
pages are organized as politics, educations, workplace, school, and more. In a Twitter handle,
users and their networks have bi-directional connections that are not tied to who follows who but
can contribute to the posts texts, images, videos, and other formats on the Twitter handle. In
essence, space allows Twitter users to interact by posting messages of their reactions towards a
specific post made by the space profile. For the case of Donard Trump’s Twitter handle, the
posts are visible to the public and those who follow him. Space also allows the new feed to the
followers in case of any new posts made on the wall. However, there is a private discourse where
users can send messages to the inbox and is only visible to the sender and recipient.
President Donald Trump is a well-known politician for his controversial posts on his
Twitter feeds. He is mostly known for his offensive posts, which elicit threats on people or
groups. He uses his elite power to delegitimize people, groups, communities, institutions, and
other countries. Regarding his various posts, impoliteness is displayed since they are face
threatening tweets by his political power as president of the US. Hence, the president seems
“safe” but post threatening posts that are categorized as impolite. The posting by Trump raises
the question of how power and authority can be used to perpetuate impoliteness to the powerless.
Statement of the Problem
The problem addressed by this study of politeness issues with the posts made President
Donard Trump on his Twitter handle. Twitter posts and comments speak volume of one's identity
and other orientations. The language used is evaluated in terms of cultural backgrounds and

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relationships to assess the level of politeness. At a personal level, the use of language is own
creativity, and therefore, one can choose to use either save or threaten another face. Intuitively or
otherwise, one use politeness strategy in communication. Undoubtedly, while some people may
use face-saving strategy, others may not shy away from using a face-threatening strategy in
social media postings such as those made by President Donard Trump. On his Twitter handle
people in retrospect respond using direct speeches to threaten the face of the president as a
defensive mechanism. In language use and communication, people choose what to say or write
and what to abstain all-together and hence aim to uncover what A says that B misses. In this
regard, there is need to pragmatically research the post and comments made by President Donard
Trump in his Twitter handle using politeness theory. Therefore, the paper will answer the
question such as, what are the politeness strategies used by the president? What is the effect of
those strategies to his followers and Americans at large? The main objectives are to investigate
the politeness strategies used by President Trump and evaluate their impacts on followers and
Americans.
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this empirical and qualitative study was to identify pragmatic issues with
the language used by President Donard Trump in his social media posts. The paper will evaluate
the face-saving and threatening of the post to the Americas and world audience in the context of
the underlying intercultural differences in audience. As such, the solution will see the difference
in understanding the annotated and connoted meanings in various posts he makes. The
knowledge will contribute to the vast knowledge of social media politeness, which is an
emerging topic in linguistics. Thus, readers and scholars can use the findings to critically analyze
various social media interactions to establish their position in online communications.

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The paper used a broader aspect of language use in online communications. The
specificity in the logical analysis of Trump’s posts on Twitter contributes to the understanding
the contexts of communications, culture, and intended influence on the audience. Therefore, the
paper will focus on his recent online opinions and directives and their implications regarding
politeness. The findings will be analyzed for politeness or impoliteness and results presented for
interpretations and conclusion.
Research Questions
The main question includes:
 What are the politeness or impoliteness strategies used by president Trump?
Other questions include:
 What are the implications of those politeness or impoliteness strategies to the audience?
Research Objectives
The primary objective of this research includes:
i. Investigate the impoliteness tactics by Donard Trump.
ii. Evaluate the implication of impoliteness strategies to followers.
Literature Review
To carry out pragmatic analysis posts made by Trump based on the language use,
concepts, and contexts, a frame of reference needed to be established. The study in this paper
was based on the sociolinguistic categorization and implications of Brown & Levinson’s (1987)
politeness strategies, Culpeper’s (1996) impoliteness strategies, and basic concepts of politeness
strategies as applicable in political discourse as discussed by Culpeper (2005). Also, the paper
will use the concept is face-saving and threatening to explain the politeness categorizations.

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Therefore, this section will analyze impoliteness in social platforms, social media, and politics,
impolite posts, (im)politeness strategies, face-threatening concept, and power and impoliteness.
(Im)Politeness Strategies
Politeness is a critical aspect of human communication. It is a concept of pragmatism
which ensures there is peace. Brown and Levinson first published politeness theory in 1978.
Their study illuminated on two aspects of politeness, including basic politeness theory and
politeness strategies. Broadly, Brown and Levinson came up with the concept of “face” to make
the illustration of politeness. The participants in the interaction have two types of “faces,” which
are the positive face and negative face. A positive face is positive and image a person have of
him/herself and desire to approve. On the other hand, they defined a negative face as territory,
preserve, and rights that one claims and need no distraction. In the studies of linguistic
politeness, the face is considered a fundamental level of analysis. That is, ones face in pragmatic
perspective is ones face identity in public. It is an emotional and social sense of self one
identifies him/herself with for everyone to recognize.
However, there is criticism against politeness theory. The criticism is vested on the claim
by Brown and Levinson that politeness is universal. Politeness has different meanings varying
with cultures. In Japan, politeness constitutes respecting others regarding social positions. On the
contrary, American culture means politeness as respecting other people’s rights and freedom.
Therefore, since different cultures have different definition and application of politeness, then it
means they use different strategies or no strategies to express politeness or express face-
threatening messages.
On the other hand, impoliteness has received less attention, unlike politeness. Culpeper
first developed it in 1996. Impoliteness is the opposite of politeness, and hence opposite of