Defamation in Selected Televised Arabic Political Interviews: A Socio-Pragmatic Perspective

Defamation is a type of wrongdoing that seeks to tarnish the reputation of other people. The present study deals with the subject of defamation in televised Arabic political discourse with a specific focus on the pragmatic and evaluative mechanisms of construction of defamatory meaning. Specifically, the research examines the contribution of impoliteness strategies to the defamatory character of political utterances, and the role of appraisal categories (i.e. attitude, engagement, and graduation, including their subcategories) in the production and comprehension of defamatory discourse. The research aims to answer the following research questions: How do impoliteness strategies contribute to the construction of defamatory utterances? How do the major categories of appraisal theory and its subcategories affect the meaning production and interpretation of defamation? The data for this research are taken from three Iraqi televised political talk shows: Ma'a Almilaa Talal, Alhaqu Yuqal and Alqarar Lakum. For the analysis, Culpeper's model of impoliteness strategies and the framework of appraisal theory developed by Martin and White are being used. The data are analyzed by means of qualitative and quantitative methods. The results indicate that some strategies of impoliteness are used more often than others in the fulfillment of defamatory utterances. In addition, the result shows that appraisal categories and subcategories play an important role of shaping and reinforcing defamatory meaning in televised political discourse.