Linguistic Analysis of Hate Speech on Social Media

In: Caucasus journal of social sciences, Band 15, Heft 1, S. 103-117

Abstract

This article aims at defining the essence of "Hate Speech" and studying it as a source of neologisms and metaphors depicted on social media. Concerns about the relationship between inflammatory hate speech and violent acts have grown as a result of the rising number of attacks against people of different national, ethnic and religious affiliations, cultures, orientations and beliefs. The fact that the language of social media is characterized by tendencies to disguise the truth, reveal half-truths and ambiguous expressions and influence public opinion makes us realize that people especially public figures spare no effort to find effective terminology or phraseology in order to cast a shadow, ridicule or humiliate the opposing side through linguistic means. Therefore, the analysis of such linguistic peculiarities of social media gain a great importance in order to avoid the use of irrelevant terminology aiming at insulting and humiliation people.