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AbstractThis paper provides an overview of the strategies and techniques of hate speech in online discourse (on online discourse or computer-mediated communication in general cf. e.g.,Schwarzhaupt-Scholz 2004;Schmidt 2013;Dittler and Hoyer 2014; Seargeant and Tagg 2014). Based on a collection of online texts belonging to different genres (discussion forums, blogs, social media, tweets, homepages), this paper will provide a qualitative analysis of destructively impolite utterances in online interactions. This analysis will make use of the standard typologies of impoliteness and their recent extensions (such asCulpeper 1996,2005,2011;Kienpointner 1997,2008;Kleinke and Bös 2015), but some modifications and elaborations of these typologies will also be taken into account. Moreover, social, cultural and political reasons for the recent dramatic increase in hate speech in online interactions will be explored. Finally, the problem of how to deal with this destructive use of language will be briefly discussed and some possible solutions will be suggested (cf.Banks 2010).

U.S. President Barack Obama's rhetoric lends itself well as a highly interesting case study for exploring the possibilities of contemporary political rhetoric of being both successful on the one hand and rational, according to normative standards of argumentative discourse, on the other. Taking up the concept of "strategic maneuvering" as developed within Pragma-Dialectics (cf. van Eemeren 2010), a corpus of Obama's speeches and books is analyzed in order to assess both its rationality and efficiency. The analysis shows that Obama not only knows extremely well how to use the classical inventory of (political) rhetoric, but also tries to overcome the standard strategic maneuvering of political rhetoric which is often polarizing and destructive. Obama tries to change this traditional style of political rhetoric by his orientation towards consensus and universal values and by his willingness to practice self-criticism. The evaluation of Obama's political rhetoric has also shown, however, that Obama is sometimes forced to abandon his high ethical and rhetorical standards in order not to lose a substantial section of the U.S. voters. In some of these cases, it might be argued that his strategic maneuvering "derails". All in all, however, Obama has shown us that a leading contemporary politician can overcome traditional party rhetoric by following new types of strategic maneuvering which, at least sometimes, successfully reconcile normative standards of rational discussion with rhetorical principles of efficient persuasion. Keywords: Barack Obama; political rhetoric; democracy; Pragma-Dialectics; strategic maneuvering; fallacy; pragmatic argument; irony; self-criticism

A ground-breaking work, Read the Cultural Other argues that non-Western discourses cannot be contained in a 'general', 'universal', or 'integrated' model of linguistic communication or discourse, but must be understood from a culturally pluralist perspective. Proceeding from this standpoint, it offers a variety of innovative analyses of China and Hong Kong's discourses on the decolonization of the latter. Drawing on culturally different methods and local cultural context, these studies reveal the discursive complexity, diversity, and forms of otherness of Hong Kong and China.