Impoliteness and Incoherence on Two Algerian YouTube Channels of Cooking
Impoliteness and Incoherence on Two Algerian YouTube Channels of Cooking

Summary/Abstract: This study is an analysis of impoliteness language behavior that results due to conversational incoherence in the comments on YouTube. Based on data from comments of Algerian Arabic viewers of two YouTube channels providing recipes, this study argues that some impolite comments in threads appear to be the result of conversational incoherence in the comment threads. This means that the absence of comments that respond to the video itself or the topic addressed in the video creates incoherence and hence impolite linguistic behavior on the part of the commentators who are interested in the topic of the video. In this respect, the appearance of comments addressing nothing in threads and whose owners advertise for their channels instead creates annoyance and hence impoliteness among the commentators. In other words, such comments can be seen as an impoliteness trigger in these YouTube commenting threads. It can also be concluded that the comments that respond to the video are important because they can establish conversational coherence between commentators and their absence may create complaints and impoliteness. This work is based on the study of Herring and Seung Woo (2021), who emphasize the consideration of addressee (including video topic) and message content relationship in analyses of conversational coherence on YouTube. It both supports and expands it by analyzing qualitatively the language itself. In addition to this, a quantitative study was conducted for empiricism. This study also draws on Culpepper’s (2011) model of impoliteness.

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