Direct and indirect verbal and bodily insults and other forms of aggressive communication

Abstract

The chapter outlines a model of insult in terms of a socio-cognitive view of multimodal communication. After setting it apart from other types of aggressive communication, like curse, imprecation and bad words, it explores its social and emotional causes and effects in everyday life and political communication, and finally proposes a semantic and pragmatic analysis of direct and indirect, verbal and bodily insults in Italian political talk shows and social media.