As novas fronteiras do dizível: a linguagem impolida contra figuras femininas das esferas política e judiciária

Ana Larissa Adorno Marciotto  Oliveira; Monique Vieira Miranda; Tímea Drinóczi; Gustavo Ximenes Cunha

doi:10.1590/1983-3652.2025.58111

Authors

Ana Larissa Adorno Marciotto Oliveira Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Faculdade de Letras, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brasil https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1857-0207
Monique Vieira Miranda Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Faculdade de Letras, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brasil https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0935-5604
Tímea Drinóczi Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Faculdade de Direito, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brasil https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7657-3572
Gustavo Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Faculdade de Letras, Belo Horizonte, MG, Brasil https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9953-1204

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1590/1983-3652.2025.58111

Keywords:

Impoliteness, Verbal attacks, Social media, Misogyny

Abstract

The phenomenon of conflictive language has been investigated through the lenses of different scholars, for example, in Sociology and Anthropology, Legal Studies, Political Science, Discourse Studies and Social Media, among others. In this paper, we adopt a perspective based mainly on the contributions of the models of impoliteness developed under the scope of linguistic pragmatics. We believe that this perspective allows us to understand the correlation between verbal attacks against vulnerable groups and the discursive erosion of democracy. To achieve our goal, we have conducted a multi-case study of impoliteness in the digital sphere enacted against figures from the political and judicial worlds. Specifically, we studied the characteristics of the impoliteness used in three episodes of verbal attacks involving two Congresswomen, Sâmia Bomfim and Erika Hilton, and a Supreme Court judge, Cármen Lúcia Antunes Rocha. The results suggest that gender-based verbal abuse in the cyber domain is largely fueled by the creation or maintenance of a cycle of attacks associated with a common target, portrayed as inferior. The results thus reveal that the cycle of aggression observed in the three cases, by obstructing genuine debate, affects the social fabric as a whole, and not just women or LGBT+ people.

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