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Sune Auken, #FBPE #FBR @GenreResearch
, 16 tweets, 10 min read Read on Twitter
The #threats invaded my #Brexit #genre #thread. It was supposed to be mostly fun and #FBPE-games, but the threads turn it grim . So. I'll establish this new thread of uses of the threat as genre in the Brexit debate. It won´t be a lot of fun. #forensic #linguistics #genrestudies
Before I get going, a little piece of research dissemination on threats by my good colleagues @TanyaKaroli and @MarieEBM:

Exhibit A: @cliodiaspora has had to bear a truckload of abuse and quite a few threats for her engagement. I admire her intensely for sticking to her guns. This one is ugly in many many different ways.

Another tweet by @cliodiaspora. This time the threat isn´t against her, but against a politician. Utterly scary rhetoric in a country that has already seen an MP murdered in relation to #Brexit.

Even the #threat is not a universally bad #genre. Here, for instance, is a threat I really like. In part, because it is, in several senses of the word, legal.

Here again, the "front page dogwhistle threat". Particularly nasty, if you ask me.

Here is one threatening a politician from another country. Fairly frightening, if I may say so.

And here is a death #threat.

"But I didn´t write that I would murder a politician, only that I foresaw someone doing it!"

You did a lot more than that, but bullies always bring disingenuous semantics to a pragmatics fight. #forensic #linguistics

This is why bringing semantics to a pragmatics fight doesn´t work. When somebody calls you on it, you look like a stupid insidious bully.

Well played, @carolecadwalla.

I am terribly sorry that you have to suffer this, but well played nonetheless.

There is no #threat here, just a claim of a threat. Which is fun; in a tragic sort of way. It also has a lot to say about the way we represent things in the public sphere. I repeat: #genre labels are a discursive battle ground.

Not all #threats are conditional, trying to tell you what do to avoid repercussions, some just want to scare and intimidate as a precursor to or placeholder for violence. This example is a bit outside the #Brexit debate, but scary nonetheless.

Hunters & howlers. This is a hunter. Freezes my blood.

A threat to do something obviously stupid and self-harmful may be dramatic, but is rarely a viable political strategy.

The dogwhistle threats really are out in force. @MollyMEP calls one out here.

Thinly veiled threat. This #genre specimen is particularly daft.

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