An approach to verbal impoliteness in the insults between Aeschines and Demosthenes

Abstract

Within the framework of verbal (im)politeness theories, an insult is a face-threatening act (FTA), an impolite speech act that threatens the interlocutor’s face and with which the speaker has the clear intention of offending him. This paper offers an analysis of the insults that Aeschines and Demosthenes utter each other when they appeal to the opponent by means of the vocative in four speeches: Against Ctesiphon and On the Embassy (Aeschines) and On the Crown and On the Embassy (Demosthenes). We take as a starting point the Culpeper’s seminal article (based on the Brown & Levinson’s model of politeness and opposite to it in terms of orientation to face) and the subsequent revisions of the superstrategies used by the speaker to make impolite utterances. The results of the study show two trends in the analysed contexts: Bald on record impoliteness (the FTA is performed in a direct, clear and concise way) and, mainly, sarcasm or mock politeness (the FTA is performed with the use of politeness strategies that are insincere).