Explicit and implicit offensiveness in dialogical film discourse in Bridgit Jones films

Abstract

The paper discusses the concept of offensiveness, both explicit and implicit, in film dialogical discourse based on three parts of a romantic comedy. The differences between explicitness and implicitness on the one hand, and between implicitness and (in)directness on the other are presented in the theoretical part. Indirectness and implicitness are treated in the study as independent concepts that instantiate covert meaning. On the other hand, explicitness and implicitness are viewed as gradual concepts that allow some overlap; thus, direct implicitness and indirect explicitness emerge as possible options. Furthermore, the category of offensiveness is presented as a broad category, a superordinate term that subsumes offensive language, typically realised through explicitly offensive words, such as swearwords, and (non)offence, encoded by rhetorical devices. Offensive language can have the function of offending the target addressee, i.e., to cause offence, or to build, inter alia, a jocular, intimate or friendly atmosphere. Offensiveness can thus embrace propositions that lead to offence or convey other, non-offensive meanings. Examples of both offensive language (explicit/direct forms) and subtypes of offence (figurative forms), as well as a combination of both (e.g., figurative forms such as ironic comments that contain swearwords), are gleaned from the corpus of three parts of the eponymous romantic comedy. The analysis has shown that figurative forms are often conflated (to create metaphorical irony, ironic hyperbole, and the like), the implicit forms of offensiveness occur almost as frequently as explicit forms and are distributed equally across gender, varying forms of offensiveness play the whole gamut of functions, disparagement being only one of them.