Together with the image is the following subtitle: “Big is beautiful: Jacqueline, who unwittingly features in the ad, believes the marketing material ‘suggests, blatantly, that fat people are patently undeserving of love and loyalty.’” These cues are not only obviously provocative but successfully so. The number of responses to the article is, not surprisingly, high and the intensity of the opinions expressed quite remarkable, in such a way that the discursive situation becomes a very interesting case study of argumentative discourse in general and “multi-party argument” in particular (Maynard 1986, Goodwin and Goodwin 1993: 100). At the same time, it lends itself to an analysis of the management of face and the violations of the politeness strategies usually at work in face-to-face interactions. On the whole, the corpus includes 369 posts, each of which containing one or more sentences, which amount to 18757 words.

5. Content discussion

The core of the article is that the morbidly obese model, Jacqueline, claims that a picture from a photo-shoot she unsuspectingly made was used, without her permission, to advertise an extra-marital affairs website and to promote body shame. The fact that the photo-shoot was patently suggestive in sexual terms, together with the circumstance that Jacqueline runs a pornographic website, are rather incriminating factors that do not help her case. The complex range of reactions to the article spans not only her physical appearance – from which spring judgements as to body perfection, desirability and health – but also the ethical issues involved in her side activities as a porno figure.

Therefore, the expression of disagreement covers a broad scope of topics, which are raised, debated, dropped and recovered along the argumentative sequence. More specifically, the various targets of disagreement in the corpus are the following:

a. Disagreeing about obesity being beautiful (The newspaper article subtitle uses the expression “Fat is beautiful”)

b. Disagreeing about obesity being ugly or deserving attack (Jacqueline’s court case rests upon the complaint of body shame caused by obesity)

c. Disagreeing about objectification of women (Many commentators view Jacqueline as a female scapegoat)

d. Disagreeing about adultery (The advertisement is for a dating agency for married men)

e. Disagreeing about hypocrisy (Jacqueline complains of her body being misused even though she exploits it herself for sexual purposes)

The complexity of the analysis also bears on the fact that the disagreement turns occur in a sequence that is not dyadic, but multiparty, admitting different strands of discursive input. Besides, the speech act of disagreeing is closely related to, and actually overlaps with, other speech acts, such as criticising, protesting, reprimanding, etc. Actually, from a speech-act theory perspective, the analysis of the linguistic sequences is particularly challenging, since the illocutionary force continuum ranges from warnings and overt condemnations to encouragements and expressions of support, whose boundaries are often blurred. At an interpersonal level, two sides build up from the beginning of the exchange: a support side and a rejection one, a divide which immediately feeds a potential for disagreement and conflict. From a Conversational Analysis perspective, the asynchronous nature of the exchanges makes the turn-taking system inoperative, as well as the occurrence of interruption or overlap. Yet, it is interesting to note that the turns do occur in response to previous ones. Actually, some posts constitute direct replies to others, whereas other posts exist independently, ignoring previous conversational input. It should also be noted that long turn-takes alternate with very short ones – sometimes, even one-word replies (as is the case of “Oink!”).

From the standpoint of the Theory of Politeness – which is the primary theoretical tool in hand – the texts exhibit a great degree of complexity. As an anonymous forum, the comment pages of the newspaper encourage the free expression of thought, which may explain why some posts are such ostensive infringements of the politeness principles, especially positive politeness. Also, the fact that the respondents are speaking about a third party – Jacqueline, who is not taking part in the polylogue – may partly be the reason for the expression of strong, confrontational opinions, which often subvert the interactional protocol presiding over daily face-to-face conversations. As Leech (1983: 133) claims, “politeness towards an addressee is generally more important than politeness towards a third party”.

We will divide the analysis into three parts, in accordance with the three major patterns of disagreement found in the texts.

5.1 Backgrounded disagreement: Implicitness and indirectness

Since disagreeing has the potential to damage another person’s face, the speaker will normally avoid performing the FTA, or try to minimize its impact. Going “off-record” allows the speaker to remain in the realm of the implicit, where “it is not possible to attribute only one clear communicative intention to the act” (Brown and Levinson 1987: 211). Off-record strategies demand inferential efforts by inviting conversational implicatures, since they typically break Grice’s cooperative maxims (ibid: 213). Scott (2002: 74) calls off-record disagreeing “backgrounded disagreement” and confirms that it is a way to avoid responsibility for the FTA because it is left to the recipient to interpret it. The occurrences of backgrounded disagreement in the corpus under focus include many of the linguistic realizations which Brown and Levinson (1987: 69) postulate: “metaphor and irony, rhetorical questions, understatement, tautologies, all kinds of hints as to what a speaker wants or means to communicate”.

Let us begin with metaphor, a “category of Quality violations, for metaphors are literally false” (Brown and Levinson, 1987: 222). Expressions of disagreement in the Mail Online comment board as to the claim that “fat is beautiful” often assume metaphorical shapes. Referring to the obese model as a whale or a pig (which also covers metonymical extensions by way of their voices) is a recurrent element in the texts, be it in an openly insulting tone, as we will see later, or in a more indirect manner, as follows:

SAVE THE WHALES... Oh wait, on second thought...- Eoin Power, Osaka, Japan

Hold on, where did I put my harpoon? – Eric, Canada

Beware the Norwegian Whaling feet cometh – howardski, londonski

“Languishing suggestively”... or “beached”, to give this pose its proper nautical nomenclature. – Richard, Middlesbrough

Oink! – American, Philadelphia

oink – SaminTexas, Texas

Other metaphors cover objects instead of animals, like “food disposable bins”. The following comment is particularly interesting in locutionary terms because it displays a fictional dialogue between two interlocutors – the obese model and an interviewer. Although the passage is rather derisive, the speaker manages to remain off-record:

She’s a good advert for a food disposable bin... What’s your favorite hobby madam xxx... Why eating naturally. What’s your favorite nibble madam xxx... Why ice cream, more ice cream and ever more ice creammmmmm-mmmmmmmmmmm-mmm-mmmmmmmmmmmmm. – miss 60’s, los angeles

The following occurrence of metaphor compares the model with food itself. It is a curious verbal production insofar as the commentator assumes Jacqueline’s voice, in a contemptuous role-play which humorously alludes to her lack of education by means of wrong verb conjugations and lack of grammatical concordance:

I’m a rolly polly pudding and pie and i kisses the boys and squashed them with my enormous mellons and then i flattened them with my enormous backside – Tom, Chicago.

Another metaphor, mixed with metonymy (part for the whole), compares Jacqueline with a country’s province, by means of a reference to the postal code she would deserve if she were one:

If she lived in Britain, she’d get her own postcode. – Adam Mann, UK

The use of rhetorical questions, another case of infringement of the Quality maxim, helps the speaker to soften the strength of the disagreement. Brown and Levinson (1987: 223) explain that “to ask a question with no intention of obtaining an answer breaks the sincerity rule on questions”. In the next passage, the commentator disagrees that an obese woman may be a legitimate target of adultery by counter-arguing that marriage also affects men’s body negatively. The commentary exhibits a series of rhetorical questions, signaled with several question marks at a time, which “leave their answers hanging in the air” (ibid: 223) and save the speaker the responsibility for the propositional content of the utterance. The use of hedges, such as “I presume”, “maybe”, and “just (a thought)”, also indicates that the speaker is going off-record:

Men saying that they would dump their wives if they got obese when they had been a size 12 at marriage – I presume still have their full heads of hair, lithe muscular bodies, full sets of healthy teeth and the sex drive they had when THEY got married??? Or are they balding, pot bellied, couch potatoes with bad breath and more hair coming out of ears and nose than on the whole of their head, who do more talking about sport and sex than doing it??? Maybe your wife is disappointed with your looks too but loves you anyway?? Just a thought. – Me again, Newbury, Berkshire

A very similar case takes the opposite argumentative stance, defending the male’s point of view. The disagreement, once again, resorts to rhetorical questions, mixed with hedges such as “really”, “some” and “surely”:

So, according to her, if a couple marries when she is like a size 6 and then balloons to a size 32 and then the husband cheats, because he is no longer attracted to his wife that the entire situation is HIS fault? Surely it is her fault as well?! – Malia, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA

The use of irony, by which the speaker says the opposite of what s/he means, also expresses implicit disagreement. The corpus exhibits several instances of ironical utterances. In the following passage, a commentator disagrees with the idea that being fat deserves derision, by using the adjectives “interesting”, “glad” and “sane” in a patently ironical way:

Interesting, the fat-bashing. But identity-theft is okay? Glad there are some sane people commenting. – Amber, London

A very good example of irony is the following utterance, where a female commentator shows her dislike for obesity and her implicit disagreement regarding the corresponding values:

It’s official. I’m never eating, ever again. – Tina, Derby

Likewise, the following dialogue sequence between two commentators – Shaun and Andy – reveals an ironical response on the part of the speaker who initiated the exchange. Shaun initially disagrees with the purported “hate” of which Jacqueline is a victim, and Andy replies with a play on words regarding the expression “having too much on one’s plate”. Shaun’s closing remark shows that, contrary to what he says, he obviously did not “like” Andy’s “enthusiasm” for his joke. The use of the plural pronoun helps to signal his dual illocutionary intention:

What’s with the hate on her? Doesn’t she have enough on her plate already? – Shaun, Liverpool, 09/11/2011 15:29 / From looking at the size of her Shaun, I don’t think that there’s ever much left on her plate..... – Andy, Frodsham, 09/11/2011 16:23 / We like your enthusiasm for our joke thank you Andy. – Shaun, Liverpool, 9/11/2011 16:53

Unlike irony, sarcasm does not mean the opposite of what is said (thus violating the quality maxim); instead, it means more than what is actually expressed (thus violating the quantity maxim), which is why it also goes by the name “understatement”. So as to express disagreement that Jacqueline is beautiful, the four following commentators resort to sarcastic understatement:

Note to self: initiate strenuous exercise program immediately. – K.M., Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, USA

Is this the American version of TWIGGY ??? – Frank, Slough

Somehow I have a nervous feeling about a possible missing little pet’s location during the photoshoot. – Jon, NY

Supersize model. The oxymoron of the 21st century. – Cat Lover, London

I look forward to their next ad: “Did your HUSBAND scare you last night?” Bet that could create some publicity, too – with the right illustration of course. – Damascena, Town

The following is a very curious case which uses understatement to criticize understatement. In reply to an earlier comment by a woman (“God forbid if a woman puts on a bit of weight! – Pam, Rutland), a male commentator replies:

Quite possibly the understatement of the year.........size 32 is now ‘a bit of weight’. – Adam, Glasgow

Two other commentators employ the adjective “enormous” sarcastically, and they establish a synecdoche between her ‘problem’, or her ‘issue’ (something that is part of her), being “as big as” she is:

Well she is correct about there being an enormous problem. – Taylor, New York City USA

Use of the word “enormous” when describing her issue was an unfortunate word choice... – Lauren, London

Hinting is also a typical strategy of indirectness, and as far as disagreement goes, it also plays the function of backgrounding the illocutionary force of the utterance. Hints violate the Relation maxim in that they require the recipient to establish the relevance of the utterance to the issue in hand. The following line hints at the practical difficulties that an overweight female body can pose to a male lover. Though the impoliteness is not overt, it is obvious that no redress is offered, only the off-record statement of a (tabooed) fact:

You will never get in there. – Steven, Surrey

A particularly interesting comment happens when a reader responds to Jacqueline directly, by using the second-person pronoun. Unlike most other comments, he speaks to her, not about her. He begins by quoting her words in inverted commas, and goes on to use several off-record devices, such as rhetorical questions, ellipsis (in the form of suspension marks) and irony (saying she is a “complicated woman” whom no one understands):

“I find the very idea that there exists a business based solely around the facilitation of infidelity appalling.” Let me guess, you still accept paid memberships from married men? Thought so. Lovely lark this one, doesn’t like her body being exploited.... unless it’s her own porn site. Doesn’t like infidelity.....unless the infidelity is visiting her site. She is a complicated woman and no one understands her but her ice cream sandwiches. – Greg, Canada

Finally, another off-record strategy Brown and Levinson mention and which may be used to express implicit disagreement is the employment of generalizations. In the following comment, a speaker points out that although everybody nowadays criticizes smoking, criticizing obesity is still generally condemned:

It’s socially acceptable to tell smokers now that smoking will kill them and that it’s awful and yucky. It wasn’t always acceptable back in the day to speak aloud about it. When will it become acceptable to tell people “you are overweight and killing yourself?!” – Odell, Tampa, FL,

Likewise, the following comment is constructed on the basis of generalization. The use of discursive subjects like “people” or “you” (which plays the role of impersonal “one”) helps the speaker express her disagreement in a backgrounded way:

People know that if they’re overweight it’s very unhealthy. Broadcast and print media carry many stories and statistics about the health risks of obesity. Unless you are talking about heart-to-heart talks with people to whom you are close or doctors talking to patients, I hope it’s never socially acceptable to tell people they’re fat and going to die. It’s rude, cruel, and pointless. Criticizing strangers because you believe they are overweight won’t make them change their behavior. – Carol, U.S.A.

The same can be said of the following general statements, the first about the diversity of the human body in general, the second about the “fat acceptance movement”, which is another case of impersonalization (through nominalization):

Women (just like men) come in all sizes. Fat, thin and in-between. These ads are horribly degrading to women in general. I see her point. – rajapatee, orlando fl

The fat acceptance movement is literally killing people, and those behind it should be stopped. – Kate, Washington DC, USA

5.2 Disagreement hedged with positive and negative politeness:

The occurrence of comments that involve disagreement but attempt to soften its strength in a polite way cover several linguistic strategies, some of which are aimed at positive face, others at negative face. On the whole, the corpus exhibits several examples of the two cases. Positive politeness strategies are oriented toward the “positive self-image that [the speaker] claims for himself” (Brown and Levinson 1987: 70) and can be used to redress the face-threat inherent in disagreement. Walkinshaw (2009:73ff) also studies the use of positive politeness in disagreements, which he regards as an attempt to attenuate disagreement by expressing appreciation of the hearer’s likes, wants and preferences.

The two following examples are interesting cases of a speaker disagreeing that morbid obesity may be regarded as beautiful while protecting the face of moderately obese readers. Indeed, so as to shield the positive self-image which the latter naturally claim for themselves, the speakers preface their disagreement by introducing an apology (see Locher 2004: 134), in the first case, and a concession in the second (“Big may be beautiful...”), both of which are followed by but:

No offense to big women, but this is disgusting. – Amanda, Houston, TX

Big may be beautiful, but morbidly obese is disgusting, no apologies.

Claiming common ground by using in-group identity markers and first-person plural pronouns (we, us) is a positive politeness strategy which Brown and Levinson (1987: 107, 127) also stipulate: “by using an inclusive ‘we’ form, when S really means ‘you’ or ‘me’, [the speaker] can call upon the cooperative assumptions and thereby redress FTAs”. The following speaker tries to assuage her disagreement by using a solidarity strategy and pretending she is part of a group (see also Chilton 1990: 217). In other words, she disagrees with the views expressed by a group but pretends she is part of that group and that their self-image is hers too. The use of “let’s” (contraction of ‘let us’), in particular, implies a mitigated order, with the ‘exercitive’ illocutionary force (cf. Austin) disguised:

This is a human being we are talking about. Why do people put so much emphasis on what’s on the outside? Shouldn’t we be more tolerant and understanding? We don’t know a person’s circumstance as to why or how they became that way. Let’s stop hurting each other and fix ourselves instead. – Victoria, Los Angeles, CA USA

Another curious example of the use of in-group identity markers, in particular address forms, comes in reply to a previous comment by a male participant (“You cannot pile on a trazillion pounds then accuse your partner of being shallow if they no longer desire you.” – Toni, Herts). The respondent resorts to a term of endearment (which may have some ironical undertones) so as to soften the strength of her disagreement, which is otherwise constructed on the basis of negation (note the recurrence of the adverb not):

‘Desire’ isn’t love, sweetie! Love must fuel desire, not the other way around. (…) The best sex is about love, not lust, and not just about what a person looks like. They’re still the same person inside, no matter what the outside is like. – ShowMeTheChiffon, UK.

The use of hedges is a common politeness strategy that attenuates the threat to face by tentativizing the illocutionary force underlying the utterance. As Brown and Levinson explain (1987:145), a hedge is “a particle, word or phrase that modifies the degree of membership of a predicate or a noun phrase in a set; it says of that membership that it is partial, or true only in some respects (...)”. The following speaker tries to redress the positive face of fellow-commentators by pretending not to be certain of his/her disagreement. Hence the use of “I don’t know”, “all that”, “just” and “well”:

I don’t know if I am all that against body shaming. This is not just very unattractive, it’s a serious health issue. What ever happened to the days of old when women were normal sized with curves? I’m not talking about the curves of Mt Everest but well, just nice. Now it’s either stick thin to the point of bones or so fat you want to throw up! – Carer, Austin

Along similar lines, the following comment includes such hedges as “I wish people would stop trying…”, instead of using, say, a direct imperative (“Stop trying…”):

I wish people would stop trying to make out like it’s fine to look this way, it’s not natural. – Lucy, NY

A common discursive strategy found in the corpus is disagreeing by agreeing. This of course helps save the face of the hearer whose opinion we do not actually share. Brown and Levinson (1987:114-5) refer to “pseudo-agreement” in situations where a speaker begins but stating agreement but “carries on to state his own opinion which may be completely contrary to that of the first speaker”. The use of ‘but’ (or any other adversative conjunction, like ‘however’) usually ensues. ‘But’ is actually a key marker of disagreement. In grammar, it is the quintessential oppositional particle, and in pragmatics its impact depends on the position within the utterance. The two following cases both employ ‘but’ following the explicit use of the verb “agree”:

I agree that women are under a lot of pressure to be ‘perfect’ and I myself constantly feel pressure to lose weight in order to effectively be ‘a better person’ but this girl is disgusting. – mimi, surrey.

C’mon, as a woman I have to agree that if I was married to someone who let themselves go that badly, I would look elsewhere, too. A size 12 is one thing, but morbidly obese is another. It’s unhealthy and unattractive, and if I were to get that big not due to a medical condition, I wouldn’t blame my husband for leaving me. – Lynn, Tampa, Florida, USA

The examples of disagreement through pseudo-agreement abound in the corpus. Consider the following reply to a previous comment, which is itself a disagreement hedged with an apology (“I’m sorry, no one should be proud of being over weight” – laci, Essex):

Agreed. However, no one should be proud of being underweight, either. Both extremes present health issues, but being very thin is sold as beauty in today’s society. – Just Sayin’, USA.

A similar dyadic exchange takes place when a female commentator criticizes men for being shallow (“Most men I feel are just shallow and do not think with their brain but what is between their legs!” – Emma, Kent):

Emma, whilst I agree that there are men who are shallow, I can also say that there are women who are the same. Women also make catty remarks about men AND other women. – Bloke, Here

Other expressions of pseudo-agreement do not use the verb “agree” explicitly:

I can see all the moral problems but that is a seriously funny ad! – JJ, Sydney.

I’m all for the fact that woman come in all shapes and sizes but when you know it’s interfering with your health, it’s time to sort it out. – Me, Essex.

Incidentally, the use of ‘no’, the ultimate disagreement marker, may actually mean ‘yes’. Consider a possible reply to the statement: “She is not healthy”. Saying “No, she isn’t” is actually equivalent to “Yes, you’re right”. The following passages use ‘no’ as expression of agreement followed by ‘but’ and the corresponding disagreement (which in the first example ends on a rather ‘impolite’ interjection – “Jeeze grow up”):

As for the size of the woman, no she is not a healthy size at all (however some men do like this) but do people on here have to remark about it like they’re still in primary school? Jeeze grow up. – FW, UK

No, being morbidly obese is not healthy but it’s not your business either. – See it all the time, USA

Occurrences of negative politeness bear on linguistic strategies directed at respecting the recipient’s freedom of action, that is, their negative face, their wish not to be intruded upon or hindered. Cases of disagreement being mitigated with negative politeness are not abundant in the corpus, but they do exist. The use of apologies is a typical case of negative politeness, as Brown and Levinson state, and they pop up now and again:

Sorry but size 32 is not “beautiful”- Deeze, North.

I’m sorry no one should be proud of being over weight – Laci, Essex

Beauty is health, and whether you be under or overweight you just do not fall in the healthy category, sorry! Let’s stop kidding ourselves! – Lee, London

The use of “sorry” is sometimes strengthened by an affectionate term (“love, “Jackie”), again with ironical tinges:

Sorry love but if my nearest and dearest became a size 32 through simple over-eating I would definitely go get a new one.

No, love, sorry, you are NOT beautiful. You are obese and that is UGLY – Louise, Gillingham.

Sorry, but someone this fat is more often seen as horrific by the general populace than as, *gag*, “beautiful”. Saying this woman is beautiful and attractive is like saying the same thing of a stumbling drunk or “Oooh look at the handsome meth-head!” Sorry Jackie – you’re horribly obese and there’s nothing attractive about it. – Shwa, Denver,

A different discursive situation is the following. By telling (fat) female readers that nobody is preventing them from being fat, the commentator hedges his disagreement that obesity may be attractive, thus expressing his attempt to protect their negative face. In other words, he expresses his respect for their freedom to be as they prefer:

A size 2 woman who sees this ad sees the message: “If I don’t stay small, he will cheat.” Sounds like it’s working to me. Nobody’s telling you that you can’t be fat, ladies. Just don’t expect that men will look at you as if you’re not. It’s that simple. – John, Northampton, PA USA

5.4 Foregrounded disagreement: explicitness and directness

Scott’s (2002) category of “foregrounded disagreement”, later taken up by Walkinshaw (2011), echoes Brown and Levinson’s “bald-on-record” strategies for doing an FTA, which involve “doing it in the most direct, clear, unambiguous and concise way possible” (1987: 69). The reasons Brown and Levinson offer to explain such strategies – urgency, efficiency, negligible threat to face and vastly superior power of the speaker (ibid.) – differ from the ones Locher (2004: 143) presents to account for what she calls “unmitigated disagreement”:

a) when it is more important to defend one’s point of view than to pay face considerations to the addressee (see also Kotthoff 1993);

b) in contexts where the relationship of the interactants minimizes the potential risk of damage to the social equilibrium;

c) when the speakers wish to be rude, disruptive or hurtful (see also Beebe 1995 and Culpeper 1996)

In the Mail Online corpus, it seems that overt impoliteness results from the spatial and temporal discontinuity of the verbal exchange, together with its anonymity. As communication is not face-to-face, with no eye contact or personal knowledge of the interactants, face concerns seem to weaken. Anonymity, in particular, seems to invest speakers with a certain sense of power, which is also linked to the notion that no retaliation – apart from a verbal one – is possible on the Internet. Curiously, Brown and Levinson (1987: 97) also mention this possibility when they state: “non-redress occurs [...] where S’s want to satisfy H’s face is small, because S is powerful and does not fear retaliation or non-cooperation from H”.

Some disagreements are so direct that the speaker simply states: “I don’t agree with you”. This is the case of the following comment, which is a reply to an earlier comment, referred to above (“I’m all for the fact that woman come in all shapes and sizes but when you know it’s interfering with your health, it’s time to sort it out.” – Me, Essex)

Don’t agree with you. Size 16-18 is fine... there are a bunch of 16s in our women’s rugby team who are fitter than the average man tbh [to be honest] and they can all tie their boots up. – Man Of The People, UK

Other explicit disagreements are simply an interjection (of repulsion and nausea):

Yukeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee – Bob, England,

Albeit explicit too, the range of other bald-on-record strategies used in the corpus to express disagreement is slightly more elaborate, including lexical choice meant to demean the hearer’s face. Adjectives, in particular, are an easy way to foreground disagreement:

The male mouthpiece for this dating site sounds like a dirty, misogynistic little creep and the words on that advert are utterly offensive and demeaning to women. – FW, UK,

Imagine what the dog-faced men who use this site and mock this woman look like? No, don’t, it will put you off your lunch....- Violet Brown, Birmingham

Lol. You’d have to be really really sad to engage in anything like this – male or female!!!!! – Bexxx, LDN

Wow and men really visit that site, they must be short-sighted or desperate!!!!- Dodger, Staffordshire, England

Disgusting. I’m thinking that if anyone finds that sexy they are seriously insecure with themselves. – Silvermist, Capo Beach

Completely reprehensible. Perhaps his next campaign could feature an amputee or a burns victim. – Lola, Manama

Sickening, all around. – Pauline, Washington

Juicy jackie.com??? I feel sick at the very thought. – Nobody, Bristol

That is frightening. She should be ashamed of herself for looking that way. Even a genetic predisposition to being overweight does not explain a woman weighing 400 lbs. – Charlene, Arlington, tx, usa

Besides adjectives, the choice of nouns can also be a concise way of disagreeing – and insulting, by the way:

“She says the ad is yet another unwelcome case of body shaming”. She must be an idiot then! What did she think was going to happen when she posed for the photographs? – PC99, UK

Calling Jacqueline a whale, which can be regarded as a metaphorical strategy for the speaker to go off-record, as we saw above, also occurs in obviously on-record passages of explicit disagreement. In particular, the use of the noun “whale” together with the adjective “beached” happens three times, and in all of them the disparaging intention is all but obvious:

Somehow I find it hard to feel sorry for a beached whale posing in lingerie. If she didn’t know how dreadful she looked when it was taken, she is more stupid than she looks, and that is quite a bit. You can’t get that fat without eating until you are bloated time and time again. She is a disgusting piece of work. – Brian Williams, Dover

Who was talking about rugby players? They are all tall and stocky, but they are not beached whales like this woman. No athlete or sportsperson is-unless they are sumo wrestlers! So dont twist peoples’ words, face facts. – Hannah, Bham UK

Being that morbidly obese is not attractive in the slightest and it’s disgusting to see somebody flaunt her misused body. IT IS NOT OKAY to look like a beached whale. Size does matter when it comes down to health, and I have no doubt that her health is slowly deteriorating as we speak. – Appalled, London

The following comment is a reply by a woman to an earlier comment by a man. The use of the sardonic noun “billy-no-mates” is aggravated by the adjectives ‘sad’ and ‘lonely’, and the noun ‘loser’ is made all the more aggressive by the use of block capitals:

She should be grateful for any attention she gets. – Alex / Likewise Alex. Only attention you’ll get are red arrows. But I guess it’s better than nothing, you sad lonely billy-no-mates. LOSER. – Lou, London

The use of straight imperatives to give advice (which in itself is a threat to the hearer’s negative face) aggravates the nature of the FTA, as happens in the following example, which exhibits some mitigating input at the beginning (“I don’t think…”) only to go bald-on-record in the second sentence:

I don’t think it’s right that anyone should let themselves get in this state (medical conditions excluded) but her condition clearly starts at 6am when she opens the fridge door. Gain some willpower and self respect and stop complaining. – Mimi, Surrey

One of the strategies Brown and Levinson stipulate for protecting the hearer’s negative face is “Don’t presume /assume”, which includes “avoiding presumptions about H, his wants, what is relevant, or interesting or worthy of his attention – that is, keeping ritual distance from H” (1987: 144). In the next passages, the speakers explicitly presume to have knowledge about the recipient’s personality, likes, preferences and way of being. At the same time, they ostensively violate one of Leech’s (1983) politeness maxims, the approbation maxim (minimize dispraise of other):

How can you have so little self respect to let yourself end up like that! – Rod Steele, Shaftesbury

She looks like that because of gluttony, self-indulgence and a lazy refusal to exercise. If she says differently, she’s lying. – Pete, Brighton

An interesting form which explicit disagreement assumes in the corpus is what Goodwin and Goodwin (1990: 97) call “content shift within argument”.In the following passage, the speaker openly disagrees with the interpretation the readers have made of the article and performs a ‘repair strategy’ (Sacks et al. 1974) to restore what she believes is the right argumentative line:

Missing the point people!!!!!! This is not about the size of the lady involved. It is about the use of her image to promote infidelity; more to the point a website that helps you actively go out and look for someone to cheat with. Fat or thin how happy would you be with that? – Polly, Germany

Much along the same lines, the comment shown next starts with a foregrounded expression of disagreement, in which the adverb of negation is signaled in block capitals, followed by a repair utterance in which the speaker gives her own reading of the subject in hand:

Whether she’s fat or not is NOT in question here. It’s about the fact that sleazy Ashley Madison used her image WITHOUT her permission and did so in an embarrassing and derogatory way. – Jade, Los Angeles, USA

It should be noted that these cases of different topics being raised in the middle of an argument are a symptom of disaffiliation not only towards one party involved in the dispute, but also with its opponent party. Maynard (1986) calls this phenomenon “non-collaborative opposition” and explains it as follows:

In the first place, we have seen that disputes, although initially produced by two parties, do not consist simply of two sides. Rather, given one party’s displayed position, stance, or claim, another party can produce opposition by simply aligning against that position or by aligning with a counterposition. This means that parties can dispute a particular position for different reasons and by different means. It is therefore possible for several parties to serially oppose another’s claim without achieving collaboration. (Maynard 1986: 280)

One final aspect concerning the explicit expressions of disagreement in the corpus deserves mention. It is a fact that, as Locher has remarked (2004: 113), speakers often give personal or emotional reasons for disagreeing. And, by opening up about themselves and actually assuming a self-disclosure mode, they make their face more vulnerable. That is perhaps the reason for the defensive stance which is noticeable in utterances such as the following:

I am a big and beautiful woman. I am comfortable in my skin and I refuse to be ashamed. If anyone is gross it is those that destroy others’ self-confidence with their hateful cruel words. There is beauty in ALL body types, skin color, and gender. If you can’t see that, something is wrong with you. – Carol, Chicago

A comment by a male participant who signs “Slim Jim Loves Fat Pat”, and which reads “Most women over size 14 are clinically obese (do the math if you don’t believe me – BMI of 30 or more is obese)”, receives a set of emotional, personal responses which express utter disagreement:

I think that statement is downright rude! I am a 19-year-old size 14-16 woman. I am by no means obese with a BMI of 21! Size 14 women can just be big boned or curvy women. I have a 26” waist and naturally large hips, does that make me fat, just because I’m labelled with a number 14?! And yes, you said MOST women, but I highly doubt I’m alone. – Elouise, Cambridge

The next female reader also replies to Slim Jim by giving personal, detailed information about her own body size and weight, and by insisting on the repair strategy of claiming that she is healthy rather than obese:

Slim Jim – size 14 women are not obese, unless they are deluding themselves about their clothes size. I am a size 12-14 with a BMI of 24.9 which makes me just about within healthy range. Before I had children, I was a size 10 and my BMI was 20, which made me very slim and well within the healthy range. – Kath, Cardiff

Personal statements can take the opposite stance: instead of expressing disagreement towards intolerance to obesity, they express disagreement towards its tolerance:

I was bitterly ashamed of myself when I let myself go to a size 18 and quickly snapped myself out of it back to a 10/12. Being life threateningly overweight is not attractive. This woman is just as bad of a role model as the dangerously underweight models, if not worse. – Rebecca, Gloucestershire

Likewise, the following respondent disagrees with all those defending fat people by setting her own example: that of a person who is “trying her hardest” to lose the excess weight:

Since giving up smoking I have put on a bit of extra weight but am nowhere near this size.......And I am trying my hardest to get rid of the excess pounds. I know I’m overweight and feel uncomfortable but she must find problems in a lot of the ‘normal’ things she has to do everyday. – Sue, Oxford

Interestingly, the following commentator seems to be aware that personal, emotional comments regarding Jacqueline tend to come from people who have weight issues themselves. So, she anticipates – and corrects – the potential wrong inference as follows:

Just listen to yourselves on here. Jacqueline makes a lot of very good points about how the female body is perceived and she is right. We have young girls who are absolutely obsessed with their shape and weight. And before some smart alece [sic] says ‘I bet you must be fat’, no I’m not fat at all, far from it – Female, UK

Finally, a very curious explicit disagreement strategy is the blunt expression of approval of Jacqueline’s looks. In a forum that challenges obesity in all its aesthetic, psychological and health-related aspects, to say that she is, indeed, attractive is a major rebuttal of the opinions expressed. Next is a sample of utterances that assume an adversarial stance by actually agreeing, rather than disagreeing, with the main topic of the text – that of obesity:

More to love I guess. – anita daeoph, usa

Hmmmm, full complete bedfeast !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! yummy !!!!!!!!!!! – Tony, Essex

Jackie certainly is juicy 8] – fezza, England

Own goal surely, there’s nothing scary about the gorgeous Jacqueline. – Mark, Huddersfield

I like em rotund!! – Bejeeeeeeesus

Conclusion

This article has investigated the expression of disagreement in a corpus of online commentaries to a news report case. Several patterns have emerged in what has proven to be a good example of conflict talk, with alignments and confrontations taking place along the adversarial spectrum. However, the management of the oppositional input has also addressed face concerns, and rather often for that matter, though by no means always.

On an interpersonal level, the corpus has proven to belong to the category of “multi-party argument” (Maynard 1986, Goodwin and Goodwin 1993: 100) even though dyadic sequences were also identified. In other words, speakers interacted either by replying directly to another speaker’s utterance or by posting unaddressed comments.

In terms of content, the complexity of the analysis has involved a few concurring factors. First, the construction of the argument revolves around more than one topic. The initial cue, offered by the newspaper itself, is that “big is beautiful”, but the range of disagreement expands to other topics, such as the health-problems regarding obesity, the objectification of women, man-woman relationships, adultery, pornography and hypocrisy. This I have proposed to call “multi-topic argument”. Its complexity derives from the fact that an initial topic prompts the appearance of several topic strands in an equally complex sequence: being raised, debated, dropped and recovered along the argumentative axis. Another analytical challenge has been the fact that the speech act of disagreeing may be mixed with other forms of illocutionary force. Indeed, the disagreements occurring in the corpus often overlap with other speech acts, such as criticising, protesting, reprimanding, etc, making the illocutionary boundaries somewhat vague. Thirdly, the variety of topics has shown to be related to a broad range of “reasons” for agreeing or disagreeing. From ethical and moral reasons to health reasons, social reasons and aesthetic reasons, the opinions expressed reveal a great assortment of motivations for stepping forward and expressing a contrary opinion. Crucially, personal reasons rank high, as is the case of fat people strategically siding with the obese model and confronting her critics (on disagreements as strategic moves, see Upadhyay 2010, above).

Interestingly enough, the representations of femaleness that emerge throughout this complex argumentative process seem to reify, by and large, existing stereotypes of physical perfection and desirability. In fact, although a few voices do get to be raised in favour of alternative standards of female beauty and attractiveness, the overwhelming bulk of comments prove to support the widespread ideals of thinness and slenderness. Besides this reinforcement of prevailing conceptions of women’s body image, the texts also denote the surfacing of another sort of stereotype, that of the equation of the female subject with a sexual object. Indeed, Jacqueline’s side professional activities are more often than not viewed as conflicting elements that undermine her cry for justice and reduce the legitimacy of her claims. Had she been a married mother of four, perhaps the opposition to her complaints would have been less noticeable.

The diversity of ideological, psychological or personal motivations detected has revealed two types of interpersonal stance: a defensive stance (typically exemplified by obese readers) and an aggressive one. Whatever the case, the analysis has confirmed Angouri and Locher’s (2012: 1549) claim that disagreeing does have “an impact on relational issues (face-aggravating, face-maintaining, face-enhancing)”. The situations in which replies – including insulting ones – are directed at specific interactants illustrate an aggressive attempt at debasing the opponent’s face. Other comments, meanwhile, have revealed face concerns of various strengths.

The analysis has shown that the expression of disagreement in the corpus ranges from “backgrounded” forms, that is, covered, implicit, or mild disagreement, to “foregrounded” forms, i.e., overt, explicit, or unmitigated disagreement (Scott 2002), admitting however in-between manifestations, hedged with positive and negative politeness (Walkinshaw 2011). Occurrences of overt impoliteness, with expression of bald-on-record rebuttals, provocations and even insults may be related to the anonymity of its participants and the discontinuous character of the interaction, both in spatial and temporal terms, which encourage the abandonment of face concerns (Donath 1999, Eisenchlas 2011, Yus 2011). Knowing that no retaliation is possible, speakers feel free – and powerful enough (Brown and Levinson 1987: 97) – to attack their opponents’ face.

Finally, the analysis has suggested another – crucial – explanation for the impoliteness occurring in the corpus: namely, what I propose to call, along Leech’s lines (1983: 133), “third-party factor”. Disagreeing with, criticising, debasing and deriding an absent party is much less risky than doing so in face-to-face conversation. The fact that Jacqueline is not taking part in the polylogue makes her face more negligible, and it strengthens the respondents’ boldness to show their disaffiliation. This may explain the openly conflictual and confrontational nature of some of the comments, which the protocol ruling over regular daily interaction usually tends to soften.

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