Hate Speech

Finally, a mention should be made of a quite similar and somewhat overlapping category of offensive language, which in certain circumstances may be also recognized as a violation of the law, namely hate speech. By and large, it is a broad category that subsumes verbal attacks based on the target’s race, ethnicity, religion and sexual orientation (Mohr 2013:238). Due to the fact that hate speech is designed to demean, despise and ostracize people on the basis of the above-said factors, it can be easily seen as a term related both to the phenomenon of insulting and fighting words (Neu 2008). And yet, a detailed enquiry into the scope of hate speech reveals that –as opposed to the afore-discussed doctrine – the expression of one’s hostility can
be prosecuted even if it is not said face to face, as evidenced by the case of a Welsh university student, who was found guilty of racially aggravated harassment in 2012, after publishing a series of offensive messages on Twitter. Although the abusive remarks directed at a black soccer player Fabrice Muamba, who suffered from cardiac arrest during a match, did not cause an instant rampant response from the target, they have been categorized as instances of hate speech and resulted in a fifty-six day sentence (Mohr 2013:238). In this connection, it is worth noting that currently, the Internet is rife with instances of impoliteness, to the point where the use of sundry forms of highly offensive language is seen as a norm on the mentioned medium. In view of the above it is tempting to assume that the explanation for such aggressive content lies predominantly in the considerable degree of anonymity provided by the Internet (Dynel 2012).

ON THE SCOPE OF INSULTING MEN AND WOMEN
Before we segue into the analysis, we shall focus on specific examples of offensive remarks that are aimed at men and women.
To start with, gender-related insults are contingent on aspects of men’s and women’s behaviors and personality traits that are seen as particularly masculine or feminine (Jay 2000) – a stereotypical male is belligerent and authoritative, whereas an archetypal female is associated with being fragile and thoughtful. Since people possess a pronounced predilection for stigmatizing anything that does not with within a standard framework, the preponderance of insults employed to offend men and women is based on deviations from the above-said conventional images.
At this point of the discussion, it is important to highlight that –as attested by Conley (2010) – there are no such things as inherently abusive terms, but it is difficult to imagine a scenario in which certain highly charged lexis is not employed pejoratively. A set of most offensive words, regardless of contextual factors, which will come in handy during the analysis, has been compiled by McEnery
(2006):
As it can be seen above – and it will become even more evident in the forthcoming investigation − many of the words collected by McEnery can be used in insulting men and women as demeaning terms.
It is also worth noting, that when a certain designation loses its shock value or is inherently mild, it frequently undergoes the process known as agglomeration, described by Hughes (2006) as adding highly abusive modifiers to the noun, in order to reinforce the message. Now let us take a closer look at the specific terms that are directed predominantly at men and women.
What emerges from the above data, amassed from miscellaneous sources for the purpose of this study, is the fact that insults for women comment on their alleged promiscuity, anomalous and noxious deportment, incompetence, manliness or homosexuality and unattractiveness. Men, on the other hand, are conventionally offended by being called on their purported abnormal sexual exploits, effeminacy or homosexuality, contemptible qualities, ineptness and lack of
intelligence.