Flaming as a speech conflict inciting tool in Internet-discourse

Abstract

The article analyzes flaming as a tool for a speech conflict inciting. The author backs up the idea that flaming as a mean of speech aggression appeared on the threshold of a new era due to the development of the mass media and computer-mediated communication in the Internet discourse. It is shown that flaming is actively used in combination with other forms of speech aggression in Internet discourse, such as trolling and cyberbullying. Phenomenon of «hate speech» is assigned a special role in flamewars. This term as the international legal practice shows, denotes the opposition of the subjects described in the text based on certain characteristics (race, language, religion, nationality, or belonging to any group) and inducement to violent actions that are carried out based on them. Using specific examples, the author attempts to classify flaming to reveal their strategic goals and to describe the tactics of discreditation illustrating the intent of the content creator. The work emphasizes the need to reveal the communicating tactics in the framework of forensic linguistics examination as well as deanonymization of the flaming content creators via forensic authorship examination.