IMPOLITENESS AND IDENTITIES IN THE BRITISH SERIES “SEX EDUCATION”: A SOCIODISCURSIVE ANALYSIS
Impoliteness; Emotions; Identity.
In contemporary audiovisual narratives, linguistic interaction functions not only as a means of communication but also as a resource for entertainment, particularly through the representation of conflict and emotional tension. Within this context, this study investigates how impoliteness operates in fictional interaction and how it contributes to the construction and negotiation of feminist and queer identities in the Netflix series Sex Education. Drawing on the conventionalized impoliteness formulae proposed by Jonathan Culpeper (2011), the analysis examines linguistic-discursive expressions associated with impolite language. The study is grounded in discursive approaches to impoliteness, which conceptualize it as a contextual and evaluative phenomenon related to norms of social appropriateness (Eelen, 2001; Spencer-Oatey, 2005; Barreto Filho and Barros, 2021). The analysis focuses on episodes featuring prominent impolite occurrences and considers verbal behavior alongside multimodal cues such as voice quality and facial expressions. Special attention is given to negatively valenced emotions, including anger, fear, and sadness. Overall, the findings indicate that impoliteness functions not merely as a source of conflict or face-threat, but as a meaningful resource for negotiating power relations and identity positioning.