The syntax of violence and hate: a focus on Lithuanian

ENThis chapter investigates the syntactic features characteristic of hate speech in Lithuanian and aims to relate them to extreme emotions and verbal violence. The data used for the present research has been collected from publicly available court cases dealing with hate speech between 2009 and 2019 and includes 220 hate speech messages. The results show that hate speech is characterised by a high degree of dysfluency and error indicative of conversational grammar and high emotional involvement. Hate speech messages tend to be expressed in clause-like units with minimal punctuation, resulting in syntactic blends. On the other hand, some hate speech comments are fully fluent, but then they take a syntactically reduced form. These structures typically express overt threats of physical violence. Chaotic syntax and some linguistic categories such as imperatives, modals, infinitives, and vocatives are linked to impoliteness strategies such as threats, incitement, and insults. It is argued here that syntactic properties, alongside other linguistic features, can assist linguistic experts in legal proceedings by providing evidence of the speaker’s prejudiced attitudes, emotional involvement, and intentionality. Keywords: hate speech; violence; expressivity; emotional involvement; syntax; dysfluency; Lithuanian.