IDENTITY PATHOLOGISATION  AND AMBIENT AFFILIATION ON X:  A RELEVANCE-THEORETIC APPROACH

Beyond the Frontiers: Perspectives on Pragmatic Theory and Practice (2026) [pp. 89-111]  

AUTHOR(S) / AUTOR(I): Manuel Padilla Cruz
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.46793/BeyondFront.089PC
ABSTRACT / SAŽETAK:

Social networks have become primary outlets for the dissemination of conflicting opinions on a variety of societal issues. The diverse discursive practices found within these platforms frequently give rise to linguistic aggression and conflict, which can lead to the factionalisation and polarisation of users and society. Among these practices are attacks on identity, specifically identity pathologisation. This may be defined as the representation of individuals or groups as irrational or afflicted by (psychological) disorders or moral vices. Moreover, identity pathologisation may amount to a digital social practice when it constitutes a discursive endeavour aimed at imposing harmful and degrading identities through indexical, positional, and relational dynamics. When enacted collectively, this practice may foster ambient affiliation, creating a sense of connection and community around shared values, feelings, and experiences. Drawing on relevance theory, this paper will account for how identity pathologisation facilitates ambient affiliation. It will argue that the ‘cascades’ of pathologising postings generated by multiple platform users often serve a phatic function. By making manifest assumptions that are already mutually manifest to other users, these interactions reinforce belief endorsement and the mutual attribution of shared attitudes across the network.

KEYWORDS / KLJUČNE REČI:

Identity pathologisation, ambient affiliation, social networks, X, phaticity, mutual manifestness, mutual cognitive environment, echoic attributive metarepresentations, weak implicatures

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT / PROJEKAT:

This work is an output of the research project PID2022-136840OB-I00, funded by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities of Spain (MICIU/AEI/10.13039/501100011033) and ERDF, EU.

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