Threatening as a sociocultural–conceptual communicative act

Abstract

The present article revisits threatening discourses from the perspectives of anthropological linguistics, cultural linguistics, speech act theory and pragmatics. On the basis of linguistic data from 11th‐century Britain (Old English), 14th‐century Norway (Old Norse), 19th‐century Ireland (Early Modern Irish English and Modern Irish), 20th‐century Hong Kong (Hong Kong English) as well as 21st century South Africa (Black South African English), the discussion establishes verbal threats as socio‐pragmatic modes of action, that is, commissives that come as both illocutionary and perlocutionary acts. The main aim of the article is to elaborate on the central role that sociocultural norms and conventions play in the enregisterment of threat in a speech community at a given point in time. The article contributes to the development of forensic–linguistic threat assessment through a stronger focus on the sociocultural embeddedness of threatening discourses.