Linguistic impoliteness in American protest music of the 1960s and 1970s: prosody, performance and face-attack

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Chinese explanation / 中文解读

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Original abstract

This thesis examines how linguistic impoliteness is constructed and performed in American protest music of the 1960s and 1970s and the role prosody plays in shaping its force and interpretation. Focusing on three case studies, Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War” (1963), Nina Simone’s “Mississippi Goddam” (1964) and Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain” (1972), the study integrates linguistic, musicological and acoustic approaches to analyse protest songs as multimodal performances rather than as static texts. The analysis draws on Culpeper’s framework of impoliteness, supplemented by Spencer-Oatey’s rapport management model, to identify how face-threatening acts are directed towards individuals, social groups and institutions. To address the limitations of interpersonal models of face, the thesis develops the concept of protest song as mass-mediated face negotiation, in which face-attack is performed for dispersed and heterogeneous audiences. Building on Goffman’s participation framework and Bell’s model of audience design, the study reconceptualises the hearer as a layered set of recipients, including targeted addressees, ratified audiences and wider publics. Prosodic analysis, conducted using Praat, demonstrates that pitch, intensity, rhythm and timing function as key resources in intensifying and framing impoliteness, shaping audience alignment and interpretation. The findings show that impoliteness in protest music operates as a strategic and performative resource through which artists challenge authority, construct moral stance and organise audience uptake. The study contributes to impoliteness theory by extending face and facework beyond dyadic interaction to collective and institutional domains, positioning protest music as a form of mass-mediated social action.

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