Hashtag swearing: Pragmatic polysemy and polyfunctionality of #FuckPutin as solidary flaming

Abstract

This paper contributes to the fledgling pragmatic research on social media swearing. The concept of “hashtag swearing” is proposed to capture the practice of using hashtags centred on swear words. The empirical focus is on tweets marked with #FuckPutin and submitted in response to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Specifically, the article reports the findings of a multimodal discourse analysis of a randomised sample of 500 #FuckPutin tweets with media files extracted from an automatically generated corpus of 37,782 tweets in English posted within six weeks after the military attack. Accompanying multimodal content that falls into eleven categories, the viral swearing hashtag is shown to display pragmatic polysemy and polyfunctionality; it merges the seemingly mutually exclusive functions of swearing: committing acts of aggression (sometimes coupled with getting relief) and fostering solidarity (adapted to Twitter interaction). Thus, #FuckPutin swearing is conceived of as solidary flaming: tweeters flame Putin and demonstrate solidarity with the Ukrainian nation, tacitly developing rapport with like-minded users who post similar tweets with the swearing hashtag that (symbolically) abuses the common enemy. Overall, the swearing hashtag is legitimised/appropriated (albeit not neutralised) on Twitter, being adopted as an entertaining taboo buzzword and a tool in public political discussion.