The Rhetoric of Conflict Inside and Outside the Stadium: The Case Study of an Italian Football Cheer Group - Conflict and Multimodal Communication: Social Research and Machine Intelligence - page 208

11.3.2 Sketching the Ingroup and Outgroup Identity

Going beyond the values, how were both ingroup and outgroup identities discur-
sively constructed and conveyed?
As expected, an analysis of the corpus of data collected has revealed a marked use
of embrayage markers dealing with the group. The speakers often make use of the
first-person plural, and the reference is to Drughi by default, so that when the first-
person plural is used to refer to another ingroup identity, the speaker needs to better
specify the interlocutor (e.g., “ Because we have told the truth and we have defined
Zeman as a “disabled , ” we have received 15,000

C for a fine, eh? By “We” I mean
as society/Noi per aver dato, detto la verità, dato dell'«incapace» a Zeman abbiamo
preso quindici mila euro di multa eh?! «Noi» intendo come società ”, episode 1).
The construction of embrayage is also conveyed by the use of a particular
vocabulary, such as, for instance, nicknames, that have contributed to creating a
familiar and informal atmosphere (e.g., “ Mimmo the grandfather/Mimmo, il nonno ,”
“ Little Fabio/Fabietto ”).
In line with the most traditional social categorization, research studies (e.g.,
the magisterial examples by Tajfel, Doise, Deschamps) underlining that while
comparing groups' actions the ingroup tends to activate a need for a positive
specification of the self as compared with the outgroup, the data collected confirmed
this peculiarity. The focus of “power” on the ingroup showing the need for a positive
image of the self dictated a bias against the outgroup as observed in the minimal
groups paradigm. More specifically, so as to mark this positive conception, speakers
appeal to their magical influence on players' performance. Discursively speaking,
the occurrence of specific rhetorical strategies of celebration, such as, for instance,
omnipotence (e.g., “ There are no limits for us white-blacks/Non ci sono limiti per
noi bianconeri ,” episode 2), self-glorification (e.g., “ Let's clap our hands to all of
the south curve, since they took part in an extraordinary way so that everything
would go well, but then the photo in the newspaper doesn't do justice to all the
work that has been done/bisogna fare un applauso sempre a tutta la curva sud che
ha partecipato veramente in maniera straordinaria affinchè tutto andasse bene, poi
la foto sul giornale non dà giustizia a tutto il lavoro che è stato fatto ,” episode 3),
magical influence (e.g., “ when the players entered the stadium, they absolutely had
to have a visual adrenaline rush, and the eleven played a perfect match/quando i
giocatori entravano in campo dovevano assolutamente avere questa botta visiva che
ha dato poi l'adrenalina e gli undici hanno poi dimostrato in campo e hanno fatto
una partita perfetta ,” episode 2), and mythopoesis (e.g., “ Gigi Buffon said ::: /Gigi
Buffon ha detto ::: ”“ as the President said/come ha detto il Presidente ”) aimed at
building up the ingroup as the best.
As for the outgroup, in opposition with what observed with reference to the
ingroup, they have been mostly presented by use of débrayage strategies, for
instance through the shift from the second to the third plural person (thus aiming at
discursively “labeling” the speakers) and, again, to the second one (e.g., “ you have
to know that the history of Turin is also made up of episodes, as they say, glorious,

A