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 209

but remember above all the last twenty years of your history. You're virgins and
immaculate/Allora sappiate che la storia del Torino è fatta sì anche di episodi come
dicono loro gloriosi, ma ricordatevi soprattutto gli ultimi vent'anni della vostra
storia. Siete vergini e immacolati ”, episode 4).
Another strategy is delegitimation aimed at riduculing (e.g., “ when Torino won
the last derby, there were no personal computers. It was the age of the club/quando
il Torino vinse l'ultimo derby non c'erano assolutamente neanche i computer. Era
l'età della clava ,” episode 4) and infrahumanazing (e.g., “ the next time it will be
necessary to take a little drawing/la prossima volta bisognerà fare un disegnino ,”
episode 3). Most times, the speakers use very vulgar and aggressive words (e.g.,
“ when Zanetti kicks the bucket/quando Zanetti creperà ,” episode 4), mostly made up
of offensive epithets (e.g., “ rotten teeth Moratti/denti marci Moratti ” and “ Cassano
the snarler/Cassano il ciccione ,” episode 1).
As discussed earlier, infrahumanization could be seen as a softer version of
dehumanization: in a comparison between outgroup and ingroup, the members
of the former are “deprived of complete humanness by attributing to them fewer
uniquely human characteristics, such as secondary emotions (e.g., love, contempt)
than to ingroup members” (Pereira et al. 2009 , 336).
In the texts analyzed, as already highlighted by some examples, dehumanization
took mainly the following forms:

- Animalization . This strategy is used by comparing the outgroup supporters with

animals, most specifically with mice and pigs, who live in the stadium as their
natural context (e.g., “ just four people could go rid the field of the mice [ ::: ]they
can stay in their natural context, since they are pigs, aren't they?/potrebbero
andare in quattro a pulire il campo dei sorci [ ::: ] per farle stare nel loro
contesto naturale visto che sono dei maiali no? ”, episode n. 3).

- Biologization . Such metaphors were applied not simply to the outgroup but

also to their acts, in this case their choreography (e.g., “ They made a huge
choreography and we couldn't understand if it was menstrual blood, if it was
a big ass, if it was a very big hemorrhoid/Hanno fatto un'enorme coreografia e
noi non riuscivamo a capire se si trattava di sangue mestruale, se si trattava di
grande culo, se si trattava di una grossissima emorroide ,” episode 4).

- Mechanization . This strategy aims at depicting the outgroup as “poor” just

because of the colors they support (e.g., “ these poor devils [ ::: ] this despicable
gang [ ::: ] these poor creatures in black and blue stripes/questi poveri diavoli
[ ::: ] questa banda spregevole [ ::: ] queste povere creature a strisce nere e blu ,”
episode 1).

- Objectification . This strategy presents “others” as vegetables to be cut off (e.g.,

“ the weed has to be cut off from the roots, listen to me/le erbacce vanno tolte alla
radice, datemi retta ,” episode n. 4).

- Demonization . This stylistic option could be used both in relation to a single

person or to a whole group (e.g., “ Cassano the obese/Cassano il ciccione ,”
episode 1).