“Hebrew Level: Bibist.”: Online Hebrew Language Corrections as a Tool for “Civilized” Bashing

EasyChair Preprint 10657

Abstract

Despite the potential for democratic engagement offered by online commenting, research suggests that political discourse within the Israeli online commenting sphere falls short of realizing its democratic potential. A notable example is the presence of language policing practices. Hebrew online comments often display non-standard language forms, occasionally prompting corrections from individuals who adhere to a standard language ideology. It is these instances of correction that serve as the focal point for the present study. Examining interactions containing language corrections drawn from four prominent Israeli Facebook news pages, we compare between interactions that follow posts related to political issues (the judicial reform/coup in Israel) and those that follow posts related to (mostly) non-political matters (celebrities in Israel and abroad). Findings indicate that language corrections are more prevalent in the political context compared to the non-political context. Qualitative analysis suggests that language corrections manifest as a form of supposedly “civilized” and sanctioned bashing. These language corrections are not driven by a genuine concern for the Hebrew language, but rather stem from the desire of (typically) left-wing correctors to establish their intellectual superiority over the (typically) right-wing individuals being corrected, thus contributing to the perpetuation of existing stereotypes prevalent in Israeli society.

Keyphrases: language corrections, online commenting, political discourse, standard language ideology

@booklet{EasyChair:10657,
  author    = {Shir Finkelstein and Hadar Netz},
  title     = {“Hebrew Level: Bibist.”: Online Hebrew Language Corrections as a Tool for “Civilized” Bashing},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 10657},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2023}}