Beyond Politeness: Rap, Diss Culture and the Challenge of Teaching Impoliteness in Italian L2

Rap, diss culture e la sfida di insegnare la scortesia in italiano L2

Abstract

What does it mean to bring impoliteness into the Italian L2 classroom? This paper presents an experiment carried out with adult learners at the University for Foreigners of Perugia, aimed at exploring impoliteness not as an unwanted deviation, but as an essential component of the linguistic landscape learners face every day (Shohamy and Gorter 2009). Traditional teaching usually emphasizes politeness and neutral registers, while neglecting those communicative practices where sarcasm, teasing, and conflict are central.

Marracash’s track Pagliaccio was chosen as authentic input for a sequence of listening, analysis, and creative production. Through its allusions, metaphors, and strategies of mock impoliteness (Culpeper 1996; 2011; Kecskés 2014; 2017), learners reflected on the links between language, identity, and social critique, experimenting with expressive modes rarely represented in language textbooks. Findings show that impoliteness, when addressed critically, can foster pragmatic awareness and linguistic agency: not a model to be imitated, but a space for learning to recognize, decode, and manage real-life interactions.

In this sense, the experiment demonstrates that a truly democratic language education does not limit itself to prescribing “proper” behavior, but rather empowers learners to decide whether, when, and how to be (im)polite, turning impoliteness itself into a pedagogical resource.