Language of rivalry: an appraisal analysis of online comments by football supporters

This study examines the semantic discourse resources in online comments on BBC Sport’s Facebook page. Further, this study categorizes the use of language in these comments to reflect the online rivalry between Liverpool and Manchester United by adopting the APPRAISAL theory in conjunction with the dimension of rivalry including Conflict, Peers, and Bias. According to the study, the commenters produce their comments through the Conflict and Bias dimension. Three subcategories of Conflict were found: Parity (history), Parity (recent) and Star factors. Additionally, the commenting do so through two subtypes of Bias: Culturaldifferences and Unfairness. They underline the factors leading to competition between two clubs and express their prejudice against their rival team rather than compare thesimilarity between them. This study regroups the factors of these rivalries to identify its mechanism behind the semantic discourse. Consequently, this approach could be a source for future studies conducted into the study of rivalry.