How quotation marks do mockery in online politicized discourse

Abstract This article analyzes online comments responding to viral sociopolitical events in different languages, across different social media platforms. We use discourse analytic methods to inspect how quotation marks are systematically deployed to intensify denigrations of opposing political identities and positions in the context of political disagreements. We show how quotation marks are used in situated online interactions to convey a skeptical, derisive stance toward quoted content while positioning one’s reasonable perspective against an unreasonable, illegitimate other. This online discursive practice provides insights into how ordinary politics are engaged (or rather, not seriously engaged) when people participate in mockery in disputative online discourse.