Aggravated impoliteness and two types of speaker intention in an episode in Shakespeare's Timon of Athens

It is argued in the article that strategies of politeness, while needed, are not sufficient by themselves to give a realistic picture of verbal interaction. Work on strategies of impoliteness is not new, but a new type of strategy of unpleasant verbal behavior is identified in the article that goes beyond “mere” impoliteness. The strategy is illustrated by drawing on an episode in Shakespeare's tragedy Timon of Athens. The discussion makes use of the notions of first order and second order speaker intentions, to explicate the nature of the strategy. The strategy is at the high end of impoliteness and the label “aggravated impoliteness” is suggested for the new strategy. Some features are identified that prototypically go with this type of impoliteness.