Cross-Linguistic Delegitimization of Women Leaders in Online Political Discourse

This study investigates how Judgement resources in online political discourse contribute to the delegitimization of two women leaders, Isabel Díaz Ayuso and Giorgia Meloni, across Spanish and Italian contexts. Drawing on Appraisal Theory, we analyze 2000 hostile replies posted on X and examine how individual Judgement categories and their co-occurring configurations index stances that undermine the political credibility, competence, and normative alignment of these leaders. The study combines qualitative appraisal annotation with quantitative analyses of category distributions, evaluative configurations, identity-salience cues, and statistical modelling. The findings reveal distinct yet partially overlapping evaluative repertoires across the two settings, highlighting how attacks on competence, morality, authenticity, and behavioral expectations are strategically combined to construct delegitimizing positions, with particularly strong effects for Tenacity-, Normality-, and Propriety-. The study contributes to research on gendered political discourse by showing how evaluative meanings are patterned, internally systematic, and contextually shaped across languages. Implications for cross-linguistic hostility research and the methodological affordances of configuration-based appraisal analysis are discussed