Abstract This article presents a multifaceted comparative investigation into the linguistic impoliteness in the negative online consumer reviews on one of the world’s largest e-commerce tycoons and the flagship giant Amazon. The findings were derived from 600 items of online consumer reviews from two comparative perspectives: cross-language (English vs. Chinese) and cross-sector (daily necessities vs. luxury goods). Four impoliteness strategies were identified, calculated and illustrated based on the collected dataset, ranging from January 2016 to October 2018. Findings indicate that in terms of decreasing frequency, the impoliteness strategies reviews are positive impoliteness, implicated impoliteness, negative impoliteness and sarcasm in the negative online consumer reviews of both languages and both sectors. The results reveal that, regardless of sector and language differences, on-record impoliteness is much more frequent than off-record impoliteness in the genre of online consumer reviews. Despite of similarities, discrepancies were also found with regard to the employment of impoliteness strategies in online consumer reviews across languages and sectors. As a timely effort, the findings offer impoliteness-related insights and implications to both theorists and practitioners in the e-commerce industry.

中文翻译：

---

负面的在线消费者评论中的不礼貌：跨语言和跨行业的比较

摘要本文对全球最大的电子商务大亨之一和旗舰巨头亚马逊的负面在线消费者评论中的语言不礼貌进行了多方面的比较研究。调查结果从两个比较角度从600项在线消费者评论中得出：跨语言（英语与中文）和跨部门（日用品与奢侈品）。根据收集的数据集，从2016年1月到2018年10月，确定，计算和说明了四种不礼貌策略。调查结果表明，就减少频率而言，不礼貌策略评论为正面不礼貌，牵连不礼貌，负面不礼貌和讽刺。两种语言和两个行业的在线消费者评论。结果表明，无论部门和语言的差异如何，在线消费者评论类型中，有记录的不礼貌比有记录的不礼貌要频繁得多。尽管有相似之处，但在跨语言和跨部门的在线消费者评论中，在使用不礼貌策略方面也发现了差异。作为及时的努力，研究结果为电子商务行业的理论家和从业人员提供了与不礼貌相关的见解和启示。