DRAFT To appear in Pragmatics and Society 2018 Recontextualizing “Rivers of Blood” (1968): cultic politics and legitimation of (verbal) aggression Legitmation strategies in Powell’s 1968 speech and its recotextualization: from political oratory to new media cult Paul Chilton, University of Warwick, Lancaster University Monika Kopytowska, University of Łódź Abstract The objective behind this paper is to outline an integrated cognitive-social-pragmatic approach to the re-emergence of far-right cultic politics and legitimation strategies underlining its discourses of hostility. We apply the notion of cognitive frames as well as speech act theory and other tools from pragmatics, while also noting devices from classical rhetoric. Our main focus is on Enoch Powell ’s “Rivers of Blood” speech and its recontextualization 50 years later. Cyberspace, with the semiotic affordances it offers, expands the potential for recontextualization across time, space and genres, and thus enhances both the impact and visibility of messages legitimizing aggression, while creating, at the same time, a perfect environment for cult figures and (online) communities around them. Keywords: speech acts, deixis, validity claims, cult, recontextualization, cyberspace 1. Introduction While it has been evidenced by history that political discourse is crucial in the construction of prejudice and inter-group hostility, its embedding within cyberspace and the latter’s proximizing potential make certain radical, racist, and prejudiced opinions more salient and thus, potentially, more effective (Kopytowska 2017; Kopytowska and Chilton 2018). Hence, Matamoros-Fernández (2017) introduces the notion of platformed racism enabled by the broadly understood culture of social media platforms, Jakubowicz (2017) discusses cyberracism, and KhosraviNik (2017) and others speak of echo chambers, which act to reinforce people’s existing views and confirm their biases. In order to understand the complexities of political communication under these new conditions structured by the new media we need to consider some traditional pragmatic topics in a new light: these are deixis (Bühler 1990 [1934]), involving understanding of Self and identity (Goffman 1981; Chilton 2004), and speech acts (Austin 1962; Searle 1969), which depend on claims to speech act rights in varied contexts over time and also on legitimation (Habermas 1971, 1973, 1979, 1981; Chilton 2004). We apply here an expanded notion of validity claims and extend it further to include perceived legitimacy of speakers and their sources (Habermas 1971, discussed in Chilton 2010). Furthermore, we need to integrate traditional pragmatics with cognitive science,