The article deals with the concepts of "insulting potential" and "insult" and their representation in con-flict-ridden texts. The author tries to answer the questions which an expert faces when conducting a linguistic expertise and states the necessity to take into account pragmatic factors, as well as the extralinguistic situation as a whole, when analyzing the fact of insult. The urgency of the topic can be attributed to the need for an in-depth study of the interaction of various definitions of offensiveness, creating difficulties in qualifying the legal norm "insult"..