Vagueness as an Implicitating Persuasive Strategy
e-Book – Ordering information
ISBN 9789027246257 | EUR 115.00
| USD 149.00
The book presents an integrated model of vagueness as an implicit and persuasive strategy, pervasive in everyday language use and public discourse. It considers three macro-dimensions of the phenomenon: linguistic-theoretical, psychological, and social-discursive.
It shows how vagueness can be strategically employed to elude recipients’ critical evaluation of intended contents, to deresponsibilize the source and make their arguments unchallengeable.
It explores the semiotic, semantic, pragmatic and psycholinguistic nature of vagueness, and looks at its use in contemporary public (with a focus on Italian) discourse.
It also delves into under-explored aspects of the phenomenon such as: the continuum of intentionality in the use of vague expressions; the evolutionary significance of vagueness; its implicitating and persuasive functions; the phenomenon of vagueness by implicature; the interaction between vague expressions and context precisation; the cognitive functioning of vague expressions; the use of vagueness in contemporary persuasive vs. non-persuasive texts types; gender-based differences in the use of vagueness in public discourse.
It shows how vagueness can be strategically employed to elude recipients’ critical evaluation of intended contents, to deresponsibilize the source and make their arguments unchallengeable.
It explores the semiotic, semantic, pragmatic and psycholinguistic nature of vagueness, and looks at its use in contemporary public (with a focus on Italian) discourse.
It also delves into under-explored aspects of the phenomenon such as: the continuum of intentionality in the use of vague expressions; the evolutionary significance of vagueness; its implicitating and persuasive functions; the phenomenon of vagueness by implicature; the interaction between vague expressions and context precisation; the cognitive functioning of vague expressions; the use of vagueness in contemporary persuasive vs. non-persuasive texts types; gender-based differences in the use of vagueness in public discourse.
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 350] Expected January 2025. ix, 268 pp. + index
Publishing status: In production
© John Benjamins
Table of Contents
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Chapter 1 | pp. 1–2
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Chapter 2. Linguistic vagueness: Its definitions and implementations | pp. 3–44
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Chapter 3. Vagueness and underspecification as implicit, persuasive and potentially manipulative strategies | pp. 45–117
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Chapter 4. Experimental study on reading times of vague expressions in precising vs. non‑precising contexts | pp. 118–137
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Chapter 5. Vagueness in political speeches | pp. 138–183
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Chapter 6. Vagueness in radio ads | pp. 184–203
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Chapter 7. Vagueness in non-predominantly persuasive speeches | pp. 204–221
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Chapter 8. Conclusion | pp. 222–226
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Appendixes
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Appendix A. Stimuli set | pp. 228–236
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Appendix B. Heat map of vagueness’ absolute values in the political corpus | pp. 237–245
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Appendix C. Cross-level tagging database for the political corpus (sample) | pp. 246–249
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Appendix D. Links to corpora and sub-corpora anlyses | p. 250
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References | pp. 251–268
Subjects
Main BIC Subject
CFG: Semantics, Pragmatics, Discourse Analysis
Main BISAC Subject
LAN009030: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / Pragmatics