Part of
Vagueness as an Implicitating Persuasive StrategyGiorgia Mannaioli
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 350] 2025
► pp. vii–x
Giorgia Mannaioli
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 350] 2025
► pp. vii–x
Table of contents
Chapter 1.
Chapter 2.Linguistic vagueness: Its definitions and implementations
2.1Vagueness as a semiotic phenomenon
2.2Intentional vagueness
2.3Physiological or systemic vagueness
2.4Soritical vagueness: Logico-semantic accounts of linguistic vagueness
2.5Contextualist and pragmatic accounts of vagueness
2.6Vagueness and other underspecifying phenomena, and the lexico-pragmatic approach
Chapter 3.Vagueness and underspecification as implicit, persuasive and potentially manipulative strategies
3.1Evolutive and cognitive motivations for linguistic underspecification and vagueness
3.2The discursive functions of intentional vagueness
3.3Vagueness as an implicit strategy: Its persuasive and potentially manipulative functioning
3.4Lexical vagueness
3.5Syntactic vagueness
3.6Vagueness by implicature
3.6.1Vagueness by metaphor
3.6.2Vagueness by hyperbole
Chapter 4.Experimental study on reading times of vague expressions in precising vs. non-precising contexts
4.1Experimental studies on meaning
4.2Experimental studies on underspecification and vagueness
4.3The experiment
4.3.1Research questions
4.3.2Materials
4.3.3Procedure
4.3.4Participants
4.3.5Results
4.3.6Discussion
Chapter 5.Vagueness in political speeches
5.1The historical and political context
5.1.1The third republic
5.2The corpus
5.3Methodology
5.4Quantitative analysis of lexical vagueness, syntactic vagueness and vagueness by metaphor
5.4.1Discussion
5.5Linguistic anatomy of vagueness in the political corpus: Quali-quantitative cross-level analysis
5.5.1Morphosyntactic level
5.5.2Syntactic-semantic interface
5.5.2.1Lexical vagueness’ and vagueness by metaphor’s thematic roles
5.5.2.2Thematic roles of syntactic vagueness’ omitted constituents
5.5.3Semantic level
5.5.4Semantics-pragmatics interface
5.5.5Pragmatic level
5.6Analysis summary
Chapter 6.Vagueness in radio ads
6.1The text genre of advertising
6.2The medium
6.3Methodology
6.4Quali-quantitative analysis of radio ads
6.4.1Lexical vagueness, syntactic vagueness and vagueness by metaphor
6.4.2Linguistic anatomy of implicitating vagueness in the ads corpus: Cross-level linguistic tagging
6.4.2.1Morphosyntactic level
6.4.2.2Syntax-semantics interface
6.4.2.2.1Lexical vagueness’ and vagueness by metaphor’s thematic roles
6.4.2.2.2Thematic roles of syntactic vagueness’ omitted components
6.4.2.3Semantic level
6.4.2.4Semantics-pragmatic interface
6.4.2.5Pragmatic level
6.5Analysis summary
Chapter 7.Vagueness in non-predominantly persuasive speeches
7.1The corpus
7.2Methodology
7.3Quantitative analysis of lexical vagueness, syntactic vagueness and vagueness by metaphor
7.3.1Discussion
7.4Linguistic anatomy of vagueness in the non-predominantly persuasive corpus: Quali-quantitative cross-level analysis
7.4.1Morphosyntactic level
7.4.2Syntactic-semantic interface
7.4.2.1Lexical vagueness’ and vagueness by metaphor’s thematic roles
7.4.2.2Thematic roles of syntactic vagueness’ omitted constituents
7.4.3Semantic level
7.4.4Semantics-pragmatic interface
7.4.5Pragmatic level
7.5Analysis summary
Chapter 8.Conclusion
Appendixes
Appendix A.Stimuli set
Appendix B.Heat map of vagueness’ absolute values in the political corpus
Appendix C.Cross-level tagging database for the political corpus (sample)
Appendix D.Links to corpora and sub-corpora anlyses
References
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