Vagueness as an Implicitating Persuasive Strategy
Giorgia Mannaioli
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 350] 2025. ix, 268 pp. + index
Giorgia Mannaioli
List of John Benjamins publications for which Giorgia Mannaioli plays a role.
Title
Subjects Discourse studies | Pragmatics | Psycholinguistics | Semantics
Articles
2024 Chapter 4. Vagueness and ambiguity are very different (persuasion devices) Vagueness, Ambiguity, and All the Rest: Linguistic and pragmatic approaches, Fiorentini, Ilaria and Chiara Zanchi (eds.), pp. 51–83 | Chapter
Without taking a strong theoretical stance on the terminological boundary between ambiguity and vagueness, we suggest that, at least when considered as persuasion devices, they are quite different and almost opposite phenomena. We suggest that vagueness is effectively persuasive in that it can… read more
2020 Implicit argumentation and persuasion: A measuring model Argumentation and Meaning: Semantic and pragmatic reflexions, Oswald, Steve, Sara Greco, Johanna Miecznikowski, Chiara Pollaroli and Andrea Rocci (eds.), pp. 95–123 | Article
The paper provides evidence that linguistic strategies based on the implicit encoding of information are effective means of deceptive argumentation and manipulation, as they can ease the acceptance of doubtful arguments by distracting addressees’ attention and by encouraging shallow processing of… read more