Manipulation by deliberate failure of communication
This work studies manipulative use of language that can be called “deliberate failure of communication”; I characterize this kind of manipulation and show that it can be found in the discourse of marketing experts and legal professionals. Relying on relevance theory, I show that manipulation of this kind takes advantage of what van Dijk calls the “context model” of the addressees. I exemplify two ways in which the context models of some of the discourse’s participants might be misused in order to manipulate them. One way is exemplified by a text from an advertisement, the other by a text from a criminal court file. I propose, finally, that the analysis supports van Dijk’s view that social, discursive, and epistemic inequalities reproduce one another in a kind of vicious circle. It suggests, in van Dijk’s terms, that manipulation by deliberate failure of communication is a discriminatory use of language employed by elite groups in order to reproduce their social power.
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Cited by
Cited by 2 other publications
Azuelos-Atias, Sol
2016.
Identifying the meanings hidden in legal texts: The three conditions of relevance theory and their sufficiency.
Semiotica 2016:209
► pp. 99 ff.
Azuelos-Atias, Sol & Ning Ye
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On drafting, interpreting, and translating legal texts across languages and cultures
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International Journal of Legal Discourse 2:1
► pp. 1 ff.
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