This work studies manipulative use of language that can be called “deliberate failure of communication”; this study characterizes this kind of manipulation and shows that it can be found in the discourse of marketing experts and legal professionals. Relying on relevance theory, it is shown that manipulation of this kind takes advantage of what van Dijk calls the “context model” of the addressees. The study exemplifies 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. It is proposed, 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 is suggested, 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.