Table Of ContentThe Manipulative
Disguise of Truth
Viviana Masia
John Benjamins Publishing Company
The Manipulative Disguise of Truth
Pragmatics & Beyond New Series (P&bns)
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Zhejiang International Studies
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University of Trieste
Volume 322
The Manipulative Disguise of Truth
Tricks and threats of implicit communication
by Viviana Masia
The Manipulative Disguise
of Truth
Tricks and threats of implicit communication
Viviana Masia
University of Roma Tre & University of Rome “La Sapienza”
John Benjamins Publishing Company
Amsterdam / Philadelphia
TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
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doi 10.1075/pbns.322
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isbn 978 90 272 0870 5 (Hb)
isbn 978 90 272 5988 2 (e-book)
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…to A.,
for giving me the opportunity
to live the best nine months of my life…
Table of contents
List of tables xi
List of figures xiii
Acknowledgments xv
Introduction 1
Chapter 1
Features and functions of implicitness in verbal communication 5
1.1 Introduction 5
1.2 Implicit communication: A working definition 5
1.3 Manipulation in language 7
1.4 The “design features” of implicit communication 10
1.4.1 Presupposition 10
1.4.2 Implicature 15
1.4.3 Topicalization 21
1.4.4 Vagueness 24
1.5 Content commitment and discourse commitment 28
1.6 Evolutionary perspectives 30
1.7 Manipulation and persuasion 35
Chapter 2
Quantitative and experimental approaches to implicit
and manipulative communication 39
2.1 Introduction 39
2.2 Persuasive presuppositions 39
2.3 Persuasive topicalizations 40
2.4 Persuasive implicatures 42
2.5 Persuasive vagueness 43
2.6 Persuasive effects of presupposition, topic, implicatures
and vagueness in political discourse 45
2.7 Experimental perspectives on the processing
of implicit communication 60
2.7.1 Behavioral evidence 60
2.7.2 Neurolinguistic evidence 63
2.8 Explaining the manipulative impact of implicit strategies
between behavioral and neurological evidence 68
viii The Manipulative Disguise of Truth
Chapter 3
The manipulative evidentiality of implicit communication 71
3.1 Introduction 71
3.2 Evidentiality as encoded by presumptive meanings 71
3.3 Evidential systems: A brief overview 72
3.3.1 The evidential value of assertion, presupposition and topic 75
3.3.2 The evidential value of implicature and vagueness 79
3.4 Presupposition, assertion and their evidential meaning
in political discourse 82
3.4.1 Corpus 86
3.4.2 Predictions 88
3.4.3 Results 89
3.4.4 Discussion 91
Chapter 4
Manipulation in news discourse:
The function of presuppositions in the language of journalism 97
4.1 Introduction 97
4.2 News language and manipulation 99
4.3 Text comprehension within “good enough” perspectives
on language processing 101
4.4 Data analysis: Functions of presuppositions in Italian news language 104
4.4.1 The corpus 104
4.5 Types of presupposed content 105
4.5.1 Presupposition and neutral information 105
4.5.2 Evaluative presuppositions 107
4.5.3 Presupposition and blasting 109
4.5.4 Presupposition and irony 110
4.6 Distribution of presuppositions and content types in the Italian press 113
4.7 Discussion 117
Chapter 5
Manipulating translations 121
5.1 Introduction 121
5.2 Pragmatics in translation 121
5.3 Translation and manipulation 124
5.3.1 Translating topic and focus 125
5.3.2 Translating implicatures 130
5.3.3 Translating presuppositions 135
5.3.4 Translating vagueness 139
5.4 Towards translational criteria of implicit communication 143
Table of contents ix
Chapter 6
Teaching how to detect manipulative language 147
6.1 Introduction 147
6.2 Critically reading political messages on Twitter 149
6.2.1 Training students to detect implicit communication:
A Polish-Italian pilot study 153
6.3 Making knowledge of implicit communication
available to everybody 160
6.3.1 The IMPAQTS project and the OPPP! website 161
6.3.2 More on the OPPP! website 193
6.3.3 Educating to a “culture of implicitness” 195
6.4 Implicit communication as a way to distinguish
between different text types 198
6.4.1 The corpus and the method 198
6.4.2 Results and discussion 199
6.4.3 Further remarks 201
Conclusion 203
References 209
Index 223
