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Vagueness as an implicit-encoding persuasive strategy : an experimental approach

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Bibliographic Details
Title: Vagueness as an implicit-encoding persuasive strategy : an experimental approach
Authors: Mannaioli, Giorgia, Ansani, Alessandro, Coppola, Claudia, Lombardi Vallauri, Edoardo
Publisher Information: Springer
Publication Year: 2024
Collection: JYX - Jyväskylä University Digital Archive / Jyväskylän yliopiston julkaisuarkisto
Subject Terms: vagueness, implicit persuasion strategies, shallow processing, self-paced reading experiment, tekstintutkimus, tulkinta, kieli ja kielet, kielenkäyttö
Description: The paper provides novel theoretical and experimental perspectives on the functioning of linguistic vagueness as an implicit persuasive strategy. It presents an operative definition of pragmatically marked vagueness, referring to vague expressions whose interpretation is not retrievable by recipients. The phenomenon is illustrated via numerous examples of its use in predominantly persuasive texts (i.e., advertising and political propaganda) in different languages. The psycholinguistic functioning of vague expressions is then illustrated by the results of a self-paced reading task experiment. Data showing shorter reading times associated with markedly vague expressions as compared to expressions that are either (a) lexically more precise or (b) made precise by the context suggest that the former are interpreted in a shallow way, without searching for and/or retrieving exact referents. These results support the validity of a differentiation between context-supported vs. non-supported vague expressions. Furthermore, validation of using marked vagueness as a persuasive implicit strategy which reduces epistemic vigilance is provided. ; peerReviewed
Document Type: article in journal/newspaper
File Description: application/pdf; fulltext
Language: English
ISSN: 1612-4782
Relation: Cognitive Processing; Early online
Availability: http://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:jyu-202402071777
Rights: CC BY 4.0 ; © 2024 the Authors ; openAccess ; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Accession Number: edsbas.9D4FD833
Database: BASE
Description
Abstract:The paper provides novel theoretical and experimental perspectives on the functioning of linguistic vagueness as an implicit persuasive strategy. It presents an operative definition of pragmatically marked vagueness, referring to vague expressions whose interpretation is not retrievable by recipients. The phenomenon is illustrated via numerous examples of its use in predominantly persuasive texts (i.e., advertising and political propaganda) in different languages. The psycholinguistic functioning of vague expressions is then illustrated by the results of a self-paced reading task experiment. Data showing shorter reading times associated with markedly vague expressions as compared to expressions that are either (a) lexically more precise or (b) made precise by the context suggest that the former are interpreted in a shallow way, without searching for and/or retrieving exact referents. These results support the validity of a differentiation between context-supported vs. non-supported vague expressions. Furthermore, validation of using marked vagueness as a persuasive implicit strategy which reduces epistemic vigilance is provided. ; peerReviewed
ISSN:16124782