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

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 recipient...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cognitive processing Vol. 25; no. 2; pp. 205 - 227
Main Authors: Mannaioli, Giorgia, Ansani, Alessandro, Coppola, Claudia, Lombardi Vallauri, Edoardo
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.05.2024
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects:
Adult
Artificial Intelligence
Behavioral Sciences
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Biomedicine
Female
Humans
Language
Male
Neurosciences
Persuasive Communication
Psycholinguistics
Reaction Time - physiology
Reading
Research Article
Young Adult
Vagueness
Self-paced reading experiment
Implicit persuasion strategies
Shallow processing
ISSN:1612-4782, 1612-4790, 1612-4790
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary: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.
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ISSN:1612-4782
1612-4790
1612-4790
DOI:10.1007/s10339-023-01171-z