Monday, 5 November 2018

Sornig, Karl (1989) “Some remarks on linguistic strategies of persuasion” in Language, Power and Ideology: Studies in Political Discourse (ed.) Ruth Wodak: 95-113. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.


1. RHETORICAL USE OF LANGUAGE

Persuasion mus pre-eminently be seen as a stylistic procedure. – 96

Words can, in fact, be used as instruments of power and deception, but it is never the words themselves that should be dubbed evil and poisonous, as has become the fashion since the days of F. Mauthner. The responsibility for any damage that might have been done by using certain means of expressions still lies with the users, those who, not being able to alter the reality, try – through interpretative strategies – to change its reception and recognition by their interlocutors. – 96

By impressing or surprising somebody, the persuader tries to make his victim give up his own viewpoint and embrace that of the rhetorician, whereas in the case of flattery and the acting out of chummiess the recipient is convinced that persuader has given up his/her own point of view in favour of that of the persuaded. What is even more effective is when the victim gets the impression that both partners have had the same outlook on reality from the very beginning, in which case the persuader is regarded and accepted as one of the victim’s near and dear. – 96

1.1  Conviction vs. Seduction
1.2  Interlude on intelligibility
1.2.1     Coercive strategies
1.3  Instability of meaning and reduction of semantic content as a result of focusing and attempts at intensification
2. ARGUMENTATION
2.3 Don’t argue, quote
3. PERSUASIVE GRAMMAR
3.4 Phonetics and the magic power of similarity
4. THE LEXICON OF PERSUASION
4.1 The magic of tautology
4.2 Paraphrase
4.2.1 Euphemism
4.3 Semantic shift, albeit transitory, but with purpose
4.5 Key-words and their connotative force
4.5.1 Neologism
5. REMARKABLE UNMARKEDNESS: Simulation of reality of minds by imitation of linguistic variants of intimacy: the persuasive power of mame losn.

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