Curative or beauty treatment? Language and manipulation in leaflets of medical devices

Abstract

AbstractThe aim of the paper is to examine the mechanisms of potential (cognitive) manipulation used in the leaflets of selected medical devices. The assumption is that in the texts under analysis some of the Gricean conversational maxims are violated in an attempt at discursive manipulation or can be perceived as violated by the reader, which is favoured by activation of certain idealized cognitive models (ICMs). For the purposes of the study leaflets of four antifungal medical devices – their English- and German-language versions – are examined. The theoretical basis is mainly centred on the Gricean notion of implicature and the contemporary theory of conceptual metaphor and metonymy. The texts are analysed at relevant sub-tiers (for instance metaphor-metonymy conceptual tier) of particularly the sectional and conceptual tier. The examination of the selected leaflets reveals that the texts evoke certain ICMs whose presence seems to result – in 3 out of 4 leaflets – from, to a large extent, the intention to at least bend some Gricean maxims. Hence, the reader might be under the impression that the product does something that is not explicitly promised.