Ideology and the Persuasive Use of Presupposition

Abstract

Abstract This paper shows that presupposition can be used to convey new information and to achieve persuasion, particularly in fields pertaining to ideology. Informative presupposition and its persuasive use are illustrated by examples drawn from political news in Italian daily newspapers. The received account of pragmatic presupposition is challenged as unable to yield a plausible explanation of these phenomena. It is argued that pragmatic presupposition and presupposition accommodation should not be given two separate accounts, the one correcting and integrating the other, but presupposition should be recognized as being one and the same phenomenon, whether the presupposed content is already shared or new. It is then proposed to consider presuppositions not as shared assumptions, but as assumptions which ought to be shared. This helps account for the persuasive function that they may serve. Presupposition explicitation is indicated as a viable strategy for contrasting uncritical persuasion.