Persuasive Force Research Articles

Argument, Inference, and Persuasion

This paper distinguishes between two types of persuasive force arguments can have in terms of two different connections between arguments and inferences. First, borrowing from Pinto (in Argument, inference, and dialectic, Kluwer Academic Pub, Dordrecht, 2001), an arguer's invitation to inference directly persuades an addressee if the addressee performs an inference that the arguer invites. This raises the question of how invited inferences are determined by an invitation to inference. Second, borrowing from Sorenson (J Philos 88:245–266, 1991), an arguer's invitation to inference indirectly persuades an addressee if the addressee performs an inference guided by the argument even though it is uninvited. This raises the question of how an invitation to inference can guide inferences that the arguer does not use the argument to invite. Focusing on belief-inducing inference, the primary aims here are (i) to clarify what is necessary for an addressee's belief-inducing inference to be invited by an argument used as an instrument of persuasion; and (ii) to highlight the capacity of arguments to guide such inferences. The paper moves beyond Pinto's (2001) discussion by using Boghossian's (Philos Stud 169:1–18, 2014) Taking Condition in service of (i) and (ii) in way that illustrates how epistemically bad arguments can rationally persuade addressees of their conclusions.

Constructing leadership through translating im/politeness

Abstract The use of im/politeness in political discourse has attracted relatively little attention in im/politeness scholarship (Tracy 2017). The study examines how the character of a leader may be intra-/cross-culturally reshaped, in translated drama, through the use of im/politeness strategies. To this end, the study examines the use of im/politeness strategies in two Greek versions (Belies 1997; Karthaios 2004) of William Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar. Etic and emic approaches to the data show differences in the way the character of Brutus is portrayed, by the translators’ manipulating im/politeness strategies in his discourse. The study uses the ‘horizontal’ dimension of intimacy/distance and the ‘vertical’ dimension of power (Spencer-Oatey 1996) to show that the first translation (Karthaios 2004) shows Brutus to be making use of a less impressive persuasive strategy when addressing the public, the second translation (Belies 1997) seems to show Brutus’ potential to express intimacy towards the public, which made the persuasive force of his discourse more convincing. The study shows that im/politeness is a significant tool in the hands of translators who shape the identity of the leader and that translated versions of a playtext can fruitfully show preferred patterns of behaviour which may be pointing to cultural patterns of interaction.

RHETORIC AND HOMILETICS: CONCEPTS OF PREACHER’S PERSONALITY

The theme of this article is the concept of the preacher in the process of modern communication. The requirements for orators, which were set up in Antiquity, constantly changed depending on the period, style of the epoch, social environment, the perception of rhetoric, its purpose, etc. In the middle of the 20th century the New Rhetoric was formed, which acquired the pragmatic features and became closely related to practical communication, paid great attention to the body language of the orator often neglecting the value orientation of the orator as the basis of the persuasion. New challenges to rhetorical communication are also presented by the media, with their visual accents diminishing the need to use a variety of rhetorical stylistic devices to enhance persuasive force. One of the most complex and mysterious types of rhetoric is religious rhetoric, whose characteristics depend on the specificity of confession, the level of philosophy and theology of particular epoch, interpretations, the liturgy of Mass, as well as on the sender of the main message − the personality of the preacher, orientation of his values, temperament, characteristics of the non-verbal language. The purpose of this article is to discuss some of the concepts of the orator-preacher personality (S. Freud, C.G. Jung, E. Berne), and also to look at the features of the body language. The classical and contemporary conceptions of the orator, the general requirements to his mastery, the concepts of the preacher’s personality and some specificity of the body language in preaching will be discussed to achieve this goal. In Lithuania, the concept of spiritual personality was discussed by P.K. Jaunius, non-verbal body language was analyzed by V.S. Vaiciūnas, the traditional concept of the orator was discussed by R. Koženiauskienė, etc. Lithuanian scholarly works mostly deal with the specificity of homilies created prior to the 20th century (E. Ulcinaitė, J. Pajėdienė, K. Maciulytė, P. Subacius). The research will be based on the works by W. Engemann, R. Koženiauskienė, V.S. Vaiciūnas, E. Peciulis, D. Zarefsky, and others. The comparative methodology will be used.

The Moral Contract, Sympathy and Becoming Human: A Response to Michael Hand’s A Theory of Moral Education

Michael Hand argues that at least some moral standards can be robustly justified and that because of this educators can legitimately cultivate subscription to those standards and teach with the intention of bringing about belief in their justification (that is to say, teach ‘directively’). The first claim depends on Hand's presentation and defence of a version of moral contractarianism in Chapter Five of A Theory of Moral Education (2018). Given that the well-trodden objections to moral contract theory have taken up so many pages of philosophical argument, I confess to finding it somewhat surprising that in only a few short pages Hand feels that he has demonstrated that the contractarian argument is ‘beyond serious dispute’ (p. 69). He may well have achieved this; I will leave it to philosophers better versed in the various controversies to evaluate whether Hand has adequately responded to the most well-known objections. For my part, I would like to suggest a specifically educational objection to the contractarian position Hand advances. I propose to consider what the endeavour of educating into the moral contract would entail, and argue that Hand's position loses persuasive force precisely where one might imagine it most ‘counts’ educationally. I will then briefly elaborate an alternative approach to morality in an education centrally concerned not with the ‘transmission of knowledge’ but with becoming human.

Odra w Pruszkowie i w fantazjach użytkowników lokalnych grup w mediach społecznościowych. Analiza metodą motywu fantazjowania

Celem artykułu jest zaprezentowanie w praktyce jednej z metod krytyki retorycznej: metody motywu fantazjowania. Została ona zaprojektowana przede wszystkim z myślą o analizowaniu narracji tworzonych grupowo (w obrębie „wspólnot retorycznych”), w toku interakcji społecznych. Przedmiotem analizy są budowane w mediach społecznościowych narracje o „epidemii odry” na Mazowszu w listopadzie 2018 roku. Materiał zaczerpnięto głównie z grup w mediach społecznościowych, których twórcami i adresatami są mieszkańcy Pruszkowa, Grodziska, Brwinowa i okolicznych miejscowości. W narracjach tych wyodrębniono „motywy fantazjowania” i postarano się zrekonstruować różne „retoryczne wizje” (na przykład „tylko ciemnogród nie szczepi dzieci”, „szczepionka nie chroni przed zachorowaniem”, „odrę najlepiej jest po prostu przechorować”). Motywy i retoryczne wizje z dyskursu lokalnego porównano następnie z dyskursem na poziomie narodowym i globalnym. Wnioski dotyczą perswazyjnej skuteczności retorycznych wizji.

On the calculation of the strength of threats

Threats are used in persuasive negotiation dialogues when a proponent agent tries to persuade an opponent of him to accept a proposal. Depending on the information the proponent has modeled about his opponent(s), he may generate more than one threat, in which case he has to evaluate them in order to select the most adequate to be sent. One way to evaluate the generated threats is by calculating their strengths, i.e., the persuasive force of each threat. Related work considers mainly two criteria to do such evaluation: the certainty level of the beliefs that compose the threat and the importance of the goal of the opponent. This article aims to study the components of threats and propose further criteria that lead to improve their evaluation and to select more effective threats during the dialogue. Thus, the contribution of this paper is a model for calculating the strength of threats that is mainly based on the status of the goal of the opponent and the credibility of the proponent. The model is empirically evaluated and the results demonstrate that the proposed model is more efficient than previous works in terms of the number of exchanged arguments, and the number of reached agreements.

“You” and “I” in a foreign land: The persuasive force of generic-you

Norms help people navigate their social lives, dictating what behaviors are typical, expected, or valued in a given context. Here we suggest that a subtle linguistic cue—the generic usage of the word “you” (i.e., “you” that refers to people in general rather than to one or more specific individuals) carries persuasive force, influencing how people discern unfamiliar norms. Across five experiments (N = 800), people endorsed unfamiliar behaviors described with generic-you (e.g., “You share them with your friends”) as more normatively correct than behaviors expressed with ‘I’ (e.g., “I share them with my family”) or third-person singular pronouns (“he” or “she”; e.g., “She shares them with her family”). These effects persisted even when participants were told that their informants were highly knowledgeable about the norms. Together, these findings indicate that generic-you functions as a linguistic nudge that carries persuasive force. Broadly, they add to a growing body of literature on how subtle linguistic shifts can meaningfully influence social cognition.

Donne Rethinks Misogyny

IT IS HARD TO ADMIRE DONNE’S POETRY as one used to forty or fifty years ago. Stanley Fish has forcefully and, for many, effectively argued a hostile account of the poet as someone obsessed by ‘the power words can exert’. The poems are preeminently occasions on which this power can be exercised; they report on its exercise and stage it again in the reporting, and when one asks about a moment in the poetry, ‘Why is it thus?’ the answer will always be: ‘In order further to secure the control and domination the poet and his surrogates continually seek’.1 Since many of Donne’s poems concern women, Fish inevitably sees Donne as a poet setting out to control and dominate women through language; this is the reality of his ‘masculine persuasive force’. While dismissing earlier, positive, accounts of Donne, such as Anne Ferry’s, that he ‘labors to realize a modern conception of the inner life’, or Thomas Docherty’s, that he is ‘rigorously skeptical, endlessly self-critical, posing more questions than he answers’, as forms of ‘romance’, Fish maintains that there is a fundamental sickness to all Donne’s poetry, for ‘the lesson of masculine persuasive force is that it can only be deployed at the cost of everything it purports to incarnate – domination, independence, assertion, masculinity itself’.2

Judicial Responses to Violations of the Emotional, Physical, Psychological and Sexual Integrity of the Child

This article examines the use of limitation laws in the context of civil law claims under English law and Scots law brought by adult claimants in relation to allegations of historical abuse in childhood. Using case law as a barometer of judicial attitudes towards such claimants and, by extension, towards the child victims of abuse themselves, differences in judicial approach between the two jurisdictions are critically assessed, entailing some weighing and evaluation of the argumentative coherence and persuasive force of the judicial decision-making in question. Key aspects of the discussion are framed in terms of recurrent issues that have arisen in relevant case law. The overall aim is to inform a wider debate about the success or failure of civil law mechanisms of redress in rendering justice to those whose right to emotional, physical, psychological or sexual integrity has been violated in childhood.

Metaphor and Kwame Nkrumah’s construction of the unite or perish myth: a discourse-mythological analysis

ABSTRACT This article presents a discourse-mythological analysis of how Kwame Nkrumah, a pioneering Pan-African and Ghana’s independence leader, exploits metaphor to formulate and promote a univocal and an ideologically marked narrative that says Africa must necessarily unite as a confederation or be doomed forever. Using critical metaphor analysis as an analytic framework and a dataset of twenty speeches, the study focuses on the discursive construction of the Unite or Perish myth, how it is naturalized into public consciousness and the embedded ideological meaning in such discourse. The analysis demonstrates that Nkrumah systematically utilizes war, religious and journey metaphors via a (de)legitimation strategy that serves a twofold purpose of resisting colonialism and imperialism and advocating a Union Government of Africa. The persuasive force or ideological function of these metaphors is heightened by their interaction with other rhetorical tropes and schemes such as contrast and rhetorical question. By providing insight into the use of language in the service of myth, this study echoes the crucial role of metaphor in realizing the discourse goals of political speeches and, more broadly, how politics is performed and conceptualized.

STRUCTURE AND PERSUASION IN SUETONIUS’DE VITA CAESARVM

At the sentence level Suetonius often appears to be neutral, but I argue here that the persuasive force in the arrangement of his material creates a portrait that is absolutely not neutral. As David Wardle put it in a 2016 review, ‘Anyone who reads Suetonius without regard to the careful structures within which the biographer places his material can produce almost any picture.’ Yet these ‘careful structures’ are a mystery known only to the initiated. This paper lays out the complex and varied ways in which Suetonius uses structure, specifically the ‘rubric system’ of arranging his material under subheadings and those subheadings in sequences, in the hope that with this knowledge we see more accurately what ‘picture’ the biographer creates.

Sexuality as a promotion of Power: How the Chief Wife becomes a Means of Persuasion in the Vedic Rhetoric on Kingship

In the ancient South Asian texts about ritual known as Saṃhitā s and Brāhmaṇa s, the wives of the king play an interesting role in terms of bodily actions and ritual rhetoric. Especially the so-called “chief wife” ( mahi ṣ ī ) is described as a central and liminal player who serves as a sexual counterpart of the king at the main solemn rituals, i.e. Aśvamedha and Rājasūya, involving the travel of a horse in unconquered lands and the royal consecration, respectively. In this essay I suggest that the construction of female sexuality is a crucial point to fix the boundaries around the notion of authority, not only that of the king, but also that of his practitioner, i.e. the brāhmaṇa or purohita . From this starting point I suggest also that the chief wife of the king may be reconsidered as one of the most strategic actor on a ritual and political stage. I will try to show that the mahiṣī ’s sexual function in the ritual exegesis had gained value, in connection with the attempt to deify the human primus inter pares of the political organisation, i.e. the king. More specifically, I will deal with the ritual language and codification concerning the mahiṣī ’s sexuality in order to illustrate the formulation of her body in the rituals prescribed in the Brāhmaṇas about solemn rites. I will discuss how the persuasive force of description and prescription about her bodily actions served as a means of persuasion in displaying the king’s power. Finally, I suggest rethinking the role of gender in royal rituals from the perspective of literary criticism.

‘I shall prosecute a ruthless war on these monsters … ’: a critical metaphor analysis of discourse of resistance in the rhetoric of Kwame Nkrumah

ABSTRACTIn recent years, studies on discourses of resistance in politics have become prevalent, focusing mainly on the language of radical movements and rebel groups, but not the discourses on colonialism, imperialism, and repression which can be considered as potential sites for discourses of resistance. To fill this gap, this paper critically explores how an independence leader utilized metaphor to construct a discourse of resistance against colonialism and imperialism. It analyzes a number of speeches delivered by Kwame Nkrumah, a pioneering Pan-African and Ghana's independence leader, using a combination of models, including critical metaphor analysis and membership categorization analysis. The analysis illustrates that Nkrumah deployed war/conflict/military and religious metaphors in conjunction with other discursive strategies such as labeling or stereotyping, category work, sentimentalism, victim-playing, and negative other-presentation to formulate a resistance discourse against colonialism and imperialism. These metaphors were exploited through representations of (e)vilification, enemification, demonization, freedom and justice, and attack and defense. This paper provides insight into the use of language in the service of resistance and activism, thereby demonstrating that the use of metaphor by political actors serves manipulative and/or ideological purposes (rather than achieving a literary/stylistic effect) and illustrating that metaphor is essential to a leader's persuasive force.

The use of interactive advertisement for the purposes of social marketing

The introduction of social marketing as a science began in 1970, when Philip Kotler and Gerald Zaltman introduced the idea that marketing principles used to market ordinary consumer products could be used to market ideas, attitudes and behavior. Problem statement: In light of the importance of social marketing, and in light of the scarcity of interest in studies on the factors affecting the effectiveness of social marketing, this study seeks to identify the factors affecting the effectiveness of social marketing through interactive advertising. The problem of research is to answer the following questions: to what extent can social marketing through interactive advertising contribute to the relationship between the recipient and the social marketing advert or advertising service and enhance his mental image? How can the good design of social marketing ads contribute to the interaction and attractiveness of the recipient? To what extent does modern technology affect interactive advertising in the development of the idea of advertising and especially influential ideas in society? Research objective: The research aims to benefit from different technology in interactive advertising in social marketing and from the development of advertising idea in achieving the desired effect on the recipient. Recognize the standards and strategies of the interactive advertising and its impact on social marketing campaigns. Research method: The descriptive approach followed by the analytical approach, followed by the experimental approach to verify the validity of research hypotheses. Results: Interactive advertising has the ability to deliver social marketing messages more effectively and effectively. The evolution of information technology in the field of interactive advertising has led to the development of new technologies to deliver the advertising message to social marketing areas. The use of interactive advertising in the areas of social marketing in different techniques contributes to the success of social marketing campaigns significantly. The interactive advertising in the fields of social marketing achieve the element of gravity through formal criteria such as concept and form, and achieve the basics of design and dazzling media. The tremendous technological development has worked on the diversity of raw materials and technologies that can be used and integrated with interactive advertising to the extent that it is difficult to limit it with the pursuit of new methods and materials. Interactive three methods: human interaction with human - human interaction with the message - human interaction with the machine. Increased community need for some new ideas that contribute to changing negative habits under technological development. Interactive advertising is a persuasive force in urging the recipient to interact with it more than other means of advertising. Combining the features of interactive advertising and social marketing areas achieve the highest level of psychological impact of the message and the positive impact on the recipient.

Analysis of an epidemic model with peer-pressure and information-dependent transmission with high-order distributed delay

In this paper, we propose and analyze a behavioral model for the spread of high-risk alcohol consumption. The model is given by ordinary differential equations and includes a convex ‘force of persuasion’ that mimics the peer-pressure. We also assume that the transmission rate depends on the current and the past history of alcohol abuse prevalence in the community and that the weight given to the past history is described by an n-order Erlangian kernel. We perform a qualitative analysis based on stability and bifurcation theory. We show that multiple endemic equilibria may coexist and that backward bifurcation takes place when the peer-pressure is strong enough. We also use a Lyapunov stability approach to find sufficient conditions ensuring that the alcohol-free equilibrium is globally stable.

Devalorizarea semantică a cuvintelor în publicitatea sportivă

Sport is one of the rituals of modern life. It reunites appropriate words when engaging in advertising, but the number of terms is rather limited. The ads prefer to include the image of a sports personality and brand name. Since the advertising hero is notorious, the persuasive force is assured by few verbal arguments. Typically, the pictures speak for themselves, joining a musical background and some funny instances. Words, which normally send so much information, are subjected to a gradual semantic loss. Our paper intends to comment upon this worrying aspect of vocabulary dynamics, highlighting terms used in spots (i.e. myth, legend, team, success, value, passion, good, thrilling etc.) but whose significance goes unnoticed or is misunderstood by the public. Our purpose is to illustrate the crisis of language and communication. They do not decompose like in the case of absurd literature, but become platitudes for a segment of the audience either ignorant or illiterate.

Persuasion by numbers: How does numeral marking of arguments in bad news letters influence persuasion?

To what extent does numbering the reasons for a negative decision influence the persuasive force of the text? That is the focus of this study, in which we report an experiment (with 265 participants) wherein the direct effects and the indirect effects of numeral markings are analyzed in two linguistic contexts: in the introduction of the upcoming enumeration of reasons (the so-called ‘trigger’) and in the lead-ins of the successive reasons of the enumeration itself. The experiment was conducted within the framework of the Elaboration Likelihood Model (Petty and Cacioppo, 1984) and the Schematic Text Structural Expectations Hypothesis (Sanders and Noordman, 2000; Mulder, 2008). Adding numeral markers in both trigger and lead-ins turns out to enhance the persuasiveness of the text in several ways. It stimulates readers to elaborate more on the content of the reasons. It helps readers to scrutinize the reasons and stimulates recall, which contributes to a more balanced judgment. The markings also have a direct positive effect on persuasiveness, which points to an effect on low elaborating readers. Furthermore, inconsistent implementation of numeral markings (the combination of a numeral trigger with non-numeral lead-ins or a non-numeral trigger with numeral lead-ins) has a negative indirect effect on persuasiveness via text evaluation. This effect is explained by assuming that the Schematic Text Structural Expectations Hypothesis not only applies to text processing, but to text evaluation as well.

Rhetoric and Economics, Analysis and History

Rhetoric and Economics, Analysis and History

“We can’t wait for the bugs to spread” rhetorics of time, space and biosecurity in global health law

ABSTRACTWork on global health law is often based on a diffusionist and functionalist model which sees legal initiatives from ‘centres’, such as Washington or Geneva, responding to new disease threats and a lack of capacity at the ‘periphery’, say in Sierra Leone or southern China. This approach overlooks the significance of national institutions and contexts, and neglects the rhetorical dimension of global governance, obscuring the influence of colonial idioms and practices. This paper proposes an alternative model, based on nodal governance theory, capable of accounting for these neglected dimensions. It argues that global health interventions are structured discursively by a range of spatio-temporal figures (‘chronotopes’) which have persuasive force owing to their wider historic resonances. This is explored through the example of a 2010 United States effort to secure pathogens stored in East African research laboratories against terrorist groups. A high-level team argued that Congress should fund training and infrastructure. The case was shaped rhetorically by various chronotopes including that of Africa as a natural source of disease, the ‘regression’ of states in the region to failed status, and the ineffectiveness of national borders after globalisation.

The Persuasive Force of Demanding

ABSTRACT Demanding is a fundamental rhetorical strategy for marginalized groups, but recent rhetorical theories of demanding have not explained how speakers can design demands that influence addressees to accede. Although psychoanalytic and decolonial theories have identified constitutive functions, they have not explained how speakers can design demands that pressure addressees to accede, and while speech act theories have explained specific kinds of demands, they have not synthesized insights into a model of demanding generally. We draw on normative pragmatic theory to argue that speakers design demands that generate persuasive force by openly making visible their intent to influence addressees to accede and bringing to bear a reciprocal obligation for themselves and addressees to live up to the norm of “right makes might.”