MANIPULATIVE AND METACOMMUNICATIVE MODEL OF ENGLISH PUBLIC DISCOURSE

Abstract

The article identifies “manipulative and metacommunicative model of English discourse” as a modification of cognitive and discourse model of English manipulative metacommunication; moreover, this modification is stated to be necessary. It indicates the interrelation between such terms as “manipulative influence” and “rhetoric influence”. The research proves the appropriateness of characterizing public speeches as “manipulative” and “metacommunicative”. It distinguishes two stages of manipulative and metacommunicative modelling: a manipulative (cognitive) and a metacommunicative (discourse) blocks; notably, a manipulative block comprises the chain of cognitive operations that represent the choice of manipulative techniques through the prism of metapragmatic awareness; whereas a metacommunicative block outlines the discourse strategies and tactics. It establishes that metadiscourse devices are the ones that link the two afore-mentioned blocks. The qualitative analysis confirms that the most widespread meta-means in political discourse are regulative, phatic, and reflective, which, used in the scope of emotional, social and speech manipulations, display the realization of different manipulative tactics: illusion, emotional “infecting”, infusing, emotional persuading, (pseudo)argumentation, imitation, and vague hinting. The article also discovers that regulative meta-means (MKs) are used to better present and express the speaker’s opinion in order to make political speeches rhetorically enchanting; phatic MKs are targeted to establish contact with the audience in the very beginning of the speech, to maintain its attention during the speech and to close it up effectively; and reflective MKs, particularly addressing MKs, highlight the reflections of the speaker, both his/her own and those which might be the listeners’ ones, introduce some comments. It also finds out that the speaker has to evoke empathy in the audience, to make it feel that the speaker is sure in what she/he is saying and she/he shares the feelings and its expectations.