Abstract

 

This paper presents theoretical and empirical analyses of metadiscursive strategies (MSs) of deceptive communication among Japanese speakers. MSs are speaker’s attempts to conceal the uncooperativeness of their responses in a conversation (Galasiński, 2000), and are frequently observed in a specific type of situation called avoidance-avoidance conflict (AAC), where “the only available direct messages are negative, yet a reply must be made” (Bavelas et al., 1990, p.57). Analyses of MS contribute to the examination of the “cooperative nature of communication” (Tomasello, 2003, 2008) through illustrating how people generate and interpret rather uncooperative messages in communication.

 

Theoretical and Discourse Analyses: First, the paper proposes a theoretical framework in which pragmatic mechanism of MS can be explained. It argues that MSs (categorized into “Implicit misrepresentation of propositional content,” “Manipulations of felicity conditions of speech acts,” “concealing evasion,” and “concealing direct attack”) are speakers’ intentional attempts to shift “joint-attention” frameworks (Baron-Cohen, 1995; Clark, 1996) and create a new and “pretended” cognitive framework in which the original utterance encourages the hearer to reach an implicature favorable to the speaker. Effective MSs would establish this by pretending the speaker’s cooperativeness (and concealing their uncooperativeness), and the purpose of the study is to reveal different linguistic features of MSs that help achieve the above mentioned goals. In the presentation, analyses of actually discourses, including dialogues from Japanese parliament debate, will be discussed in details.

 

Quasi-Experimental Study: The paper also reports the results of an empirical study that observed how Japanese speakers perceive “deceptiveness” and “evasiveness” in different types of metadiscursive strategies. The study employs a quasi-experimental design in which participants are asked to rate different types of metadicsursive strategies of deception on a series of 5-point Likert scales. The variables to be measured include perceived “deceptiveness” (i.e., “truthfulness,” “sincerity,” “evasiveness,” “deceptiveness,” etc.) and their “attitudes” toward the strategies (i.e., “acceptability,” “forgivability,” etc.). Also, individuals’ “cognitive complexity” (measured in terms of “perspective-taking” & “empathy competence”) will be analyzed in its influence on people’s sensitivity to deceptive messages. The paper will present the results of statistical analyses (ANOVA and Correlational analyses) and discuss the cultural influences on Japanese speakers’ usage and perception of metadiscursive strategies of deception.

 

 

References

Baron-Cohen, Simon. (1995). Mindblindness: an Essay on Autism and Theory of Mind. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Bavelas, Janet Beavin. (2009) Equivocation. In H. T. Reis & S. Sprecher (eds.), Encyclopedia of Human Relationships, Vol. 1, pp.537-539. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Bavelas, Janet Beavin, Alex Black, Nicole Choivil, and Jennifer Mullet. (1990) Truths, Lies, and Equivocations: The Effects of Conflicting Goals on Discourse. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 9: pp.135-161.

Clark, Harbert H. (1996). Using Language. Cambridge, xx: Cambridge University Press.

Galasiński, Dariusz. (1996) Deceptiveness of Evasion. Text, 16 (1): pp.1-22.

Galasiński, Dariusz. (2000) The Language of Deception: a Discourse Analytical Study. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Grice, Paul H. (1975) Logic and Conversation. In P. Cole and J. L. Morgan (eds.), Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech Acts, pp. 41-58. New York: Academic Press.

Jacobs, Scott. (1995) Implicatures and Deception in the Arguments of Commercial Advertising. In F. H. van Eemeren, R. Grootendorst, J. A. Blair & C. A. Willard (eds.), Special Fields and Cases: Proceedings of the Third ISSA Conference on Argumentation, vol. IV, pp.579-592. Amsterdam: SIC SAT.

Jacobs, Scott. (2002) Language and Interpersonal Communication. In M. Knapp and J. A. Daly (eds.), Handbook of Interpersonal Communication (3rd ed.), pp.213-239. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Polcar, Leah, and Scott Jacobs. (1999) Evasion in Question-Answer Argumentation: An Empirical Extension. Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference of the International Society for the Study of Argumentation: pp.650-654.

Tomasello, Michael. (2003) Constructing a Language: A Usage-Based Theory of Language Acquisition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Tomasello, Michael. (2008) Origins of Human Communication. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.