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ELL: Language Persuasion and

Authority
Created @October 2, 2023 9:08 PM

Class Language Meaning Power

Type Lecture

Reviewed

Week 3: Transitivity

How language is used as a tool to persuade people in the present day and
historically

Persuasion can occur at local level and larger, institutional level

Being more critical when youre being persuaded

Important concepts:

Representation

how languge represent the world. We may choose soe words over the
others, depends on the aspects of what we’re referring to (ie. conotations)

We may choose to include or exclude things

Thus representations are always biased and partial (because we cant

represent everything at once)

Ideology

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 Derives from taken-for-granted, assumptions, beliefes, and value systems
which are shared collectively by social groups. As such, when a particular
group of people has a particular ideology, then it is said to be dominant

LPA Toolbox:

Identify when language is being used strategically to persuade

Transitivity

Modality

Presupposition

Semantics

Levels of language

Phonology

Lexis/grammar

Semantics

Primary functions of a language:

Represent our internal and external world

We make use language resources to represent the world

Transitivity analysis: Configuring an experience

Who did what to whom

Processes, participants, circumstances

Circumstances: Space, Time, Manner, Reason

Configuring an experience, example:

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 The man cut down the tree on Wednesday
Participant (material) Process Participant Circumstance

Process types and participants

(focus on semantics, involves interpretation > argument)

Material process: occur in the external world. Participant: ACTOR

The man cut down the tree on Wednesday

Participant (material) Process Participant (Goal) Circumstance

Mental process: occur in our own consciousness. Participant: SENSER |

Object: PHENOMENON

eg. Onlookers (senser) were aghast (mental process) at the wanton

destruction (phenomenon)

voluntary: intention process / involuntary: supervention

Verbalization process: refer to where a message is being relayed. Participant:

SAYER | Object: target | What is said: verbiage

The man (sayer) told the Guardian. (target) ‘it’s just a tree’ (verbiage)

Relational process: characterise or identify something. Participant: CARRIER |

Going ons:

The tree (carrier) was (relational proces) one of the UK’s famous trees
(attribute)

POSSESIVE:

The man (carrier) had (relational process) a large axe (attribute) hidden
in his shed (circumstance)

intensive: x is a

circumstancial: is at a,

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 participants have different names in different types!

Maximising/minimising authority

Can emphasise authority and agency of certain participants

e.g. Use active or passive voice

Max./Min. responsibility

shift responsibility to unconventional participants (e.g. non-animate

participant)

can reduce the agency of the actual actor/sayer/carrier, etc. AKA

foregrounding or backgrounding them

eg. the active vs passive voice eg.

The man felled the beloved tree (active)

The beloved tree was felled by a man (passive)

or exclude the participant (actor in this case) entirely. > the beloved tree
was felled (AGENTLESS PASSIVE)

Using inanimate participant

The man (actor) hacked away (mat. process) at the famous tree (goal)

compare with:

The 300 year old tree (actor) toppled (material process)

Intention process and supervention process

the man (actor) took an axe to (material process) the beloved tree (goal)

compare with

the man caused damage to the tree (lower degree of volition, sounds
accidental)

Transitivity and ideology

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 choice in transitivity can provide insights into the worldview of language
users (the transitivity model provides one means of investigating how a
reader/listener’s perception are being led a certain way)

eg. House prices soar to record high… 1) house prices dont raise on their
own, so its an inanimate object 2) no agent

Week 4: Modality

We are interested in how people use resources in language to strategically

persuade other people

Linguistic representations of the world are always biased and partial

It can also provide insight into dominant ideologies in society

LPA toolbox: Transitivity and Modality

Modality

Refers to a part of language which allows us to attach expressions of belief,

attitude, and obligation to what we say and write (Simpson)

The speaker’s judgement, or request of the judgement to the listener (Halliday

and Matthiessen)

Two types of meaning in an utterance

Dictum: What is stated. Can be judged if its true or false

Modus: The speaker’s (modal) point of view.

Eg. Should, Obviously

Modality can be linguistically realised in different ways:

Verbs of knowing, predicting, or evaluating

Eg. think, know, believe, fear, approve, guess

I suppose a giraffe’s tongue is purple

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 My mate is sure that girafe’s tongue is purple

I know that it’s purple

Sentence adverbs

Eg. possibly, fortunately, clearly, maybe

A giraffe’s tongue is purple, maybe?

Modal Auxiliary Verbs

Eg. can, could, shall, should, will, would, may, might, ought to, dares to,
needs to

Can I write down that it’s purple?

You ought to put down purple

Evaluative adjectives and adverbs

Eg. Regrettably, unfortunate, good/bad

Purple was a fantastic answer

It was regrettable that you wrote down blue

Evaluative nouns

Eg. Idiot, thug, hero, spinster, experts

You’re the hero in our team

Only an idiot would think that

Multiple modal markers:

I think I heard that experts have found a giraffe’s tongue

might have been orange

Four types of modality

Epistemic

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 Derived from the Greek ‘episteme’ (meaning knowledge)

expresses CERTAINTY / POSSIBILITY

demonstrates confidence about TRUTH / LIKELIHOOD

eg. A giraffe’s tongue might/probably/must be purple

Modality is SCALAR (it can be strong or weak [modality])

Perception

Expresses the perception of individuals

Often regarded as a subcategory of epistemic modality

eg. It is apparent that a giraffe’s tongue is purple

I saw that a giraffe’s tongue is purple

Obviously it’s purple

(has to do with some sort of evidence) Least certain to most certain

Deontic

Derived from Greek ‘deon’ (meaning “what is binding”)

demonstrates OBLIGATION / DUTY / EXPECTATIONS

it expresses opinion as to how things should be

eg. You may write down purple

You should write down purple

You must write down purple

(can also apply to yourself, doesn't have to be other people/‘you’)

Boulomaic

Derived from Greek ‘boulomai’ (meaning “wish”)

expresses DESIRE / WANTS / WISHES / HOPES

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 It is closely related to deontic as it expresses a desired state of being
(Simpson)

eg. I’d like to write down purple

I want to write down purple
I’m desperate to write down purple

A warning: Modal Ambiguity

there is no one-to-one mapping between modal auxiliaries

Context is important

Consider:

You may see them….. if you put your glasses on

Meaning: (It’s possible that) you will see them if you put
your glasses on

You may see them….. in twenty minutes

Meaning: (You are allowed to) see them in twenty minutes

How is modality used to persuade?

Authority:

For deontic mobility to be successful, it must be issued from a strong

power base

Deontic modality can therefore enact authority in texts

eg. You should do more exercise

You can take anything you want from this shop

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 I hope you will hand in your work on time
(it depends on who’s saying these things)

Responsibility

Speakers can accept responsibility for their utterance

eg. I believe that house prices will fall.

The can objectivise their utterance (it is….. that)

eg. It is likely that house prices will fall

Modality an ideology

Modality refers to the attitude of speakers

It can also reveal their opinions

These may point to broader ideologies appropriated speakers

eg. Single mothers should look for work

Shop assistants will be all replaced by computers

Universities must respond to the needs of business world

Strategic modal ambiguity

Modally ambiguous auxiliaries can be used strategically

This allow speakers to suggest a meaning without taking responsibility

eg. That must be a joke

You might want to wear a coat

Modality and genre

Modality can contribute to the unique style of particular genres

Epistemic and perception modality is favoured in expounding texts.

Eg. academia, news media, etc.

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 Deontic and boulomaic modality favoured in regulatory texts

Eg. Legal texts, instruction manual

Week 5: Presupposition

Transitivity

Modality

Presupposition

Utterances

Entailments

Presuppositions

Presuppositional Analysis

The ways in which sentences can be broken down into

constituent propositions, or conversely, the ways in which
abstract propositions form sentences

Utterances: statements about the world

Explicit and implicit statements made about the word

Types of propositions

1. Utterances ie. what is said

2. Assertions/entailments ie. What propositions result from utterances eg. it

follows that…

3. Presuppositions ie. what propositions underlie utterances eg. Assuming that…

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 Utterances

Refer to the exact words used in the message

Aessertions and entailments

Entailments are propostions that can be inferred from it in any context. In other
words, the most literal component of a sentence’s meaning. Other
paraphrasing of the original statements

“I don’t like how you keep leaving dirty dishes in the sink”

You’ve left dirty dishes in the sink

He doesnt like that you leave dirty dishes in the sink

On the other hand, PRESUPPOSITIONS are implicit propositions which are

presupposed form the sentence

“I don’t like how you keep leaving dirty dishes in the sink”

You’ve left dirty dishes in the sink on at least one previous occasion
(implicit from the word ‘keep’)

Presupposition vs Entailment

Prepositions are fundamental assumptions upon which utterances are

based

Entailments are propositions that follow from an utterance if its true

e.g. “I like how you no longer keep leaving dirty dishes in the sink”

The entailments are no longer true, but the presuppositions are true

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 Existential presuppositions

Assumes the existence of something. Usually triggered by definite article

and possessive pronouns

eg. The town hall is very nice

There IS a town hall (it exists)

eg. The town is NOT very nice

The town hall still exists. (its just not nice)

But the ENTAILMENT (that it is nice) is no longer true if its negated (it’s
not nice)

eg. Have you handed in your essay?

You’ve written an essay

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 Presuppositions of recurrence/continuation

Assumes that something has happened previously. Marked by Resume,

return, again, etc.

eg. I’m having problems with Moodle again

You’ve had problems with Moodle before

eg. Don’t keep feeding your cat second rate food

You’ve fed your cat second rate food before

Adverbial clauses of time/space/reason

Assume occurrences of prior events/situations

eg. because i missed my bus, I was late for my exam

I missed my bus

eg. In the last election, the polls turned out to be wrong

there was an election previously

Factive verbs

Assume a given fact (not a hypothesis), is indeed the case. Marked by

know, discover, regret

eg. I really regret not accepting that job

I didn’t accept that job

eg. I discovered platypuses are mammals

Platypuses are mammals

Implicative verbs

Assume intended behaviour/actions/events. Verbs like forget, managed,

happened to

eg. Did you forget we had an appointment?

We had an appointment

eg. I managed to find a restaurant nearby

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 I was trying to find a restaurant nearby

Restrictive relative clause

Specify what is being referred to from a large number of possibilities

Assume conditions used for restriction/specification exist

eg. People who protested said it was an injustice

There was a protest

The statue that they toppled was seen as an offensive reminder

They toppled a statue

WH-questions

Begins with who, what, where, when, and why

Assume the things the questions are about, exists.

eg. Why are there protesting?

People have been protesting?

What problems are the result of this legislation

This legislation causes problems

Pragmatc presuppositions

Go beyond individual sentences

Assume relation between utterances based on contextual use

eg. There were protests last week. People were scared

People where scared because of the protests

How can presuppositions can be used to persuade?

The implicit nature of presuppositions make them powerful linguistic tools for
persuasion

Its harder to grapple with something that is not straightforward (Toolan).

It’s less open to debate

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 Prompt us to note some further claim or point behind those explicitly made
in a text

By analysing presuppositions, we can identify assumptions being made by

speakers, revealing aspects of worldview and ideology

How presuppositions may be used to strategically persuade us

Asking leading questions

Assuming shared knowledge, values or needs

Assumptions of shared circumstances

Defeasement:

Negating the presupposition underlying the utterance

Did you forget your appointment?

What appointment?

Week 7
So far:

Transitivity

Modality

Presupposition

Semantics (need to catch up

Next: how language is used in institutional settings in order to persuade !

Language control

Language in politics

Language in media

Language of advertising

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 🤔 Octopuses
“Rishi Sunak, when provoked by a journalist last week, literally exploded”
^ shows that the usage of the word ‘literally’ has changed over time

? Correctness ? (Prescriptive grammar)

Prescriptive language belief (value judgements based around the notion of

correct and incorrect language use)

prescribe how language should be used and attempt to control language

change

traditionally associated with elitist, conservative, or purist belief about

language

They use a lot of emotional language to show their stance, “abuse-usage” >
“abusage”

Alternatively, the opposite > Descriptive attitude to language

Describe how language is actually used

Prescriptivism in linguistics: Lakoff (1990:298) basically says we should leave

language alone and not change it (bruh)

‘Verbal Hygiene‘

Language control is more heterogenous than what is traditionally understood

as Prescriptivism

Cameron (2012) - Verbal hygiene

Intinya not all language control is ‘bad’

Campaign for plain language on official forms

belonging to spelling to reform society

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 preserving an accent

Linguistic authorities
Language academies

Defending a language and possibly improving it

there were abandoned proposals for an academy for English in the 7th
century: Dryden, Defoe, Swift

E.g. Academie Francais (1635-present)

Motto: to immortality

40 members known as the Immortals (bruh)

E.g Quebec office of the French language (1961-present)

Protecting the French language in Quebec

Educational Bodies

Schools banning slangs

Grammar and reference books

An attempt to standardise English

The takeaway:

Thre are many authorities who do not look like authorities on the surface (style
guide and grammar books)

Attempt to redress inconsistency in language (spelling reform, written vs

spoken dialects)

In publishing, these documents argue for consistency; However, these are

value judgements (subjective view of what is right and wrong) which rarely get
questioned.

They are therefore examples of verbal hygiene.

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 Zeitgeists (things/words associated with a certain time)
Dictionaries: often subjective written by people with certain views

Verbal hygiene for positive ends?

eg. Plain english campaigns > instead of legalese

some verbal hygiene has ‘good’ intentions

Gender biased terms like “man up”

person-first > identity-first (eg. Person with autism vs autistic person)

Equality and tolerance

derogatory terms like insane, nuts, crazy

avoid terms such as ‘disorder’ > afflicted by, sufferers of, victim of

’Political correctness’

Avoid language that would exclude, marginalise, or insult groups

People with disabilities vs disabled

Ms Mrs, Mx

Happy holiday vs Merry christmas

Is it being PC or just being respectful ?

Language in action

Language control

Language in politics

Language in media

Language of advertising

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 Politics and rhetorics: political speeches, manifestos, interviews, debates,
broadcasts, adverts, blogs, online discussions

Politicians make use of rhetorical strategies to persuade voters to support

them/their party

By being more aware/attuned to the rhetorical strategies, we are more critical

and aware when we’re ideologically positioned

Classical Rhetoric

Rhetoricians: Aristotle, Cicero

Aristotle's ‘three means of persuasion’

Ethos - appeal to personality or the character of the speaker

eg. donald trump (you should listen to me because im successful)

Logos - appeal to logic, structure or validity of the argument (‘reasonable’)

eg. richard dawkins(?) (you should listen to me because i’m smart/ an

intellectual)

Pathos - appeal to feeling and emotions

eg. charity adverts, animal cruelty activists like PETA

Three types of Rhetoric

Forensic: focuses on the past, justice and injustice

Deliberative: future, expediency and harmfulness

Epideictic: present, on honour and disgrace (someone’s current character)

Cicero’s ‘five canons of rhetoric’

Invetio- invention, developing material for argument

Dispositio- arrangement, ordering material for maximum effect

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 Elocutio- style, refiing material to express ideas as powerfully and
eloquently as possible

Memoria- memory, recollecting materials and ideas

Actio- delivery, presenting material engagingly

Defining Rhetoric today

Modern definitions of rhetoric:

elegance or eloquence of language, eloquent speech or writing.

Speech or writing expressed in terms calculated to persuade; hence
language characterized by artificial or ostentatious expression

the art of using language so as to persuade or influence others

playful language, ground speech, how to make it more persuasive

Use of rhetoric in Present day English

‘…whether its rhetoric or reality’

‘but it remained a rhetoric, language rather than achievement’

‘…more prone to rhetoric’

Style guides on rhetoric (modern)

Common rhetorical strategies

Repetition

Same word or phrase occurs more than once in close proximity

to foreground particular concepts or themes

eg. I have a dream

Parallelism

two sentences or clauses which have a similar grammatical structure

positioned together

Used by sakers to draw connections between concepts

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 Reversal

The same structure is repeated but presented backwards

eg. ask what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for
your country -JFK inaugural address

Some candidates use change to promote their careers, and there are
those who use their career to promote change

Contrast

draw oppositions between two (near-) antronyms

eg. never in the field of human conflict has so much been owed by so
many to so few - Churchill, House of Commons

Defeat-support - Obama

For the many, not the few (Labour Party Slogan)

Common strategies in politics today

van Dijk’s (1998) ‘ideological square’

The function of expression or suppression of information in the interests of

the speaker/writer. The last principle is part of an overall strategy of
ideological communicaton that consists of the main moves:

Express/emphasize positives about Us

Negatives about Them

suppress positives about Them

suppress negatives about Us

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 Key strategies in ideological presentation:

Hyperbole

Exaggerate positive information about “Us” and minimising negatives

“I built unbelievable company”, “I have had tremendous success”

Deflection

Avoiding negative information about “Us”, shifting the focus elsewhere

Ad hominem attacks

attacking a person or institutions’ personality or characteristics rather

than their argument

eg. “My argument is….” replied by “your mom”

Non-insults

Emphasize negative information about “Them” by absolving “us” of

responsibility

eg. climate change is on the benefit of china - trump

Vagueness and redundancy

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 Vague statements allow for promises without accountability

eg. we have to do ‘something’, mentioning the ‘American Dream’

Case Study: Suella Braverman (2023) speech

her speech backfired, triggering anger from her own party

construing that her conservative party as the “actors” of mainly material

processes

it establishes the authority of the conservative party

Week 10
Language in Media

Rhetorical strategy: Alliteration, assonance (for catchy slogans and whatnot)

What is the media?

printing press

radio/television

Online media

social media

The UK print/online press

The influence of national media is varied, for instance, it can influence:

Voting patterns (support for candidate/party, interpretation of events, targeted

campaigns)

Consumption patterns (aversion towards new products, brand awareness,

targeted ad)

Health (treatment adherence, health literacy, stigmatization of certain

illnesses)

Are the printing press still relevant?

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 Declining by roughly a million readers a year

However, tabloid articles have a much higher circulation overall

47% adults claimed to read either print or online newspaper media

Adults also consume news via TV (highest), radio (lowest), and social media
(middle)

Changes over time

Newspapers are undergoing a process called tabloidization

refers to ‘a media phenomenon involving revision of traditional newspaper

driven by reader’s preferences and commercial requirements’ (Esser, 1999)

A broader sense: the desire to inform gives way to the desire to entertain:
Entertainmentisation

News and representation

Representation in the press and other kinds of media and

discourse is a CONSTRUCTIVE PRACTICE. Events and ideas
are not communicated neutrally

… I’m not saying the camera lies, but there is no ideologically

neutral way of holding the camera

Fowler *Language in the news

Examining representation in the news

Selectivity: which stories get included? which stories are treated as

newsworthy?

newsworthiness is constructed, not inherent

eg. Celebrities doing trivial things

Positioning: where abouts are the stories located in the newspaper/website?

what stories are they positioned next to?

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 Lead stories often foreground certain information and centralise certain
stories in narratives

This is often for shock value rather than relevance

Manipulate statistics to make them seem more extreme

Accuracy: to what extent are the facts accurate/verifiable

Readership: Who is addressed? how is readership constructed/excluding?

Clickbait

Marginalising certain groups

‘You’ (provoking the readers)

Other considerations

Word and image: How do accompanying pictures influence our reading of a

particular text?

Ideological presentation: van Dijk ideological square. Demonising ‘others’

Metaphor and ideology: Are particular metaphors employed by the media to

frame a narrative in a particular way?

(Conceptual) metaphor in sports reporting

SPORTS are WAR

the team is fighting…

the team surrenders…

defence vs attack

executing their plan…

SPORTS are FIGHT FOR SURVIVAL

Potential research questions

Comparing framings of a particular story

Cross media comparisons

Regional comparisons

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 Diachronic studies (press attitudes and how it changes over time)

eg. the daily mail was super racist!

News Values

A theory in media studies that there is a set of implicit criteria guiding how
journalists select which stories are newsworthy

News values also determine how particular stories are framed linguistically, if
it appeals too much to news values, it can be sensationalist

Examples of news values

The power elite

Celebrity

Surprise

Relevance

Magnitude

Bad news

Good news

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