Verbal manipulation in mass media text / discourse: the problem of recognition

Abstract

The article presents short analytical review of the mass media texts researches devoted to the problem of recognition of verbal manipulation. It was found that in addition to traditional algorithms of “hand” identification of manipulation in the text / discourse (with the help of linguistic analysis), there are automatized systems of verbal manipulation recognition in mass media being developed. Despite the fact that at the current stage of science development the automatized systems which can recognize potentially manipulative texts of some types (fake texts; texts of negative tone including verbal aggression) have been already established with philologists’ participation, the problem that has been mentioned cannot be considered as solved in general due to diversity of manipulation and exitance of the number of problems among which there is a lack of uniformity in the interpretation of the key terms and the lack of dictionary of manipulation techniques and devices, all these makes the parametrization of indicators (markers) more difficult. The Kazakhstani researchers’ idea stating that the text manipulativity is determined by its intensity level of the set of indicators of a particular type requires further experimental confirmation using various materials. The author of the article believes that the last word in identification of verbal manipulation should belong to a man.