Implicit strategies aimed at persuading the audience in public debates

Abstract

Abstract Starting from the assumption that implicit strategies like presuppositions and implicatures can be used to reduce the tendency to critical reaction by addressees of linguistic utterances, which qualifies such strategies as useful persuasive devices, the paper also recalls that for this reason they are a typical ingredient of advertisement and propaganda (Section 1). Reduced epistemic vigilance effected by implicit linguistic packaging is especially useful to smuggle questionable contents into the target’s minds. Specific implicit strategies can be specialized for specific pragmatic moves, such as conveying opinions, self-praise or the attack of others (Section 2). This includes any questionable selling content and any doubtful argument that, if believed, may give an advantage against a dialectic opponent. In particular, in public debates one does not aim at convincing the opponent, rather at shaping the beliefs of the audience at home. The paper shows (Section 3) how presuppositions and implicatures are used in Italian public (television) debates with exactly this argumentative function. In such contexts the pattern holds even more importantly for face-threatening contents, whose being conveyed explicitly would expose the source to more probable and stronger blame on the part of the public, while implicitness (and more specifically implicatures) can help speakers to convey to the public the opponent-discrediting content of a face-threatening attack, still not counting evidently as offenders.