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Chapter 3. Politics, religion, and drama: Exploring the metapragmatics of hypocrisy
Abstract
As a first attempt to date, this book addresses the notion of hypocrisy from a pragmatic perspective and devises a comprehensive model of verbal hypocrisy. The studies included adopt emic and etic approaches in order to contribute jointly towards an understanding of what appears to be a ubiquitous and multifaceted phenomenon. Going beyond hypocrisy as a mere moral vice, this volume establishes its pragmatic space and confronts it with adjacent notions which, unlike hypocrisy, have been subject to pragmatic examination. The Pragmatics of Hypocrisy is of interest to students and scholars in pragmatics, discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, rhetoric, communication and media studies, as well as corpus linguistics, and by its transdisciplinary nature, to researchers in philosophy, sociology, and political science. It is also essential reading for anyone interested in the interplay between language, culture and society, across varieties and registers of English.
Concordance analysis is widely recognised as one of the main techniques in a corpus linguist’s toolkit. However, despite a growing body of work critically exploring previously unquestioned mainstays of corpus methods ( Mautner, 2015 ; Taylor & Marchi, 2018 ), this has not focused on concordance analysis specifically. In this paper, we aim to discuss issues that researchers may encounter when interpreting concordances. We begin in Step One with a cursory examination of 800 concordance lines in order to identify potential issues. In Step Two, we assess the distribution of those issues in a reduced sample of 200. As a result, we identify eight interpretability issues: noise in the corpus, non-standard syntax, unclear referring expressions, unclear quotation source attribution, technical terms/jargon, acronyms/initialisms, unspecific co-text, and lines unrelated to the research question. After reflecting on practical challenges, we discuss the epistemological implications of removing concordance lines uncritically and suggest ten recommendations for future work.
This article examines the discourses around climate change in the UK press from 2003 to 2019. Our main goal is to investigate how the media discourse developed during a period of significant world events, whilst also exploring the change in the UK public’s perception of the problem. We combine the novel technique of Usage Fluctuation Analysis (UFA, McEnery et al. 2019) with corpus-assisted discourse analysis to track the fluctuation in the usage of the phrases climate change and global warming over this 17-year period. Thus, in addition to offering a methodological contribution by applying UFA to a relatively small specialized diachronic corpus, this article offers new insights on how the discourse evolved. Results indicate that the tabloids and broadsheets offer a surprisingly similar image of climate change discourse, both showing two major discoursal shifts. From an overall prevalence of articles advocating for the climate change cause, the discourse incorporated voices of climate sceptics from 2008 onwards, moving on to increased coverage and awareness of the problem in recent years when the public started to engage in it more heavily.
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) aspirations by companies have been identified as a motivating factor for active employee participation in CSR implementation. However, a failure to practise what one preaches can backfire and lead to attribution of hypocrisy. Drawing on a qualitative study of an award-winning sustainability pioneer in the cosmetics sector, we explore the role of moral judgement in how and when employees interpret word–deed misalignment in CSR implementation as hypocritical. First, our case reveals that high CSR aspirations by companies raise employees’ moral expectations. Second, we develop a framework that explains variations in employees’ hypocrisy interpretations based on consequentialist and deontological forms of moral judgement. Our research advances a contextual view of hypocrisy, not as an objective characteristic of an organisation, but as an outcome of interpretative processes of perceived motives and results in CSR implementation. Our framework thereby explains why even highly committed organisations may face accusations of hypocrisy.
This is the final pre-publication version of: Culpeper, Jonathan and Haugh, Michael (2020) The metalinguistics of offence in (British) English: A corpus-based metapragmatic approach. Journal of Language, Aggression and Conflict. It may contain minor errors or infelicities. 1 The metalinguistics of offence in (British) English: A corpus-based metapragmatic approach Abstract Offence is a central concept in impoliteness, aggression and conflict research, yet has received only passing mention in definitions of impoliteness and related concepts. Janicki (2017) argues that impoliteness and language aggression scholars are needlessly worried about definitions. We use Janicki's (2017) work as a springboard into a discussion of definitions of impolite or taboo language, airing potential problems and suggesting that the study of metalanguage offers at least a partial solution. We report a study of the metalanguage of OFFENCE in British English, and briefly examine whether there are any differences in Australian English, using SketchEngine to interrogate data in the two-billion word Oxford English Corpus. In so doing, we tease out different uses of the term offensive, and show that concepts such as OFFENCE are coloured by the specific linguistic and cultural contexts in which they appear. We conclude that while corpus-based metalinguistic analyses cannot completely eliminate the problem of definitional infinite regress, they do, however, offer an empirically grounded way of defining words that allows us to move beyond the intuitions of individual researchers.
It is not always possible for leaders, teams, and organizations to practice what they preach. Misalignment between words and deeds can invite harsh interpersonal consequences, such as distrust and moral condemnation, which have negative knock-on effects throughout organizations. Yet the interpersonal consequences of such misalignment are not always severe, and are sometimes even positive. This paper presents a new model of when and why audiences respond negatively to those who “say one thing but do another.” We propose that audiences react negatively if they (a) perceive a high degree of misalignment (i.e., perceive low “behavioral integrity”), and (b) interpret such misalignment as a claim to an undeserved moral benefit (i.e., interpret it as hypocrisy). Our model integrates disparate research findings about factors that influence how audiences react to misalignment, and it clarifies conceptual confusion surrounding word-deed misalignment, behavioral integrity, and hypocrisy. We discuss how our model can inform unanswered questions, such as why people fail to practice what they preach despite the risk of negative consequences. Finally, we consider practical implications for leaders, proposing that anticipating and managing the consequences of misalignment will be more effective than trying to avoid it altogether.
Because of special characteristics of nonverbal behaviors (e.g., they can be difficult to suppress, they are more accessible to the people who observe them than to the people who produce them), the intention to produce a particular nonverbal expression for self-presentational purposes cannot always be successfully translated into the actual production of that expression. The literatures on people's skills at using their nonverbal behaviors to feign internal states and to deceive are reviewed as they pertain to the question of whether people can overcome the many constraints on the translation of their intentions into expressions. The issue of whether people's deliberate attempts to regulate their nonverbal behaviors can be detected by others is also considered.
Is the British press prejudiced against Muslims? In what ways can prejudice be explicit or subtle? This book uses a detailed analysis of over 140 million words of newspaper articles on Muslims and Islam, combining corpus linguistics and discourse analysis methods to produce an objective picture of media attitudes. The authors analyse representations around frequently cited topics such as Muslim women who wear the veil and 'hate preachers'. The analysis is self-reflexive and multidisciplinary, incorporating research on journalistic practices, readership patterns and attitude surveys to answer questions which include: what do journalists mean when they use phrases like 'devout Muslim' and how did the 9/11 and 7/7 attacks affect press reporting? This is a stimulating and unique book for those working in fields of discourse analysis and corpus linguistics, while clear explanations of linguistic terminology make it valuable to those in the fields of politics, media studies, journalism and Islamic studies.
Recent experiments involving hypocrisy have been theorized to be a form of cognitive dissonance induction. As such, hypocrisy would constitute a new experimental paradigm for dissonance induction. However, these hypocrisy studies are open to alternative explanations. The present study attempts to rule out these alternative explanations by providing independent evidence that hypocrisy is a form of cognitive dissonance arousal. In the present study, a 2×2 design manipulates whether hypocrisy is induced and whether subjects are given an opportunity to misattribute their arousal to external factors. If hypocrisy is a form of dissonance, the misattribution manipulation should reduce behavior changes brought on by the induction of hypocrisy. The results support the predictions.
This article discusses the extent to which methods normally associated with corpus linguistics can be effectively used by critical discourse analysts. Our research is based on the analysis of a 140-million-word corpus of British news articles about refugees, asylum seekers, immigrants and migrants (collectively RASIM). We discuss how processes such as collocation and concordance analysis were able to identify common categories of representation of RASIM as well as directing analysts to representative texts in order to carry out qualitative analysis. The article suggests a framework for adopting corpus approaches in critical discourse analysis.
This article introduces the Verbal Irony Procedure (VIP), a first systematic method for identifying irony in natural discourse. The first section discusses previous operationalizations of irony and demonstrates that these are not explicit about which criteria were used to separate irony from non-irony. The second section argues why irony can be defined as an “utterance with a literal evaluation that is implicitly contrary to its intended evaluation.” This section also explains why ironic utterances can be placed on an evaluation scale. In the third section, clauses are proposed as a good unit of analysis when looking at irony in natural discourse. The different steps of the VIP are then introduced in the fourth section and subsequently applied in a sample analysis of a natural text in the fifth section. The sixth section discusses a reliability analysis of the VIP protocol. The article ends with an outlook on how future research on verbal irony might benefit from applying the VIP.
Interpersonal deception theory (IDT) represents a merger of interpersonal communication and deception principles designed to better account for deception in interactive contexts. At the same time, it bas the potential to enlighten theories related to (a) credibility and truthful communication and (b) interpersonal communication. Presented here are key definitions, assumptions related to the critical attributes and key features of interpersonal communication and deception, and 18 general propositions from which specific testable hypotheses can be derived. Research findings relevant to the propositions are also summarized.
In view of the relative disagreement among those studying deception as to how deception, the lie, or deceptive communication should be defined, an attempt is made to integrate the views of the most influential scholars in the field in order to formulate a comprehensive and clear-cut definition of deception. The starting point is Coleman and Kay’s (1981) elements of the prototypical lie, as well as Gerald Miller’s (1983; Miller & Stiff, 1993) notion of “decep-tive communication.” Deception is defined as the deliberate attempt, whether successful or not, to conceal, fabricate, and/or manipulate in any other way, factual and/or emotional information, by verbal and/or nonverbal means, in order to create or maintain in another or others a belief that the communicator himself or herself considers false. Each term of this definition is discussed in detail and, in doing so, it becomes apparent that several deception theories and a variety of social psychology and communication contributions have been integrated to build it. In addition, some specific implications of the definition, such as the importance that the intentional element (the deliberate attempt) has for the legal system, are discussed. The aim of this paper is to contribute to reaching an agreement among social scientists on what should be understood as deception.
Do people behave differently when they are lying compared with when they are telling the truth? The combined results of 1,338 estimates of 158 cues to deception are reported. Results show that in some ways, liars are less forthcoming than truth tellers, and they tell less compelling tales. They also make a more negative impression and are more tense. Their stories include fewer ordinary imperfections and unusual contents. However, many behaviors showed no discernible links, or only weak links, to deceit. Cues to deception were more pronounced when people were motivated to succeed, especially when the motivations were identity relevant rather than monetary or material. Cues to deception were also stronger when lies were about transgressions.
Telling lies often requires creating a story about an experience or attitude that does not exist. As a result, false stories may be qualitatively different from true stories. The current project investigated the features of linguistic style that distinguish between true and false stories. In an analysis of five independent samples, a computer-based text analysis program correctly classified liars and truth-tellers at a rate of 67% when the topic was constant and a rate of 61% overall. Compared to truth-tellers, liars showed lower cognitive complexity, used fewer self-references and other-references, and used more negative emotion words.
The breadth and spread of corpus-assisted discourse studies (CADS) indicate its usefulness for exploring language use within a social context. However, its theoretical foundations, limitations, and epistemological implications must be considered so that we can adjust our research designs accordingly. This Element offers a compact guide to which corpus linguistic tools are available and how they can contribute to finding out more about discourse. It will appeal to researchers both new and experienced, within the CADS community and beyond.
Drawing on the Enhanced Shakespearean Corpus: First Folio Plus and using corpus-based methods, this article explores, quantitatively and qualitatively, Shakespeare’s depictions of five deceptive characters (Aaron, Tamora, Iago, Lady Macbeth and Falstaff). Our analysis adopts three strands: firstly, statistical keywords relating to each character are examined to determine what this tells us about their natures more generally. Secondly, the wordlists produced for each of the five characters are drawn upon to determine the extent to which they make use of linguistic features that have been correlated with, or linked to, acts of deliberate deception in real-world contexts. Thirdly, we make use of the results identified during the two aforementioned strands by using them to identify particular (sequences of) turns that are worthy of more detailed analysis. Here, we are primarily interested in (a) whether these keywords/deceptive indicators cluster or co-occur and (b) whether these interactions are the same as those identified by other scholars exploring depictions of deception in Shakespeare from a literary perspective. The findings indicate that deception-related features are indeed used collectively/in close proximity, by Shakespeare, at points where a character speaks to other characters disingenuously. They also suggest that Shakespeare’s deceptive depictions do change stylistically, from character to character, in line with those characters’ different characterisations and situations, that Shakespeare draws on atypical language features – such as self-oriented references – when it comes to some of his depictions of deception and that Shakespeare uses these various stylistic features to achieve a range of dramatic effect(s).
The relationship between irony and sarcasm has been much discussed and yet there is still little agreement on how the two relate at a theoretical level, as Attardo (2000: 795) notes “there is no consensus on whether irony and sarcasm are essentially the same thing […] or if they differ significantly”. The aim of this paper is to take a user-perspective and report on how participants in everyday conversations in the UK and Italy talk about irony and sarcasm and what kinds of authentic behaviors are described using these labels. These findings are discussed with reference to the academic concepts of irony and sarcasm to investigate how the lay and academic perspectives relate.
People are generally poor at detecting deceit when observing someone’s behaviour or listening to their speech. In this chapter I will discuss the major factors (pitfalls) that lead to failures in catching liars: the sixteen reasons I will present are clustered into three categories: (i) a lack of motivation to detect lies; (ii) difficulties associated with lie detection; and (iii) common errors made by lie detectors. Discussing pitfalls provides insight into how lie detectors can improve their performance (for example, by recognising common biases and avoiding common judgment errors). The second section of this chapter discusses 11 ways (opportunities) to improve lie detection skills. Within this section, I first provide five recommendations for avoiding common errors in detecting lies. Next, I discuss recent lie detection research that introduces novel interview styles aimed at eliciting and enhancing verbal and nonverbal differences between liars and truth tellers. The recommendations are relevant in various settings, from the individual level (e.g., “Is my partner really working late?”) to the societal level (e.g., “Can we trust this suspect when he claims that he is not the serial rapist the police are searching for?”).
: Research relevant to psychotherapy regarding facial expression and body movement, has shown that the kind of information which can be gleaned from the patients words - information about affects, attitudes, interpersonal styles, psychodynamics - can also be derived from his concomitant nonverbal behavior. The study explores the interaction situation, and considers how within deception interactions differences in neuroanatomy and cultural influences combine to produce specific types of body movements and facial expressions which escape efforts to deceive and emerge as leakage or deception clues.
This volume presents a data-rich description of English inflection and word-formation. Based on large corpora including the Corpus of Contemporary American English and the British National Corpus, it provides a comprehensive treatment of contemporary English morphology that includes both inflection and word-formation. It covers not only well-studied topics such as compounding, conversion, and the inflection and derivation of nouns and verbs, but also areas that have received less scholarly attention, such as the formation of adjectives, locatives, negatives, evaluatives, neoclassical compounds and blends, among many other topics. Equal weight is given to form and meaning. The volume also contains sections devoted to phonological and orthographic aspects of morphology and to combinatorial and paradigmatic properties of English morphology. It ends with a series of chapters that assess the implications of English morphology for morphological theory, discussing topics such as stratification, blocking, and competition, the analysis of conversion, and the relationship between inflection and derivation.
With close attention to the spheres of sport and religion as important sites of moral currency, this book draws on media coverage of major cases of hypocrisy, attending to differing meanings and consequences of hypocrisy within the US, France and Iceland. Instances come from scandals within the established churches, as well as cases from the National Collegiate Athletic Association, the Tour de France, and the inquest into the Hillsborough Disaster in the UK. It considers the importance of the context within which moral conduct takes place and the relevance of this for the occurrence of hypocritical action, while exploring also the implications of advances in computer and information technology for controlling messages and monitoring deceit. Identifying the negative effects of the detection of hypocrisy at individual and institutional levels, the author engages with the work of Goffman to argue for the importance of trust in institutions, underlining the necessity of minimizing and correcting hypocritical acts by which this is undermined. A detailed study of hypocrisy and the need for trust, this volume will appeal to scholars and students of sociology with interests in social and moral conduct, sport, religion, Goffman and the notion of social life as artifice.
CQPweb is a new web-based corpus analysis system, intended to address the conflicting requirements for usability and power in corpus analysis software. To do this, its user interface emulates the BNCweb system. Like BNCweb, CQPweb is built on two separate query technologies: the IMS Open Corpus Workbench and the MySQL relational database. CQPweb’s main innovative feature is its flexibility; its more generalised data model makes it compatible with any corpus. The analysis options available in CQPweb include: concordancing; collocations; distribution tables and charts; frequency lists; and keywords or key tags.
An evaluation of CQPweb against criteria earlier laid down for a future web-based corpus analysis tool suggests that it fulfils many, but not all, of the requirements foreseen for such a piece of software. Despite some limitations, in making a sophisticated query system accessible to untrained users, CQPweb combines ease of use, power and flexibility to a very high degree.
Purpose. This study used statistical text analysis to examine the features of crime narratives provided by psychopathic homicide offenders. Psychopathic speech was predicted to reflect an instrumental/predatory world view, unique socioemotional needs, and a poverty of affect.
Methods. Two text analysis tools were used to examine the crime narratives of 14 psychopathic and 38 non-psychopathic homicide offenders. Psychopathy was determined using the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R). The Wmatrix linguistic analysis tool (Rayson, 2008) was used to examine parts of speech and semantic content while the Dictionary of Affect and Language (DAL) tool (Whissell & Dewson, 1986) was used to examine the emotional characteristics of the narratives.
Results. Psychopaths (relative to their counterparts) included more rational cause-and-effect descriptors (e.g., ‘because’, ‘since’), focused on material needs (food, drink, money), and contained fewer references to social needs (family, religion/spirituality). Psychopaths’ speech contained a higher frequency of disfluencies (‘uh’, ‘um’) indicating that describing such a powerful, ‘emotional’ event to another person was relatively difficult for them. Finally, psychopaths used more past tense and less present tense verbs in their narrative, indicating a greater psychological detachment from the incident, and their language was less emotionally intense and pleasant.
Conclusions. These language differences, presumably beyond conscious control, support the notion that psychopaths operate on a primitive but rational level.
Because of special characteristics of nonverbal behaviors (e.g., they can be difficult to suppress, they are more accessible to the people who observe them than to the people who produce them), the intention to produce a particular nonverbal expression for self-presentational purposes cannot always be successfully translated into the actual production of that expression. The literatures on people's skills at using their nonverbal behaviors to feign internal states and to deceive are reviewed as they pertain to the question of whether people can overcome the many constraints on the translation of their intentions into expressions. The issue of whether people's deliberate attempts to regulate their nonverbal behaviors can be detected by others is also considered.
A Corpus-based Investigation into Verbal Cues to Deception and Their Sociolinguistic Distribution
- Mathew Gillings
Gillings, Mathew. 2021. A Corpus-based Investigation into Verbal Cues to Deception
and Their Sociolinguistic Distribution. Unpublished PhD Thesis: Lancaster
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How to Use Corpus Linguistics in Forensic Linguistics
- Mathew Gillings
Gillings, Mathew. 2022. "How to Use Corpus Linguistics in Forensic Linguistics." In
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O'Keeffe and Mike McCarthy, 589-301. London: Routledge.
Log Ratio -An Informal Introduction
- Andrew Hardie
Hardie, Andrew. 2014. "Log Ratio -An Informal Introduction."
http://cass.lancs.ac.uk/log-ratio-an-informal-introduction/ [Accessed 2 Nov
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The Politics of Good Intentions: History, Fear and Hypocrisy in the
- David Runciman
Runciman, David. 2006. The Politics of Good Intentions: History, Fear and Hypocrisy
in the New World Order. Princeton: Princeton University Press.