This introduction sets the scene for the rest of the volume by surveying the main areas of existing communicative research on persuasion. Starting with the classic rhetorical approach, we describe the study of persuasive language on the level of microlinguistic features that often occur in discourse types such as politics or advertising. We then summarize the findings of persuasion research in classic pragmatics and discourse analysis, paying attention to such aspects as speaker’s credibility and expertness. We wrap up the discussion by deliberating on the work on malicious persuasion: propaganda, disinformation and misinformation, and the phenomena of filter bubbles and echo chambers. The chapter is concluded with the short outlines of the papers in the volume.

This chapter provides an in-depth analysis of the strategic use of negative evaluations in the Twitter campaigns by the Republican and Democratic candidate for the US presidency in 2020. The study combines a corpus-linguistic method (key semantic domain method) with Martin and White’s Appraisal framework to systematically capture and compare the dispersion, frequency and contextual use of negative evaluations by Joe Biden and Donald J. Trump. The study shows how corpus-linguistic methods can be usefully employed to systematize the quantitative and qualitative exploration of attitudinal evaluations in mid-size language corpora. Further, results indicate that Donald Trump’s targets and objects of negative evaluation in 2020 have broadened compared to his previous Twitter election campaign. This is likely to reflect Trump’s new official status as leader of the government, needing to defend his actions and decisions. In turn, Joe Biden’s negative evaluations on Twitter criticise such government policies with the principal aim to present Biden as a challenger of the status quo, fighting to create new jobs for the ‘ordinary man’. This constitutes a clear change in campaign policies of the Democratic party compared to their Twitter campaign for Hillary Clinton in 2016.

In this chapter I argue that seduction is what makes it harder to tell the difference between persuasion – which cannot do away with seductive language in order to win over the other – and manipulation which plays on the addressee’s emotions or emotional needs (Baron, 2003). Seduction thus constitutes the weak spot of persuasive discourse through which manipulative tricks can penetrate. Manipulation is commonly defined as what can only be covert and is null and void if discovered; I will prove that this is not necessarily the case, especially when the addressee can perceive manipulation but is seduced by it anyway. What distinguishes persuasion from manipulation is the strength of the pressure put on the Hearer to acquiesce (Sorlin, 2017a). The role of seductive discourse as defined in this chapter is precisely to attenuate this pressure (on the surface) by using different linguistic, cognitive and pragmatic means that are detailed here and illustrated with an example drawn from the political TV series House of Cards (Netflix 2013—2018). My goal is to show that there is such a thing as a pragmatics of seduction, predicated on strategies of influence in precarious balance between persuasion and manipulation.

While a great deal of research has examined the form and format of extremist content and the expressions of hate speech that exist within far-right online communities, there has been less attention on why young men, the primary target audience, become motivated to engage with this kind of material. As a corollary, what is also missing from most accounts of radicalisation is a sustained discussion of how discourses of masculinity are leveraged in extremist spaces and how these discourses become part of an overarching system of persuasion, manipulation, and, ultimately, recruitment to extremist organisations. This chapter offers an analysis of data collected from r/The_Donald to examine how discourses of masculinity are exploited as a means of promoting and normalising extremist positions within the community. The chapter also shows how these discourses of masculinity are bound up with race and ethnicity, where particular raced and gendered configurations become valorised as ideal, normative, and desirable. Taking all of this together, I argue that closer attention to the nature of these gendered discourses can help us develop more effective interventions around deradicalization, as well as better informing public education campaigns, particularly those aimed at young men.

Alternative paralinguistic features (APF; e.g., capitalization, emoticons) are used in online hotel reviews to maximize positive or negative feedback. So far, little attention has been paid to a description of the use of APF in hotel reviews, and to the influence of APF on the reply strategies used and the way rapport is managed in review responses.

This paper presents a study on the use of APF and their rapport-related effects, using a Dutch-language Booking.com corpus of 1,465 interactions. We coded types and frequencies of APF in reviews as well as reply strategies (rapport-enhancing and defensive moves, intensifiers) in responses to reviews. These data were subjected to statistical analysis.

Results indicate that APF are not uncommon in online reviews, and that they are more often used to intensify positive instead of negative feedback. Moreover, the results revealed a subtle influence of APF on how review-related interactions unfold in terms of rapport, in that a higher frequency of APF strengthening positive feedback is associated with a more enthusiast and persuasive stance in responses to these reviews, and that a higher frequency of APF strengthening negative feedback is associated with a more defensive, less rapport-enhancing stance in responses to these reviews.

As people communicate in new and advanced forms online, they are also increasingly engaging in persuasive processes. However, there is a dearth of knowledge about the processes and mechanisms of online persuasion. Our work explores how online persuasive comments are shaped by different communication contexts and linguistic features. We explore this connection by conducting a cross-context examination of four different contexts: two online datasets (standalone argument pairs and Yelp reviews) and two online discussion datasets (Wikipedia Article for Deletion discussions and the subreddit r/ChangeMyView). Analysing the similarities and differences across the resulting four contexts, we highlight how different online communication contexts may affect different linguistic features of a persuasive comment. Such insights could raise awareness and foster critical thinking thereby enriching online communication experiences.

This study explores the importance of a full(er) understanding of ‘context’ when analysing and interpreting the indirect incitement of violence, a speech act closely related to that of persuasion. Using descriptions of context from Systemic Functional Linguistics (Bowcher, 2014; Hasan, 2014, 2020), the chapter qualitatively examines a small number of selected extracts from a very particular online community – a pick-up artist (PUA) forum. The main argument here is that the contextual configuration of the discourse, in terms of the nature the community and the participants in it, is such that posts which on the face of it appear to be giving advice or expressing opinions could be potentially inciteful in this context. Incitement has typically received relatively little linguistic attention, and indirect incitement poses a specific challenge for linguistics and law alike. This chapter goes some way to providing a new perspective from which the elusive discursive action of incitement can be analysed and interpreted.

This chapter explores how members of the online incel community interact with (presumably) new members on the subreddit r/Braincels. It seeks to explore why new members might stay on a website known for hostility and poor mental health. Through the use of corpus linguistic methods, I explore ways that members of the community might interact with newcomers. I argue that users do not index their identity as new on the forum through lexemes such as new or first, and that there appears to be few repeated and explicit ways that members signal posting on the forum for the first time. As such, I analyse how incels construct their community, by using corpus linguistic methods and Martin and White’s (2005) appraisal framework. I argue that the members of the incel community constructed their group as ‘toxic’, but also as a place where they were able to receive mental health support. Ultimately, I argue that more work needs to be done to explore not only why people might engage with these kinds of forums, but also how members of the incel community convince people to stay engaged.

Traditionally, the role of language in persuasion has been mostly studied in experimental settings with a focus on how persuasive messages are understood, processed, and ultimately complied with. Recently, a new approach has emerged that focuses on the sequential properties of language-in-use mobilised in real-life persuasion-in-interaction (Humă, 2023). This body of research illuminates how aspects of sequence organisation (Humă et al., 2019, 2020), turn design (Llewellyn, 2015), and lexical choice (Sikveland & Stokoe, 2016, 2020) are implicated in persuasion. The present study contributes to this line of work by zooming in on two configurations for formatting requests in sales interactions: when-formulated and if-formulated sales requests. Using conversation analysis to examine a corpus of 159 real-life telephone calls between salespeople and prospective customers, I show that the former configuration is more effective in eliciting productive responses that advance the commercial activity. These findings can be explained in terms of the differential opportunities afforded by the two configurations to reject the sales requests. Thus, this study strengthens the claim that, in real-life social interaction, persuasion is mainly realised through the architecture of possibilities for responsive action and not through the effects of language-in-use on individual minds.

The use of the English language in many countries around the world greatly facilitates international communication. However, linguists have long pointed out that differences between established and emerging dialects of English may lead to miscommunication, especially because many users of the language may not be aware of many of these differences. Such issues may be particularly acute in high-stakes communicative endeavours such as persuading others to change their opinion or engage in a certain action. Psychologists have previously explored this construct mainly in experimental settings, whereas the present chapter uses a large database (‘corpus’) of natural language. The chapter thus provides an empirical, corpus-based analysis of the linguistic expression of persuasion across 21 international dialects (‘varieties’) of English from countries where English is widely used as a first or second language. Results indicate that there are substantial differences in the degree of overt expression of persuasion, with South Asian varieties of English indicating the lowest levels and (West) African varieties that greatest level of overt persuasion. The chapter concludes by discussing possible explanations of these patterns, implications for international communication as well as avenues for more detailed analyses of particular linguistic features involved in persuasion.