Manipulation and Deception in Language

Language is the tool for mutual understanding. It differs from region to region and has national peculiarities, which help to distinguish it from the others. Both spoken and written language helps to define the level of education, intelligence and field of work. The characteristics retrieved from the received results help to define the accuracy level of provided information, possible outcomes of the communication and strategies for the achievement of the needed results.

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On May 18, 2018
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Manipulation and Deception in Language

Despite the fact that language is a tool, the reproducer is not responsible for what the respondent hears and how the received information is interpreted. In this case the most important thing is the level of language understanding. The small change into the intonation and the word stress changes the meaning of the whole statement. As a result, the impact of such unconsciousness attitude can cause misunderstandings, conflicts and raise the level of aggression between people.  
As a tool of manipulation, language is one of the most powerful. The level of manipulation depends on the target group, aims and the possible outcomes. On the international political arena, diplomats choose an appropriate way to express attitude towards the situation and its possible influence on the relationships between countries. This is done on purpose, as it was mentioned above; the tiny change can reverse the whole idea and/or situation.
Manipulation is often related to the propaganda. Interesting fact is that usually propaganda is associated with the politics, international relations. It is used often as a tool to start the conflict or to provoke the opposite site to react in the inappropriate way. So within the time, the one who provoked will have all ground to start the conflict officially. Unfortunately, propaganda is used not only by authorities. 
The level propaganda has changed during the last decade. The main reason for this is the unpredictable jump of the technologies development. The influence, which people received with the help of the Internet, is hardly measurable. Despite this, the level of manipulation has changed rapidly. The newly developed approaches influenced the perception of the language and its notion in a whole. 
Deep research of the language influence on the humans created the space for the business and marketing sector. The newly developed products before going into the world are analyzed and described according to the existing frames. The result of the work is represented in the advertisement. The content of the advertisement is precisely selected, so the information must influence the cognitive processes of the human. 
One of the easiest ways to achieve the aim or to get an immediate result is to use promises and claims as a tool of manipulation. In addition, such approach will include the twist of language, which is done on purpose in order to deceive the target group. When the speaker made a promise hearable, he has the power to fulfill it or to ignore. An interesting observation is the fact that the recipients usually do not care about the final result. Their focus is concentrated on the idea and the way it was represented. This is one of the easiest and most effective ways to create the pseudo-information. The information, which is delivered in this case, is usually broken into clusters.
The recipient usually remembers the final part of the sentence. The previous information is blurred and mis-presented. The usage of the nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs is creating the environment for the weasel words. However, in the Politics and English Language, written by Georg Orwell in 1946 it was mentioned that language is supposed to have a political and economical causality ultimately. So the created cause can be both the result and the reason. The form of the political language is more intensive and identified. Nevertheless, it tries to avoid the duality in the usage, the understanding requires a deep analysis of the between word and structure connections. 
The weasel claim is the combination of the claim and the weasel words. It should have been mentioned that the most popular weasel words are some, often, more, similar, usually, look of, sometimes, nearly, frequently and few others. There are also those, which are reflecting and characterizing the state or the condition. The claim usually appears after the first contact or look and creates the ground for the lasting attitude. In the process of the weasel claim there is an immediate reaction on the statement, which often can be interpreted in the opposite way. The speaker does not analyze the statement, rather reacts according to his/her experience. The most important role in the analysis of the weasel claim is the wide understanding of the subject and picture of the world. The most part of the efforts in the process of the correct appropriate understanding of the claim is the feeling of the language, which is connected with the depicturing and representation of the existing ideas and approaches.
The unfinished claim in this case is a challenge for the recipient as it creates plurality. As a result, there is no assurance that the recipient will understand the speaker as precisely as s/he wanted. The unfinished claim gives an opportunity for both parts of the communication process to interpret the ideas according to the existing facts or, in some cases, is a fact of priory knowledge. 
As soon as the speaker tries to stress on the uniqueness of the situation, fact, norm or recent state of things he emphasizes, they are strongly connected with the emotion and often are easy to recall back. 
The main idea is to stress and select the moment from the casual, sometimes routine situations, so that the cognitive processes were fulfilled. This type of claim is aimed at the creation of the feeling of superiority. As a result, the target group, whose position is also highlighted within the society, reacts to the situation according to the information provided by the speaker. The advantage of the speaker is that he controls the situation and can measure the amount of the information, which is provided to the audience. On the other hand, the biggest disadvantage for the group is the lack of access to the information. As a result, this can and actually causes the prejudice attitude according to the opponent. In addition, the lack of accesses makes the group dependable upon the speaker. The language of the group includes the phrases, which retrieve and emphasize this dependence.
There are situations when the speaker uses the “so what” phrase. At the first moment the main idea is that the attitude of the speaker is arrogant and, according to the situation, somehow abusing. It can also create a meaningless feeling of the importance, which disappears as soon as people look behind the phrase. 
One of the most useful tools, which everybody uses and which can be defined easily by everyone is metaphor. There are different types of it, which usually represent the current situation from the perspective of the future and include the previous or past experiences. Accordingly, there exist metaphors, which are called dead. The notions they represent are no more popular and have been formed in the historical context in certain period of time.
Overall, metaphors are divided according to the mechanism by they were created and which they represent. As a result, there are metaphors, which include the notions of nature and usually are connected unconsciously with wealth, happiness, new life and prosperity. Such metaphors influence the cognitive processes heavily. On the opposite side, there are metaphors, which represent the war, collapse, poverty and disease. Such kinds of metaphors are creating a feeling of the burden on the shoulders. 
One interesting observation is that depending on the political situation in the country and its relationships with the neighborhood countries, the amount and types of metaphors differ a lot. If the country is on the way to start the war, in the media and in the conversations produced by the community metaphors of mechanism and war will dominate. The situation is totally different, when people hear metaphors of health and prosperity. Their attitude towards the situation changes accordingly. Roosevelt during the Big Depression in the United States used metaphor of creation and construction. Accordingly, the image of the president during that period of time has changed. The approach Roosevelt used helped to create the powerful circle of trust between government and nation. The results of Roosevelt’s work are seen even today. Approaches, which are used by the recent government, represent the developed by the President, new approaches. 
To conclude, the language represents the current state of the situation and person’s attitude in the situation towards it. The objectives of every human being are reflected in the way each of us uses the language as a tool. The connections created during the interaction with other individual represent the way and level of cognitive processes, which are the key to the understanding how and in which way language influences people’s opinions.

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