What We Hide in Words: Emotive Words and Persuasive Definitions

Journal of Pragmatics, Vol. 42, pp. 1997-2013, 2010

27 Pages Posted: 18 Jan 2011 Last revised: 24 Jan 2011

See all articles by Fabrizio Macagno

Fabrizio Macagno

Universidade Nova de Lisboa

Douglas Walton

University of Winnipeg - Department of Philosophy

Date Written: December 30, 2010

Abstract

In this paper we throw further light on four questions on the argumentative use of emotive words studied in the recent literature on persuasive definitions. (1) What is the semantic and argumentative structure of an emotive word? (2) Why are emotive words so powerful when used as argumentative instruments? (3) Why and (4) under what conditions are persuasive definitions (based on emotive words) legitimate? After introducing leading accounts of the argumentative effects of words, we approach these questions from a pragmatic perspective, presenting an analysis of persuasive definition based on argumentation schemes. Persuasive definitions, we maintain, are persuasive because their goal is to modify the emotive meaning denotation of a persuasive term in a way that contains an implicit argument from values. Our theory is also based on the concept of presupposition, often used in linguistics but here applied for the first time to these four questions about emotive words and persuasive definitions.

Keywords: Persuasive Definitions, Emotive Words, Presupposition, Presumption, Pragmatics, Linguistics

Suggested Citation

Macagno, Fabrizio and Walton, Douglas, What We Hide in Words: Emotive Words and Persuasive Definitions (December 30, 2010). Journal of Pragmatics, Vol. 42, pp. 1997-2013, 2010, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1742950

Fabrizio Macagno (Contact Author)

Universidade Nova de Lisboa ( email )

Av. Berna 26 I&D Building, office 4.02
Lisbon, 1069-061
Portugal

HOME PAGE: http://fabriziomacagno.altervista.org/

Douglas Walton

University of Winnipeg - Department of Philosophy ( email )

Winnipeg, Manitoba R3B 2E9
Canada

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