A Pragmatic Analysis of Emotional Blackmail in the American Movie No One Would Tell (2018)

Emotional blackmail is generally defined as manipulating others' emotions for personal gain. It is a type of manipulation that damages healthy relationships among people and turns them into toxic relations leaving the victim in a state of depression and under stress of losing something s/he holds dear. This study aims to identify the pragmatic techniques of emotional blackmail used by both blackmailers and victims in "No One Would Tell" (2018). To do so, the researchers developed an eclectic model comprising Forward and Frazier's (1997) emotional blackmail, Searle’s speech acts (1979), Brown and Levinson’s politeness strategies (1987), Culpeper’s impoliteness strategies (1996, 2005), and Mayfield's taxonomy of fallacy (2007). A qualitative approach is followed in the analysis of the data by focusing on the pragmatic strategies used in the discourse of emotional blackmailers. The findings of the study show that the type of blackmailer identified is the punisher and the type of victim is the anger-avoider. The analysis also shows that punisher blackmailers tend to be impolite, use directive speech acts, and rely on fallacy strategies to justify their position in their arguments. On the other hand, the victims' speech reflects a high degree of politeness strategies to avoid confrontations with blackmailers. The victims tend to use representative speech acts more commonly without employing impoliteness strategies.