A Theory of Manipulative Speech

Abstract Manipulative speech is ubiquitous and pernicious. We encounter it continually in both private conversation and public discourse, and it is a core component of propaganda, which we know to have profound social and political effects. In this paper I develop a theory of manipulative speech. On my view, manipulative speech involves a deliberate, coordinated violation of the two core Gricean norms of conversation: Cooperativity and Publicity. A manipulative speaker violates Cooperativity to further her goals at the expense of the audience’s. But the manipulative speaker also violates Publicity in intending, and taking steps to ensure, that her speech appears cooperative. Thus, in a slogan, manipulative speech is covertly strategic speech. I go on to show how this view reveals the structure common to various forms of manipulative speech discussed in the literature and serves as the basis for a novel, attractive definition of propaganda.