This book is a collection of 12 papers dealing with manipulation and ideology in the 20th century, mostly with reference to political speeches by the leaders of major totalitarian regimes, but also addressing propaganda within contemporary right-wing populism and western ideological rhetoric. This book aims at bringing together researchers in the field of ideology reproduction in order to better understand the underlying mechanisms of speaker-favourable belief inculcation through language use. The book covers a wide range of theoretical perspectives, from psychosocial approaches and discourse analysis to semantics and cognitive linguistics and pragmatics. The book’s central concern is to provide not only a textbook with up-to-date information on the analysis of manipulation in discourse but also a number of tools for the scholar, some of them being developed within theories originally not designed to address belief-change through language interpretation. Foreword by Frans van Eemeren.

Table of contents

Foreword: Preview by review Frans H. van Eemeren

Introduction Louis de Saussure and Peter Schulz

Manipulation, memes and metaphors: The case of Mein Kampf Paul Chilton

Morpho-syntactic and textual realizations as deliberate pragmatic argumentative linguistic tools? Paul Danler

Towards a typology of manipulative processes Eddo Rigotti

Are manipulative texts 'coherent'? Manipulation, presuppositions and (in-)congruity Andrea Rocci

Manipulation and cognitive pragmatics: Preliminary hypotheses Louis de Saussure

The role of misused concepts in manufacturing consent: A cognitive account Nicholas Allott

Manipulation in the speeches and writings of Hitler and the NSDAP from a cognitive pragmatics viewpoint Regina Blass

An integrated approach to the analysis of participant roles in totalitarian discourse: The case of Ceausescu's Agent roles Cornelia Ilie

Racist manipulation within Austrian, German, Dutch, French and Italian right-wing populism Manfred Kienpointner

Intertextuality, mental spaces and the fall of a hero: Pinochet as a developing topic Carlos Inchaurralde

Stalinist vs. fascist propaganda: How much do they have in common? Daniel Weiss

Press instructions as a tool to manipulate the public under the German Nazi government — with an eye towards the German Democratic Republic Jürgen Wilke