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The Pragmatics of Hypocrisy
As a first attempt to date, this book addresses the notion of hypocrisy from a pragmatic perspective and devises a comprehensive model of verbal hypocrisy. The studies included adopt emic and etic approaches in order to contribute jointly towards an understanding of what appears to be a ubiquitous and multifaceted phenomenon. Going beyond hypocrisy as a mere moral vice, this volume establishes its pragmatic space and confronts it with adjacent notions which, unlike hypocrisy, have been subject to pragmatic examination. The Pragmatics of Hypocrisy is of interest to students and scholars in pragmatics, discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, rhetoric, communication and media studies, as well as corpus linguistics, and by its transdisciplinary nature, to researchers in philosophy, sociology, and political science. It is also essential reading for anyone interested in the interplay between language, culture and society, across varieties and registers of English.
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 343] 2024. viii, 268 pp.
Publishing status: Available
Published online on 14 February 2024
Published online on 14 February 2024
© John Benjamins
Table of Contents
- List of contributors | pp. vii–viii
- Part I. Introducing and theorizing hypocrisy
- Chapter 1. Introduction to hypocrisySandrine Sorlin and Tuija Virtanen | pp. 2–14
- Chapter 2. A pragmatic model of hypocrisySandrine Sorlin and Tuija Virtanen | pp. 15–42
- Part II. Metapragmatic approaches to hypocrisy
- Chapter 3. Politics, religion, and drama: Exploring the metapragmatics of hypocrisyMathew Gillings | pp. 44–73
- Chapter 4. “Ding ding ding we have a hypocrite!”: The metapragmatics of verbal hypocrisy in discussion forum interactionSanna-Kaisa Tanskanen | pp. 74–95
- Part III. Hypocrisy and authenticity in political and public discourse
- Chapter 5. Hypocrisy, authenticity, and the rhetorical dynamics of populismMartin Gill | pp. 98–124
- Chapter 6. Apology as hypocrisy: Examples from Bill Clinton and Donald TrumpHelena Halmari | pp. 124–160
- Part IV. Benign hypocrisy
- Chapter 7. Ostensible offers, politeness and sincere hypocrisyMichael Haugh | pp. 162–186
- Chapter 8. Pretending to pretend: Performing “autohypocrisy” in online discourseTuija Virtanen | pp. 187–211
- Part V. The ubiquity of hypocrisy
- Chapter 9. The – mostly – brighter side of hypocrisy and the concept of faceJim O’Driscoll | pp. 214–230
- Chapter 10. A plea for hypocrisy: Pragma-philosophical considerationsSandrine Sorlin | pp. 231–253
- Part VI. Closing
- Chapter 11. An epilogue and note on cross-cultural hypocrisyJonathan Culpeper | pp. 256–263
- Index | pp. 265–268
“The present volume embodies a nice marriage of the etic view of the contributors and the emic descriptions as some authors focus on metapragmatic uses of verbal hypocrisy, offering contextualized and yet replicable research agendas to the research into hypocrisy and politeness research. This volume is recommended reading for students and scholars interested in pragmatics, discourse studies, communication studies, sociology and political science.”
Rong Lei & Yongping Ran, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, in Journal of Pragmatics 229 (2024).
“The volume is extremely stimulating and thought-provoking, both for research and for one’s own communication choices. It will certainly encourage further research on communication, politeness and face and also, perhaps, on the exact boundary between hypocrisy and “mere” insincerity, as well as on the relationship between hypocrisy and accommodation theory.”
Laure Gardelle, Université Grenoble Alpes, LIDILEM, in e-Rea 22.1 (2024).
“The Pragmatics of Hypocrisy is a recommended read to researchers interested in (im)politeness, metapragmatics and meaning-making processes. Some chapters will additionally appeal to researchers of political discourse, online interaction, speech act theory, and ostentatious actions.”
Roni Danziger, Tel Aviv University, in Pragmatics and Society 16:2 (2025).
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