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7 - Influencing People Around the Globe

The Linguistic Expression of Persuasion Across Varieties of English Worldwide

from II - Persuasion and (New) Contexts of Use

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2025

By
Robert Fuchs
Edited by
Sofia Rüdiger  and
Daria Dayter
Sofia Rüdiger
Affiliation:
Universität Bayreuth, Germany
Daria Dayter
Affiliation:
Tampere University, Finland
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Summary

The use of the English language in many countries around the world greatly facilitates international communication. However, linguists have long pointed out that differences between established and emerging dialects of English may lead to miscommunication, especially because many users of the language may not be aware of many of these differences. Such issues may be particularly acute in high-stakes communicative endeavours such as persuading others to change their opinion or engage in a certain action. Psychologists have previously explored this construct mainly in experimental settings, whereas the present chapter uses a large database (‘corpus’) of natural language. The chapter thus provides an empirical, corpus-based analysis of the linguistic expression of persuasion across 21 international dialects (‘varieties’) of English from countries where English is widely used as a first or second language. Results indicate that there are substantial differences in the degree of overt expression of persuasion, with South Asian varieties of English indicating the lowest levels and (West) African varieties that greatest level of overt persuasion. The chapter concludes by discussing possible explanations of these patterns, implications for international communication as well as avenues for more detailed analyses of particular linguistic features involved in persuasion.

Keywords

persuasionWorld EnglishesEnglish as a Lingua Francastanceregistercorpus linguisticsEnglishcommunicationmisunderstandingsinternational
Type
Chapter
Information
Manipulation, Influence and Deception
The Changing Landscape of Persuasive Language
 , pp. 135 - 154
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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