Characteristics of communicative manipulation on the material of English TV series

Abstract

The aim of the research is to define the characteristics and the role of communication manipulation in the situations of interpersonal communication. The scientific novelty lies in the complete comprehensive analysis of manipulation phenomena in the situations of interpersonal communication and is conditioned by the necessity of linguistic study of the notion “manipulation” as this notion has been previously defined on the bases of psychological researchers’ works. The article presents the nature of manipulation and its connection with speech impact and persuasion. Communicative manipulation is opposed to linguistic violence by the criteria of presence/absence of the factor of further voluntary participation in communication process. The author analyses the main characteristics of manipulation in the process of interpersonal communication, introduces the notions of open manipulation and indirect blackmail as a tool of communicative manipulation. This research is based on the material of English drama TV series “House of Cards”. As a result, it is proved that communicative manipulation in the situations of interpersonal communication has its specific features and the communicants can use some definite speech techniques to manipulate an interlocutor openly or in secret.