STRATEGIC AND TACTIC ARRANGEMENT OF EMOTIONAL MANIPULATIVE METACOMMUNICATION

Abstract

The article identifies “emotional manipulative metacommunication”, and, consequently, observes manipulation fromboth emotional / psychological and metacommunicative perspectives. It characterizes the participants of emotionalmanipulative metacommunication as an adjacency pair “the manipulator – the victim”. The study clarifies the aimof manipulator, which is to get the desired by establishing the emotional bond with the victim – an individual or massaddressee (considering the number of targeted addressees). In the context of the subject of the study, the author singlesout the strategy of “emotional misbalancing” as the one which is most typical of the emotional manipulativemetacommunication. It presupposes the destabilization of the victim’s emotional state by means of the targeted influence on some specific feelings and emotions of the hearer. The research proves that the addressee’s reaction on what is saidslows down, and specifies atypical and a bit inadequate for that addressee speech behavior. It also demonstrates thatemotional manipulation relates to both negative or conflict and provoking speech behavior (manipulations by fear, anger,man’s Ego, despair, self-distrust, indignation, doubt, guilt, shame), and positive speech situations (manipulations by love,hope, empathy). Therefore, it realizes by means of such tactics as emotional “infecting”, infusing, imitation and emotionalpersuading, and the use of meta-means as stereotypic ritualized speech clichés. “Meaningful silence” is considered tobe neutral as it refers to both positive and negative speech situations because it may be used to make the addressee feeluneasy (owing to indirect condemnation), as well as inspired (owing to indirect permission) which in both cases results inhis/her desire to act. The article confirms that the influential techniques of emotional manipulative metacommunicationdiffer in interpersonal and mass communication.