“I didn't mean to suggest anything like that!”: Deniability and context reconstruction

Abstract

Verbal communication leaves room for interpretative disputes. Speakers can argue about what they mean by their words and negotiate their commitments in conversation. This article examines the deniability of implicitly communicated contents and addresses the question of what makes an act of denial seem more or less plausible to the addressee. I argue that denials bring about a process of reconstruction of the context of interpretation of the speaker's utterance and I illustrate how considerations of cognitive utility are the key determinant for distinguishing plausible from merely possible deniability.

Communication & deniability: Moral and epistemic reactions to denials

“…Thus, the denial model did not confirm our prediction regarding the effect of the speaker's incentives on their re-21 interpretation process. Our results suggest that, as proposed by Mazzarella (2021), the presence of a speaker's denial triggers a re-interpretation process.…”

“…and hence that when a denial is offered, the ascription of responsibilityshould be mediated by a reinterpretation process about speaker's meaning (as suggested by Mazzarella, 2021). To confirm this, we conducted Experiment 2.…”

“…We adopted this particular focus because these are cases where speakers' incentives to mislead their audience may be relevant factors in determining what audiences might infer. In particular, prior incentives to mislead the audience can provide background information that shapes the interpretation of a denial (Mazzarella, 2021). We hypothesised that if the audience is aware of these incentives, this will impact on the credibility of the denial, as measured by the interpretation and re-interpretation of utterances, and moral assessments of the speaker's communicative behaviour.…”

Ethos and Pragmatics

“…The notion of weak communication is particularly useful in literary or stylistic interpretation since, as shown by Mazzarella (2021), the responsibility for drawing weak implicatures is more on the hearer's (or the analyst's) side, making them optional and not necessarily foreseeable by the speaker.…”

“…Analyzing ethos may appear as opening Pandora's box, especially since the typology shown in Mazzarella (2021), may already appear to be overwhelming. I intended to compartmentalize different aspects of what constitutes the speaker's image in order to have a better vision of what it covers and also to describe a tool that I hope is encompassing enough to cope with different texts.…”