What discourse goals can be accomplished by the use of hyperbole?

Abstract

Although hyperbole is a ubiquitous means of discourse, its role in interpersonal rhetoric has been examined to a much lesser extent than that of metaphor or irony. This paper investigates what discourse goals can be fulfilled by hyperbole, using conversations from some classic Hungarian films as the data. The reason why film conversations were selected is that the knowledge of the story and the transparency of the characters' intentions make the understanding of communicative motives easy. Besides, the situations in feature films are very similar to spontaneous everyday interactions. Analyses demonstrate that hyperbolic utterances convey the speakers' attitudes, either real or only presented, towards the topic of conversation. According to the social psychological laws of public behaviour, the expression of emotional relation or attitude is mostly subordinated to the speaker's attempt to construct an intended impression on conversational partners. Thus, the use of hyperbole has two main goals: to express emotions and to reach a desired self-presentation.

“The big red giant will explode”: Géza Hofi’s political implicatures from the happiest barracks in the socialist camp

“…Beyond the PI pointed out above, Hofi's monologue in (2) contains an ironical twist ("Do it yourself" as 'Steal it') and another attitude-implicature (Nemesi 2004(Nemesi , 2010(Nemesi , 2013 parodying the demagogic style of agitprop. The rhetorical triggers of this scornful attitude-implicature are the figures of sermocinatio (fabricating statements, conversations or soliloquies to characterise persons) and polysyndeton (the repetition of conjunctions in close succession), supplemented by intonational (rising-falling pitch glides repeated in the rhythm of the polysyndeton) and non-verbal (mocking enthusiasm on his face, shaking his fists) clues.…”

The Role of Linguistic Impression Management: The Case of Hungarian Courtroom Discourses

“…On the basis of Goffman's work, Schlenker further develops the concept of impression management, and defines it as a "conscious or unconscious attempt to control images that are projected in real or imagined social interactions" (Schlenker 1980: 6). In his work he differentiates impression management from self-presentation, which is a narrower concept: the latter covers only the impressions which are projected from the self, while impression management involves the goal-directed control of the outer image of not only the actor, but of other persons, associations, entities, and ideologies (Leary 1995;Nemesi 2011Nemesi , 2004. However, later works use these concepts interchangeably, because it is rare for a projected image to ignore all kinds of self-content (Nemesi 2011).…”

“…The latter involves not only the face-saving acts from the hearer's perspective, it also highlights the importance of the interplay of private self-processes and interpersonal factors. It includes individual face constructions or self-identifications with all kinds of processes, means and results involved in showing oneself to be a particular type of person, thereby specifying one's identity (Nemesi 2004(Nemesi : 13, 2011.…”

“…One of its main assumptions is that people attempt to act in the way they want to be perceived by others in social interactions (Goffman 1959;Schlenker 1980;Leary and Kowalski 1990;Nemesi 2000). Though impression management is a universal phenomenon, the strategies used to perform linguistic impression management can be considered language-and culture-specific, as well as contextdependent (Nemesi 2000(Nemesi , 2004(Nemesi , 2011Ting-Toomey and Oetzel 2001;Németh T. 2004). Nemesi (2000Nemesi ( , 2011 elaborated a non-taxative dynamic list, mainly based on everyday conversations in Hungarian.…”

“…In Hungary, the maximum penalty for the crime in the example above is five years, therefore it is clear that the defendant is using hyperbole, which could incline the hearer to identify with him emotionally (Nemesi 2004(Nemesi , 2009. The defendant applies the strategy of emotional identification with other's assertion or attitude: he would accept even 100 years as a sanction if he really had committed the crime he is accused of.…”