Discrediting body. A multimodal strategy to
spoil the other’s image
Francesca D’Errico, Isabella Poggi, Laura Vincze
Roma Tre University
fderrico@uniroma3.it; poggi@uniroma3.it
Abstract: In political persuasion the persuader, beside bearing logical arguments and triggering
emotions, must present one’s own image (one’s ethos) of a credible and reliable person, by
enhancing three dimensions of it: competence, benevolence and dominance. In a parallel way, s/he
may cast discredit on the opponent by criticizing, accusing or insulting on the same three
dimensions. The work provides a description and a typology of multimodal discrediting moves
focusing on the discrediter’s multimodal behavior. Based on an Italian corpus of political debates
the analysis points out which facial expressions, gaze behavior, gestures, postures and prosodic
features are used to convey discredit concerning the three target features of competence,
benevolence and dominance. The qualitative study of discredit signals highlights the close relation
with emotions and in this sense particular attention is given to them as triggers of the Audience’s
evaluation
Keywords: Discredits, social signals, emotions
1. Detecting conflict in signals and meanings
When Alex Pentland in 2008[1] built his Sociometer, he proposed a way to
capture the progress of a face-to-face interaction, thus giving a first example of
the emerging research area of Social Signal Processing. Simply sensing the
acoustic features of an ongoing discussion may give you an idea of its level of
conflict or smoothness, and, to some extent, allow to predict its outcomes. Yet, the
bare detection of activity level or turn overlap can only give a vague unspecified
idea of what’s going on between interactants: sometimes, to have a hint to this, it
is not sufficient to detect physical features like intensity of voice, speed of
gestures or floor management moves; we also need information on the semantic
aspects of ongoing discourse, such as the specific reasons for conflict in a
particular segment of interaction, that may result in different outcomes of it. In a
discussion, for example, a raised intensity of voice during the climax of an
argument may be accepted as expressing passion, but raised intensity during an
insult may be a cue to conflict escalation and lead the insulted participant to
retaliate or, on the contrary, to leave the contest.
To refine the tools for social signal detection it is therefore necessary to take into
account the semantic import of physical features in social interaction: but this
requires an in-depth analysis of specific interactional moves, on the side of both
the interactants’ behaviours and their meanings.
In this paper we deal with a particular aspect of conflicting interaction during
political debates: multimodal communication in discrediting moves, that is, the
verbal, facial, gestural, body behaviours through which a participant tries to cast a
negative image of another participant in a debate.
Our goal is twofold: on the one side we aim at providing a description of
discrediting behaviours in debates, that in future work might be of use both for the
1
simulation of these communicative moves in Virtual Agents, and for their
automatic detection in real debates; on the other side we want to go more in depth
into our theoretical model of social interaction, by viewing multimodal
discrediting behaviour within a wider framework of human communication.
In this Section we give a first commonsense idea of discrediting moves in political
debates, and we overview previous work that, in the fields of rhetoric, social
psychology and multimodal communication, may be relevant to this topic. In Sect.
2 we present the main notions of a theoretical model of social action, social
evaluation, communication and persuasion in terms of goals and beliefs, that we
exploit to define our notion of discrediting act by linking it to, but distinguishing
it from, other moves like insulting, accusing and criticizing. In Sect. 3 we set
apart different types of discrediting behaviours and analyze the verbal and
multimodal communication used in Italian political debates to spoil the image of
an opponent. In Sect. 4 we discuss some implications of our study and sketch
some possible directions of future work.
1.1.
Discrediting the opponent in a political
debate
We are in the scenery of political debates, a particular type of communicative
interaction in which a speaker A tries to persuade both the interlocutor (for
instance the Moderator or the audience) and third parties that what s/he maintains
is right, while opponent B is wrong: B presents a distorted image of things and
proposes goals – or plans to achieve them – that are not sound or effective. So a
debate may be viewed as a case of “persuasive interaction” in which opponents
try to persuade each other and the audience, and all the moves of persuasion recur
in the debate, with persuasion viewed, in its stronger sense, as convincing
someone to do some action or, in its weaker sense, as convincing that something
is true. In both cases one must bear arguments – that is, good reasons for the other
to believe that doing a certain action is just or convenient, or simply good reasons
to believe that something is really how the persuader puts it.
But in persuading , not only the good reasons borne by the persuader are of use:
also the very person of the persuader is/must be convincing. According to
Aristotle [2], the audience is persuaded not only by logos and pathos, i.e., by
rational argumentation and the appeal to emotions, but also by ethos, the
Persuader’s character. In fact, we are not only persuaded by what people say, but
by what people are. We are persuaded by someone we trust.
This holds for both the speaker and the opponent. Hence the persuader not only
has to induce positive evaluations of the goal he proposes or the beliefs he
conveys, but also positive evaluations of himself, to convince the audience; and
besides inducing negative evaluations of the goals and arguments proposed by the
opponent, he may also try to induce some concerning the opponent himself, to
prevent the audience from being persuaded by him. In other words, for A to
convince B that C is wrong may entail casting discredit over C.
In this paper we analyse discrediting moves in political debates. And since a
discrediting move can be performed by both verbal and body signals (not only
words and sentences, but also facial expression, gesture, gaze, posture may be
exploited to directly or indirectly convey negative evaluations about the
opponent), on the basis of our model of persuasion [3], and starting from a
previous typology [4] of discrediting moves, we analyze the multimodal
2
communication of discredit: the verbal and body behaviour used to spoil the
image of an opponent.
1.2 Related work
The specific theme of our work, body communication of discredit in political
debates, has not been specifically investigated so far, hence to find pertinent work
we resort to three different research areas: rhetoric and argumentation, social
psychology, and multimodal communication.
The act of discrediting the other in order to demonstrate he is wrong may be
sometimes a case of “ad hominem fallacy”: a topic that has been thoroughly
studied since classical rhetoric up to recent argumentation theory, and that her we
only briefly sketch due to space reasons.
A fallacy (a notion first introduced by Aristotle [2]) is an incorrect but seemingly
genuine reasoning: a trap [5], possibly deceitful even for the person who
conceives of it, that may be conceived of, or used in argumentation, either
unaware or with the deliberate intention of providing a misleading argument. In
particular, according to [6], “fallacia ad hominem” is a “technique of argument
used to attack someone's argument by raising questions about that person's
character or personal situation”, that “has the form: "My opponent here is a bad
person, therefore you ( the audience) should not accept his argument"” [7, p.140].
In the Pragma-dialectic perspective [8], fallacies are violations of the ten rules for
critical discussion, and “ad hominem” in particular violates the “freedom rule”,
according to which participants in a discussion must be free to provide arguments
without fearing of being attacked. In the “ad hominem” attack, both Walton [6; 7]
and [8] include issues of morality as well as of expertise: Van Eemeren and
Grootendorst [8] describe it as “cutting down one's opponent by casting doubt on
his [one’s opponent’s] expertise, intelligence, character, or good faith” (p.111),
by portraying him “as stupid, unreliable, inconsistent, or biased” (p. 110) [6]
mainly mentions “bad character for veracity, or bad moral character generally"
(p. 140), but observes that “bad character” in political arguments does not
necessarily imply a “moral” judgement; it may entail deficiency in some other
qualities needed for the best candidate [7; p.115], like, for example, being a
strong leader.
Besides literature in argumentation theory, studies on persuasion in sociology and
social psychology too point at the importance of credibility, reliability and
attractiveness of the persuader in making the persuasive message more effective.
Not only the moral image of the persuader, as Aristotle claimed, is important but a
more competent source [9] is more persuasive while, as studies on charisma show
[10], a more attractive source induces more persuasion and may heavily influence
people.
A subset of this literature that can be relevant to the issue is one concerning
attribution theory. According to [11] people, when trying to account for a negative
event or an unsuccessful action, attribute it to some specific causes. For instance,
a student may attribute his failure at school to internal vs. external causes (e.g., I
did not study vs. the teacher did not explain it well), controllable vs.
uncontrollable (I did not study enough vs. I am bad in math) stable vs. unstable (I
am bad in math vs. I was sick yesterday), and global vs. specific causes (I am
stupid vs. I am poor in math). These attributions may have important effects on a
3
person’s subsequent feelings and behaviours, to the extent that an attributional
style tending to attribute failures to internal, uncontrollable, stable and global
causes may induce feelings of impotence, pessimism, and depression [12]. The
dimensions above can be relevant for the analysis of discrediting moves [13] since
they may shed light on their respective seriousness, resulting in hypotheses about
their effects in political communication.
Finally, the issue of discredit has been considered, in the context of impression
formation, in terms of the so-called "negativity effect” [14]: negative information,
that may possibly concern risky events, is more salient than positive information
from a cognitive point of view, so it enhances attention and memory aimed at a
defensive function. Studies on the effects of discredit on voting behavior show
quite contradictory results [15]: discredit, especially on a personal level, often has
a "boomerang effect”; but applying the framing theory to media corpora [16]
reveals that the message passing through in any case contributes to forming a
communicative environment [17] that organizes and helps to give meaning; the
higher the level of aggression or discredit the more people get accustomed to it, so
even the boomerang effect must be considered within the communicative context
at hand. Discredit may have various targets [3] related to the personal sphere of
politicians, and, according to Fiske’s model of [18] it mainly concerns two
dimensions: competence, that incorporates expertise and leadership (mainly
interpreted in terms of dynamicity and decision capacity, [19]), and sociability,
that includes aspects of warmth and morality ([20]). As reported by [21], morality
is the most important dimension in the negative opinions of voters, because it is
deemed as more dangerous, and at the same time can be a more stable and internal
characteristic than incompetence, that, in the attributional terms above, seems to
be seen as not stable and mostly external.
In addition to content, [22] showed that the use of counterfactual arguments, i.e.,
imagining the positive or negative consequences of a particular event in case past
events had been different, can make the attack to the opponent’s morality more
acceptable.
In the field of pragmatics and multimodality, though no specific work has
investigated the multimodal expression of discrediting moves, some relevant
contribution may come from research on gestures.
Calbris [23] takes coverbal gestures as a way to capture a politician’s political
thought, and in her insightful analysis of the metaphors exploited by Jospin’s
gestural behavior, she demonstrates how his gestures, or aspects of their execution
like handshape or use of right vs. left hand, can express abstract notions like
“effort”, “objective”, “decision”, “balance”, “priority”, “private” or “public
stance”.
Kendon [24], with his detailed analyses of the meaning and function of
illocutionary gestures, not only in everyday interaction but also during discussion,
can give us some hints as to the persuasive and argumentative import of some
gestures. Besides a referential function of conveying parts of the propositional
content of an utterance and an interactive function of helping the turn-taking
management, he also attributes pragmatic functions to gestures: a performative
function of clarifying the types of speech acts being performed, a modal function
of altering the interpretation of the utterance, for example through negation or
intensification, and a parsing function of marking the syntactic or textual structure
of a sentence or discourse. Within gestures with pragmatic functions, one that may
fulfil a persuasive function is Kendon’s gesture family of the “ring”, that bears a
meaning of “making precise” or “clarifying”, and is used every time such
4
clarification is important “in gaining the agreement, the conviction or the
understanding of the interlocutor” (Kendon 2004, p. 241).
Streeck [25], studying the gestural behavior of the Democratic candidates during
the political campaign of 2004 in the USA, finds that their gestures lack variety as
to handshape and movement, and that they are very rarely iconic, either because,
just as Quintilian [26] advocated, iconics are highly characterized as a popular
style of gesturing, or else because gestures in political discourse must have more
of a pragmatic (parsing) than a referential function. Possibly due to his view that
in gestures there is no fixed form–function relationship, Streeck does not find
many gestures with clear performative functions in his data: he doubts that the
“ring” always has a meaning of precision, or that the “power grip” of moving the
fist always conveys assertion or power. Yet, he hypothesizes that the “index up”
or “finger wag”, the almost unique gesture used in permanence by Howard Dean,
was responsible for his defeat: since people might have interpreted it as a
hierarchical act conveying that what he was saying was particularly important and
instructive, this might have given the impression of one displaying his “superior
knowledge”, and have spoiled, with this contemptuous body behavior, the
ascendancy he had previously gained through early written texts.
Some analyses of gestures in political debates and other types of interaction (e.g.
[27]; here, Chapter Maricchiolo) show how a high frequency of self-adaptor
gestures, as opposed to illustrators, lowers the persuasiveness of the Speaker. But
these studies do not explicitly link heightened or lacking efficacy to the specific
meanings of gestures, while the reason why a politician using many self-adaptors
is not very persuasive might reside in their conveying a need for self-reassurance,
hence an impression of low charisma. In fact, [28] and [29], considering gestures
as to their semantic import, distinguish them as to their bearing more on the logos,
pathos or ethos side of persuasion, that is, as conveying content information,
expressing emotion, or presenting the Orator; and, within gestures conveying
ethos, they set apart those trying to give an impression of competence vs.
benevolence; strangely enough, they find a curious correlation between the
gestures more frequently used and the political image the politicians project: more
gestures of competence for a Christian Democrat who needs not to exhibit his
moral virtues, vs. more gestures of benevolence for a Communist, who needs to
reassure voters.
One more pertinent works on facial and multimodal behavior is the analysis of the
conversational and emotional signals of the eyebrows by Ekman [30], with its
mention of the so-called “skeptical eyebrow”, a unilateral rasing of one eyebrow
that conveys haughty or ironic incredulity. Finally, studies about the function and
multimodal communication of irony and ridicule in situation comedies [31] and
political trials [32; 33] show that incongruence between verbal and body behavior
can be a cue to irony, and that both irony and ridicule may be used in judicial
debates to challenge the credibility of the accused and to abase the opponent in a
power comparison.
2. The place of evaluation in a world of goals
Before studying cases of discredit in political talk shows, we define discredit
according to a theoretical model of mind, social relations and social interaction
based on the notions of goals and beliefs. Let us first overview the basic concepts
of this model.
5
2.1. Goals, social interaction and social evaluation
According to [34], any action of a system, as well as social interaction and
communication between systems are regulated by goals. A system pursues its
goals through plans, hierarchically organized sequences of actions; but when it
does not have the power to achieve its goals, lacking the necessary resources or
capacities, it may need another system to adopt its goal, i.e. to help it achieve it.
Social interaction is the result of reciprocal goal adoption. Several kinds of
adoption exist, both instrumental (e.g., social exchange) and disinterested (e.g.,
affect and altruism). To gain adoption, social influence and image may be
exploited. Social influence holds when A raises the likeliness for B to pursue
some goal; and if this is a goal of A, A has influenced B to adopt A’s goal. Both
influenced and non-influenced adoption (except, probably, one stemming from
affect or altruism) entail image: to decide to adopt another’s goal, one relies on
the image one has of the other. Image is the set of evaluative and non-evaluative
beliefs that A conceives of concerning B. An evaluation is a belief about whether
and how much some object, event, person are or provide means for some goal
([35]). Persons are evaluated positively or negatively against several criteria
(different goals): ugly or handsome, selfish or altruistic, just or unjust, stupid or
intelligent, honest or immoral. But since the image others have of you determines
the type of relationships others want to have with you [36], to have a positive
image – to be evaluated well against a number of criteria – becomes a permanent
goal for people, one they have in every moment of their life [37].
2.2. Social evaluation and the facets of ethos in
political persuasion
To trust a person means to delegate to him/her the pursuit and achievement of our
goals because we have a positive image of him [38]. But in evaluating both an
object and a person, we may conceive of two kinds of negative evaluations: one of
inadequacy, if it lacks the power necessary for some goals; and one of
noxiousness, if it is endowed with power, but a negative power that risks of
thwarting someone’s goals. Thus, trusting someone means evaluating him as both
one who has the necessary capacities to achieve my goals, and one who does not
do harm. Suppose candidate C, despite his honesty and moral integrity, is not very
smart in his political strategy (evaluation of lack of power), I will probably not
vote for him; on the other hand if candidate A is very smart, but he is not honest
or abuses of his power (negative evaluation of noxiousness), I will not vote for
him either. These two kinds of evaluation are both necessary for trust: to trust a
person, I must assume 1. that s/he has a benevolent attitude toward me – s/he is
willing to act for my good, she does not want to hurt me, and in her attempts to
persuade me, she is not trying to cheat – and 2. that s/he is a competent person,
one who has the necessary and updated knowledge about the topics to decide
upon, and the skills to plan and to predict outcomes of actions.
These features of a trustworthy persuader have been already acknowledged as
relevant by previous literature, under the names of morality/good character and
competence/expertise, respectively (see Sect. 1.2 above). But in our hypothesis,
while looking competent and benevolent may be sufficient conditions in everyday
6
persuasion, in political discourse the orator, beside exhibiting benevolence and
competence, must also show dominance. If a candidate tries to persuade me to
vote for him, I will check not only his benevolence (towards my category of
electors) nor only his competence in politics or economy, but I will also take into
account how strong and effective he looks in carrying out his goals. Thus, the
image a politician should project – at least for some types of electors – is also one
of a dominant person: he must be totally devoid of features of lack of power.
Following [39], [40] have defined dominance as a relational construct implying a
power comparison (to have “more power than” another); but the communication
of power – the fact of producing signals that convey one is dominant – is very
important too, because communicating power is a way to maintain it or even to
acquire more of it. And if dominance signals are necessary to maintain one’s
power, this accounts for why in political debates not only signals of dominance
are ubiquitous, but also the attempts to lower others’ dominance are very frequent.
[40] have also carried out a multimodal analysis of twelve dominance strategies;
some of them, such as using requestive speech acts or speaking aloud, called the
“blatant” dominance strategies, are very clearly characterized by aggressiveness
or power display; others, like showing a calm strength or ignoring the other, at a
first sight do not show a clear exhibition of force or power, but are nonetheless
ways – though indirect ways – to show dominant: they are “subtle” dominance
strategies.
2.3. Casting discredit
During a debate, people often accuse, criticize, or even insult each other, but such
speech acts are not necessarily aimed at discrediting the other. So, what is
discredit, and what does it mean to cast discredit over someone?
The word “discredit” does not refer to a specific communicative act, but to an
effect of communicative acts. In Austin’s [41] terms it is a “perlocutionary” effect
of something said or communicated about someone. If A criticizes, accuses or
insults B, these communicative acts about B may have the goal of discrediting B,
but not necessarily they do. Yet, it is very plausible that they have the effect of
discrediting, i.e., they may cause the image of B to be spoiled. More specifically,
discredit can be defined as the spoiling of the image of a person (B) in the eyes of
other people (C), caused, either deliberately or not, by a person (A) through
performing communicative acts that mention or point at actions or qualities of B
that are considered negative by the third party C. In fact, it is not necessary for A
to discredit B that the evaluation communicated or implied by A is negative for A;
it might simply be negative for C.
Suppose (the example is taken from Jonasson’s [42] funny novel) that a very
cruel boss of a gang is in jail, where he is respected and feared by other prisoners,
that he receives a letter from his mother addressing him as a tender cute little boy,
and that this letter happens to be read by the wrong eyes: immediately the fame of
cruelty and strength of the gang boss crumbles away. In this case the image of B
(the gang boss) in front of C (other prisoners) is spoiled: his mother’s words do
not per se convey negative evaluations, nor are they deliberately aimed at casting
a particular image on him; yet they let one infer a negative evaluation of him from
the prisoners’ point of view, hence they discredit him. Thus, the effect of
discrediting someone may be either deliberate or not. Moreover, the fact inducing
a negative evaluation that results in discredit may be either true or not, and either
7
deliberately deceitful or in good faith; for example, in calumny A launches an
accusation to B of having done something that in fact B did not do, right with the
goal of casting discredit over B.
In this work we analyze cases in which discredit is deliberately cast over
opponents in political debates, with the aim of lowering their credibility in front of
electors.
As seen above, the effect of discredit may be brought about by using various types
of communicative acts, all mentioning negative evaluations, among which the acts
of criticism, accusation, insult. A criticism is a communicative act in which A
conveys that some property or action (including communication of some opinion),
that is presupposed as performed by B, is wrong. An accusation is a
communicative act in which A presupposes that an action or omission has been
performed which is considered bad since it causes harm to others or violates some
norm, and asserts that B is responsible for this: A claims that is B guilty of that
action or omission. An insult is a communicative act, generally an informative act
of the form “you are an X”, or an exclamatory summon of the form “X!”,
through which A claims B’s belonging to a category of entities X that are subject
to a very negative evaluation. If the form “you are an X” is already abasing for B,
the form “X!” is even more offensive since, looking like a summon, an epithet
thrown to call B “X” as if X were B’s name, it not only states the belonging of B
to that category, but even states that B is only characterized by the feature of
being an X – thus denying any other nobler or richer characterization of B.
Moreover, the insulter A has the goal not only to communicate to others how bad
or dangerous B is, but also to communicate him A’s intention of offending him,
that is, to publicly spoil B’s image, and even, to spoil B’s self-image: to let him
feel disgusted of himself [36].
Criticism, accusation and insult all are communicative acts mentioning a negative
evaluation, but they are performed as a means to discredit B only if they are
addressed either only to an audience C (like in gossip or calumny), or both to B
himself and to the audience. In both cases, A wants the negative evaluation of B
to be spread to the audience.
The negative evaluation may be either one of noxiousness or of lack of power
[36], according to what is the image of B that A wants to convey to the audience,
and it may be expressed verbally, or simply by body signals, or by a combination
of the two. Moreover, it can be expressed in an indirect way, that is, not through
the meanings of explicit signals, but through the inferences possibly implied by
them.
3. Discrediting moves in debates.
In previous work [43; 44; 45], a qualitative and quantitative analysis was
presented of discrediting moves in political debates. An observational study
outlined a typology of them and assessed their relative quantity and distribution
across gender, culture, and political orientation. In this paper we focus on the
discrediting moves that are not performed through words, but only, or mainly,
through body signals: gestures, gaze, facial expression, body posture, and
prosodic features of speech.
To find examples of discrediting moves we analyzed 12 video-recorded political
debates held during Italian election campaigns in 2008 and 2011. After an
8
overview of these debates, 40 fragments were selected in which a debater
discredits another.
The cases of nonverbal discredit we describe in our work are in the majority
communicative acts performed by politicians who are presently being the
Interlocutor in a debate, and are mainly in response to the present speaker’s
speech; in other words, they work as facial of bodily “comments” to what the
present speaker is saying [46]. Of course, in some cases one performs multimodal
discrediting moves, where discredit is cast by both speech and other signals; but in
this case we chose to focus on nonverbal signals that are performed without the
Sender’s concurrent speech; the use of mouth for speech, for example, would have
added noise to facial expression.
A relevant aspect of nonverbal discredit is also who its addressee is. Only in some
cases is the discrediting move addressed to its very target, the person to be
discredited; much more frequently it is directed to the audience (sometimes the
audience in studio, but more often audience at home). This also implies a certain
“theater work” of the discrediter: s/he may be in some cases playing a role, which
explains and justifies, for instance, ostentation of emotions that are not really felt,
but are only aimed at triggering the audience’s reaction to the discredited person.
The fragments were transcribed, analyzed and classified by two expert
independent coders. For some fragments only the verbal communication was
transcribed, while for those in which the discrediting move was mainly or only
performed by body signals, communication in all relevant modalities was
annotated. An annotation scheme was constructed, based on the principles of the
“musical score of multimodal communication” [47], where each signal is analyzed
in terms of its physical features (e.g., for gesture, handshape, location, orientation
and movement, and the expressivity parameters of temporal extent, spatial extent,
fluidity, power and repetition; for gaze, eyes direction, eyebrows and eyelids
position and movements) and its literal and, possibly, indirect meaning, expressed
through a verbal paraphrase. Based on these meanings, a typology of discrediting
moves was built up. Here is an example of annotation (Table 1).
In fragment 24 Marco Travaglio, a left wing journalist, is talking of the numerous
indictments of the right wing premier Berlusconi, and Elisabetta Casellati, a viceminister of Justice in Berlusconi’s government, trying to demonstrate that not
only the chief of her party has pending indictments in many trials, alludes to trials
for defamation in which Travaglio has been condemned.
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Table 1. An annotation scheme of discrediting acts
1.
Time
stam
p
Send
er
1.
Trav
aglio
7.35
2.
Trav
aglio
7.38
2.
Speech
3.
Meaning
4.
Body
signals
5.
Meaning
(I miei
processi)
non
riguarda
no
prostituzi
one
minorile
(My own
trials)
do not
concern
Prosody:
raising
intonation
I am going
to explain
precisely
child
prostituti
on
Prosody:
Stress on ri
Gaze:
Eyes open
wide and
eyebrows
raised
Gesture:
Right
thumb up
3.
Trav
aglio
8.00
riguarda
no degli
articoli
scritti su
un
giornale
they
concern
some
papers
written
on a
newspap
er
Prosody:
singsong
intonation
Gesture:
Right hand
palm to
Hearer,
thumb and
index in
precision
pick,
rotating
moves to
right as if
writing
6.
Indirect
meaning
7.
Discrediting
Strategy
I am
scanning
words 
I explain
very
clearly 
you are
stupid
stupid
I emphasize
this word
Berlusconi
’s indictments are
more
serious
than mine
Number one
of a list
I count
them
They are
numerous
I remind this
as a poem to
learn by
heart
You
should
learn this
once for all
 you are
like a pupil
I iconically
depict what
“written”
means
I explain
very
clearly 
you are
stupid
Negative
evaluation
concerning
competence
stupid
Negative
evaluation
concerning
competence
(1) Travaglio replies: “…Facciamo una puntata sui miei processi, che non
riguardano […] prostituzione minorìle, corruzione di testimòne,
concussione della questura, frode fiscale per centinaia di milioni di èuro
[…] riguardano degli articoli scritti sul giornale che non sono piaciuti a
qualcùno, soprattutto perché ho criticato qualcùno”.
10
(Let us have a talk show about my trials, that do not concern child
prostitution, witness corruption, police bribery, tax fiddle for hundreds of
millions euros […]; they concern some articles written on a newspaper that
someone did not like, mainly because I have criticized someone)
Travaglio at time 7.35 (Col.1) says “che non riguardano” ([my trials] that do not
concern) (col.2-3), with a raising intonation (4) meaning his sentence is not
finished, and he is going to explain more (5). Then – 7.38 – he says “prostituzione
minorile” (child prostitution) by stressing the tonic vowel of the adjective
“minorìle”. This is the first item of a list of four indictments of Berlusconi, and to
stress it Travaglio, in correspondence with this item (and later with each of the
next three items), opens eyes wide and raises his eyebrows, while counting on
fingers (here raising his thumb, col.4) to convey he is making a list (5). The
indirect meaning conveyed (col.6) is that Berlusconi’s indictments are more
numerous and serious than his own. Once finished the list of Berlusconi’s
misdeeds, Travaglio says: riguardano degli articoli scritti su un giornale ([my
trials] concern some articles written on a newspaper), and while uttering this he
rotates and moves his hand, palm to Interlocutor, with joint thumb and index,
rightward (col.4), iconically depicting the action of writing (5). But the very fact
of using a very clear representation, even, an iconic one that might be addressed to
small children, indirectly implies his interlocutor (Casellati) is stupid (col.6). The
multimodal communication (speech and other signals) analyzed in columns 2 – 6
is finally classified in col.7 in terms of the typology of discrediting moves
described in Section 4. In this example, the multimodal communication of both
lines 1-2 and line 3 is classified (col. 7, lines 2 and 3) as a discrediting move that
points at the opponent’s lack of competence, more specifically, her stupidity.
3.1. Types of discrediting moves
As shown in previous works [4; 43; 44], discrediting moves can be distinguished
in terms of various criteria. A first criterion, that we call the route, is whether the
Sender directly attacks the other person, or more indirectly attacks the person
through criticizing what s/he did or said, or the way s/he is presently behaving.
The second criterion is the target feature, i.e., the characteristic of the person that
is subject to negative evaluation in the discrediting attack. A third criterion are the
type of speech acts, or better, since we consider nonverbal signals too, the type of
communicative acts that are specifically used to discredit – insult, trick question,
ironic statement, allusion, insinuation – which might be an open list. Let us see
some types of discrediting moves distinguished in terms of the former two
criteria.
3.1.1.
Route
In terms of the “route” criterion, though the end goal of any discrediting move is
to spoil the image of the opponent, this can be done in a direct way by attacking
the person herself (Person), but also indirectly: on the one side, by expressing
negative evaluations on what a person is saying (Topic), denying that what she
11
says is true, or providing correction, clarification, more precise information; on
the other hand, by attacking the way in which the opponent is carrying on
argumentation during the debate (Mode).
Among the most trivial ways to discredit the person directly are curse and insult,
while a more subtle one is to attack someone close to him/her (according to the
principle that “bad company brings bad habit”). A way to attack the person
through the topic is to state negative judgements about his/her actions. Finally an
attack through the mode is to highlight the opponent’s blameworthy behavior
during the debate, for example but noticing how s/he often interrupts or overlaps
with others’ turn.
3.1.2.Target feature
Attacks to the person during a political debate can be distinguished as to their
target feature, i.e., the negative characteristic of the opponent pointed at by the
Speaker/Sender of a discrediting move. The attacked feature may concern all three
aspects of the opponent’s image: Competence, Dominance, and Benevolence,
with the former two being subject to negative evaluations of lack of power, and
the third to ones of noxiousness. On the Competence side, one may cast doubts on
the opponent as being ignorant or stupid, on the Dominance side, concerning
his/her being helpless, inconsequential or ridiculous, and on the Benevolence side,
concerning his being dishonest, cheating or immoral. As shown in the examples
below, various communicative acts may be exploited to point at these features.
The attacks to the opponent’s ignorance are typically performed through speech
acts of correction, remark, trick questions, those to his/her stupidity are often
carried out by using a didactic attitude. Attacks concerning dominance like
showing the opponent is helpless or inconsequential are often performed through
speech or communicative acts that pretend compassion, or by using diminishing
epithets or displaying indifference, while those stressing that the opponent is
ridicule exploit making fun of him/her. Attacks about the opponent’s benevolence
may imply insinuation, criticism or clear accusations about the opponent doing
specific misdeeds, cheating or being immoral.
3.2. Bodily discrediting moves
During a debate one may decide which target feature to single out to spoil the
image of one’s interlocutor, whether to attack his/her competence giving an image
of ignorance or stupidity or to make him/her appear less dominant, by ridiculing
him or showing his helplessness. Finally, the discrediter may refer to a feature that
(for instance, in Italian political communication) resulted the least effective for
persuasive ends [20], corresponding to benevolence, the dimension that, according
to Aristotle, is concerned with the other’s good, including morality, honesty and
norm compliance.
The analyses of nonverbal discrediting moves we present in the following suggest
that in bodily communication too discredit may be manifested by signals referring
to the interlocutor’s incompetence or non-dominance.
The theoretical model exploited for our analysis, based on the notions of goals and
beliefs, allows us to interpret these body signals by taking into account not only
12
direct but also indirect signals, as shown in the annotation scheme above, that
considers both verbal and body signals, catching literal and the inferable meanings
of both, and considering the meaning of the multimodal message as a whole.
3.2.1 Attacks to the Opponent’s competence
From previous analyses it resulted that the attack to the other’s competence is the
least exploited discredit strategy in Italian political debates. Yet, this type of move
is quite well characterized as far as its social signals are concerned. Discredit
pointing at the other’s incompetence may simply concern a specific fact that the
other ignores – a single, contingent flaw of the opponent – or else it may highlight
a more enduring incompetence, finally insinuating, through social signals, that the
opponent is definitely stupid. Let us see an example of the former type.
(2) Di Pietro, a leftwing Deputy, was formerly a Prosecutor during the “Clean
Hands” trial, a historical trial for corruption, which impeached a great part
of the Italian politicians, thus being responsible for a major political
change. Zurlo, a journalist from a rightwing newspaper, accuses Di Pietro
for not having accused, at the time of “Clean Hands”, some corrupted
people of his own coalition. Di Pietro replies: “Su cosa mi sono incartato?
Ma che stai dicendo?” (“What didn’t I do? But what the hell are you
saying?”) in a threatening and angry way, while frowning and pressing lips
with lipcorners down: thus he signals his disgust for what the Interlocutor
has just said.
The rightwing Minister Renato Brunetta’s gesture is even more explicit.
(3) The journalist Daria Bignardi interviews Minister Brunetta about his last
book. While talking of his first teacher and of a foundation in which he
used to work at the beginning of his career, Bignardi mistakes the name of
Brunetta’s teacher. Brunetta, to underline Bignardi’s error and his
amazement about her ignorance, covers his face with hands to convey
despair; then he opens his hands while keeping eyes shut, as if not wanting
to see, and finally assumes a waiting hopeless posture, as if he were forced
to stay here listening to a person who has just shown her deep ignorance. In
doing so, he leans on his left hand, with his elbow on the table. Further,
when Bignardi acknowledges and apologizes for her ignorance, he makes
faces of surprise, amazement and even horror. Then he adds: “If you had
been a pupil of mine, I would have fired you”. Later he says: “If you had
read the book…” while repeatedly pointing at the book she has in her hand,
insinuating she did not read it.
13
Fig.1. Minister Brunetta (“Le invasion barbariche”)
Of course, any case of discredit aims at shedding a long lasting negative light on
the discredited person; yet, we may distinguish when the attributed flaw is seen as
a single case or a permanent feature. In both examples above, discredit is cast by
stressing a single information the other ignores: the angry face of Di Pietro is
reproaching Zurlo for a single case of incomprehension, while Brunetta’s gesture
of despair highlights his interviewer’s ignorance of his own teacher. Yet in many
other cases the target feature attributed to the other in discredit does not refer to a
single case but to a more general flaw: not contingent ignorance, but long lasting
– hopeless and irreparable – stupidity. This is the case in the following example of
Di Pietro vs. Zurlo.
(4) Di Pietro repeats to Zurlo: “Io ho rispettato la legge, e non dire minchiate”
(I respected the law, and do not say damned stupid things). At the same
time he rotates his right hand, palm to his right ear, meaning that the
Interlocutor is ignorant because he does not want to listen; finally he points
at his right ear as if saying “can you hear me?”. Thus he means that Zurlo
really does not want to hear his version.
Fig.2. Di Pietro (“In Onda”)
Another way to insinuate the other’s stupidity is taking a didactic stance.
A stance [48; 49] can be defined as an “interactional attitude”, a way of
positioning oneself in a given social situation, that is expressed by a particular
“multimodal syndrome”, a pattern of expressive and communicative behaviors in
various modalities [50]. A didactic stance is typically exhibited when the Speaker
14
wants to imply that the opponent is not so smart as to understand some subtle but
important differences. Let us see an example:
(5) The left wing journalist Marco Travaglio is talking of the numerous
indictments of the right wing premier Berlusconi, and Elisabetta Casellati, a
vice-minister of Berlusconi’s government, trying to demonstrate that not
only the chief of her party has pending indictments in many trials, alludes
to trials for defamation in which Travaglio has been condemned. In
replying to her, Travaglio says: “…Facciamo una puntata sui miei
processi, che non riguardano […] prostituzione minorìle, corruzione di
testimòne, concussione della questura, frode fiscale per centinaia di
milioni di èuro […] riguardano degli articoli scritti sul giornale che non
sono piaciuti a qualcùno, soprattutto perché ho criticato qualcùno”.
(Let us have a talk show about my trials, that do not concern child
prostitution, witness corruption, police bribery, tax fiddle for hundreds of
millions euros […]; they concern some articles written on a newspaper that
someone did not like, mainly because I have criticized someone”).
While alluding to Berlusconi’s indictments and listing them, Travaglio uses
a singsong intonation, stressing the last tonic syllable of each item of the
list, both with a higher pitch and by raising his eyebrows and opening his
eyes wide, much like when talking to small children or teaching pupils.
Further, he numbers Berlusconi’s pending indictments by gestures meaning
one, two, three. Finally when saying that his own trials concerned “articles
written on the newspapers”, with his right hand, thumb and index touching,
palm to interlocutor, he draws circles in the air moving from left to right:
the iconic gesture for “writing”.
In this passage, by his words, Travaglio attacks Casellati on the content of what
she said: the trials undergone by him concern only his “thought crimes”, not the
much more serious misdeeds charged to Berlusconi. But by the very way he utters
his words – his recurrent stress and recurrent intonation, his iconic gesture for
“write”, all concurring to the general form of a very clear and didactic explanation
– he implies that Casellati needs such an explanation since she cannot see the
difference between Travaglio’s and Berlusconi’s trials. In other words, he is
treating her as a stupid person, thus discrediting her image in an indirect way (I
am didactic  you are stupid) and does so only through his body behavior.
This is quite explicit a way to discredit the cognitive capacities of the interlocutor,
that is exploited when one is the present Speaker in a debate. But this kind of
discredit may be implied in a more indirect and implicit way as one is the
Interlocutor, by providing, through facial expression, a negative feedback during
the present Speaker’s turn, possibly addressed not quite to the Speaker but to the
audience, aimed at lowering the Speaker’s credibility right during his speaking
turn.
(6) De Magistris and Lettieri are the leftwing and rightwing candidates,
respectively, for Mayor of Naples. During a talk show, while Lettieri is
talking, De Magistris continuously looks at the camera with a constant
frown and half-closed eyelids, meaning “it is not at all clear what you are
saying, and I must concentrate and strive hard to understand” [47]; his
mouth closed with lip corners downward convey disappointment, and his
15
slow headshakes convey incredulity and hopelessness, as if meaning: “I
can’t believe that he is so hopelessly stupid”.
De Magistris’s facial expression might simply look, apparently, a genuine signal
of incomprehension; but its constant duration all along the speaker’s turn
definitely casts doubts over his communicative skills.
Here is finally a gesture that directly discredits the cognitive skills of the
opponent.
(7) In another talk show, Lettieri tries to cast discredit over De Magistris by
saying that the financial crack of a private hospital was caused by him. De
Magistris asks him the name of the hospital, to unmask and demonstrate
that the information is false, and when Lettieri replies he does not
remember it, De Magistris makes a wide smile of amusement, then he
performs the gesture of praying hands [51] and the tulip hand [47], both
meaning “but what the hell are you saying?”, then he waves his right hand,
in a fan shape, palm leftward, close to his head, from right to left four
times, an Italian symbolic gesture that means “are you mad?”. Finally, he
turns toward the audience and laughs.
Fig.3. De Magistris (“Faccia a faccia”)
In the following case, discredit is pointed perhaps not to stupidity but to an
irreparable and long lasting ignorance.
(8) The rightwing Minister of Education Mariastella Gelmini, forced by
Minister of Economy Tremonti, has imposed dramatic financial cuts to
Italian school, university and research. During a debate, Enrico Letta, from
an opposite party, shows the specific cuts written in the law that she has
officially approved, and it comes out she did not even know of those cuts.
16
Letta widens arms and drops them down, thus ironically expressing
impotence, hopelessness and almost surrender to having to do with such an
incompetent Minister.
3.2.2. Attacks to the Opponent’s benevolence
In the above we distinguished three target features within benevolence: the
discredited person may be judged dishonest, cheating or immoral. From the point
of view of Attribution Theory [52], dishonesty may be distinguished from
immorality in that the former may be attributed to some specific and unstable
property, namely misdeeds punishable by positive law, the latter to more enduring
properties, a general tendency to violate ethical obligations; and cheating may be
viewed as a kind of immorality. As to the two issues, frequency and seriousness of
discrediting these features, [43] found differences across genders and cultures as
to frequency, while it is still not clear whether the most frequently attacked
features are also the most serious, or not.
From the point of view of the discrediting nonverbal moves, the three targets are
quite close to one another, and they all tend to be stigmatized by expressions of
disgust, albeit different from each other for quality and intensity. Beside disgust,
the discrediter often also uses ridiculization [45], through more or less evident
smiles.
Cheating
Let us see a case of ascription of cheating, in which the discrediter sometimes
addresses the audience in the studio to highlight how clearly false is what his
opponent is saying.
(9) During the debate before the elections for Mayor of Naples, De Magistris
repeatedly discredits Lettieri by reminding his “bad company” of
politicians accused of connection with Camorra (the Neapolitan Mafia),
among which Nicola Cosentino. When Lettieri says: “Anzitutto io non mi
accompagno a Nicola Cosentino, e questo è un dato inequivocabile” (first
of all I do not go together with Nicola Cosentino, and this is irrefutable), De
Magistris discredits Lettieri by his facial and gestural behavior. His frown
is at a first level a feedback signal of incomprehension, but indirectly works
as incredulity. This is also the meaning of his raising only the external part
of his right eyebrow (Ekman’s asymmetrical “skeptical eyebrow” [30]), that
shows skepticism, while lips pressed and lip corners downward convey
disgust. At the same time, he makes the gesture of praying hands [51; 47]
that means “how the hell can you say so?”. Eyebrows, hands and mouth
thus form a multimodal message: “I do not believe what you are saying is
true, and I am disgusted of your cheating”.
In another fragment, De Magistris looks even more explicit in his stigmatizing
insincere communication: he responds not only with facial expressions of disgust
(pressed mouth with lip corners downward) but with more intense and stressed
gestures and postures:
(10) When hearing statements he finds severely deceitful, De Magistris shows
impatience by often changing his posture on the chair, sudden cut-off of eye
17
contact, and conspicuous gestures of disapproval like dropping both arms
and hands down fast and repeatedly.
In some cases the body signals of the discrediting person are also aimed at
unmasking the cheater: after accusing him/her of cheating, the discrediter may
show satisfaction while the accused tries to defend him/herself. In this case he
wants to show an image of one who re-establishes truth and justice, and who takes
revenge of wrongs.
A clear signal of this discrediting message is in the debate between Travaglio and
Casellati, who reciprocally try to make each one guilty of immoral or dishonest
behaviors. After Casellati has reminded of Travaglio indictments of defamation,
he retorts by alluding to her having enrolled her daughter at the expenses of the
State, and during her explanation to defend herself, he performs an asymmetrical
smile and slow head nods that scan the rhythm of Casellati’s prosody; by the
former he is showing superiority, by the latter he ironically pretends to accept her
defensive words.
Immorality
In Aristotle’s speculation benevolence is “rendering a service to one in need, not
in return for something or benefit for the subject, but in order to benefit the other
person”. Extending this definition to politics and persuasion, a benevolent
politician is one full of civil values, taking care of others’ as opposed to one’s own
selfish interests. In this sense a discrediting move focused on a benevolence target
feature will tend to show how that politician doesn’t care about the citizens’
interests, for example by reminding his immoral or unfair past, or his malevolent
wrongs certified by judicial decisions or by public stigmatization.
Starting from this definition of benevolence, in our analysis we classify as
attacking the opponent’s immorality the cases in which the discrediter aims at
showing that the other pursues one’s own interest instead of one of the community
who voted for him.
(11) The left wing politician Massimo D’Alema is talking of the right wing
minister Scajola, who had to resign for corruption: he received a house
facing Colosseum as a gift from a building company. To counter attack,
Sallusti, the director of a right wing pro-government newspaper, remarks
that also a left wing politician like D’Alema is not flawless from a moral
point of view, since he lived for long time in a popular apartment paying a
very cheap rent.
Sallusti: L’onorevole d’Alema credo che possa darci lezione a noi e al
paese, lo dico sinceramente, su tanti temi ma non sulla casa. Il moralismo
del Presidente D’Alema sulla casa […] è inaccettabile. Lei non si era
accorto che pagava un decimo del valore di mercato. Tant’è vero che se
n’è andato, presidente. Sulle
case lei non può… Da un punto di vista
etico-morale. Gli operai pagavano tre volte di quello che pagava lei. Lei è
un privilegiato. Lei si era accorto che pagava poco rispetto al mercato?
[…]
D’Alema: Io non pagavo troppo poco. Io pagavo quello che era previsto
dalla legge.
Sallusti: E allora perché se n’è andato, scusi? Da un punto di vista eticomorale lei ha approfittato della sua posizione!
18
(Sallusti: Sir D’Alema I think he can teach us and the country, I say this
sincerely, concerning a lot of topics, but not on houses. President
D’Alema’s moralism on houses […] is unacceptable. You did not realize
you were paying one tenth of the commercial value. In fact you left,
Presidente. Concerning houses you cannot… From the ethical-moral point
of view. Workers used to pay three times as much as what you paid. You
are a privileged person. Had you realized that you paid a low price with
respect to commercial value? […]
D’Alema: I did not pay too low a price, I paid the price stated by the law.
Sallusti: So, please, why did you go away? From an ethical-moral point of
view you took advange of your position!)
A complementary role to words is played by Sallusti’s head movements while
accusing D'Alema. He reinforces his message by repeated nods of emphasis (and
by a slow speech rhythm), but at the same time, since he is probably aware this is
a serious attack to an influential politician, he performs some unexpected signals
of submission, like a head canting and head down looking downward. Finally
while saying “you can teach... but not on houses” he shakes his head, thus
reinforcing what is creeping into words.
Some turns later, D’Alema tries to defend himself from the accusation by saying
that he used to live in that flat when he was not yet a politician, but Sallusti
counterargues by saying: “Ma se fa politica da quando aveva 14 anni,
presidente!” (but you have been a politician since you were 14, my President!).
Sallusti’s frowning in this case conveys disappointment, while a head tilt
backward and wide open eyes communicate directly surprise (and indirectly
incredulity) in hearing D’Alema’s incredible specification. But what in this case
looks peculiar of an attack to morality is the subsequent head lowered and gaze
downward that simulates a vicarious shame: Sallusti wants to look so ethical, and
to stress, by contrast, D’Alema’s immorality, that he even feels shame himself for
the other’s misdeeds!
3.2.3. Attacks to the Opponent’s Dominance
The feature that results to be most frequently attacked in our data, that is,
strangely enough, one hardly taken into account in previous research on political
persuasion, is the feature of dominance. In terms of Castelfranchi’s model [39], by
dominance we mean the fact that an Agent has more power than another.
How can people in a debate discredit each other by pointing at a lack of
dominance? How do they discredit by showing how impotent their opponent is?
From the previous work on verbal discrediting moves, three main target features
of dominance were singled out: helpless, inconsequential e ridicule.
With the first two, helpless and inconsequential, the discrediter aims at showing,
through expressions of compassion, pity or contempt, how useless, superfluous or
inconsistent the contribution of one’s opponent is. In a sense, it almost
communicates a sort of displeasure or sorrow while listening to him/her, some
kind of human comprehension and empathy toward a poor thing.
Helpless / inconsequential
When pointing at helplessness, the discrediter highlights a lack of power in the
opponent’s behaviors (planned or performed), or in his/her opinions or statements.
19
(12) During a debate on RAI 3, a left wing channel, the right wing Minister
Ignazio La Russa often takes the floor by interrupting his opponent Antonio
Di Pietro, event in spite of the intervention of the Moderator, Bianca
Berlinguer. When La Russa interrupts once more, Berlinguer says: Però
adesso lo faccia finire. (Now let him finish, please), and La Russa says Ma
sìì… (well, yeah…. ), with raised eyebrows and closed eyelids. Both the
way he says sìì (yeah) and his gaze expression convey haughtiness and
indulgence, thus implying that Di Pietro is a poor thing who cannot scare
anybody.
(13) The Moderator is interviewing Margherita Hack, a famous old Italian
scholar in astrophysics, who is talking against Berlusconi and the laws that
he made only to save himself from trials. Roberto Formigoni, a politician
on Berlusconi’s side, while looking at her, shows an asymmetrical smile,
with left lip corner raised, and oblique eyebrows, expressing ironic
compassion. (Fig. 4).
(14) The last debate between Letizia Moratti and Giuliano Pisapia before the
election for Mayor of Milan. Pisapia talks of the policy about integration
that Milan should follow. Moratti looks at him with head canting and slow
head shakes, half-closed eyelids and pressed lips with lip corners
downward: the whole facial expression conveys sadness, as if meaning
“what you are saying is superfluous, I have already mentioned this”. Thus
she implies that Pisapia’s arguments are a repetition. In fact, some seconds
after she raises her right hand palm up while nodding repeatedly: the hand
palm up [53] refers to something self evident, while the nod conveys
compliance with someone you do not want to contrast, simply out of
politeness reasons. Later, Moratti’s expression, by adding an asymmetrical
smile, changes from sadness and pity into derision and ridicule. The smile
of derision in this case suggests a lack of power of the person being
ridiculed [31; 32; 45].
Fig.4. Roberto Formigoni and Margherita Hack (“In onda”)
In these cases, the discrediter expresses some (at least, ironically pretended)
compassion: a kind of emotion that entails empathy with the other, putting oneself
in the other’s shoes, hence (pretended) closeness to the opponent. But in other
cases, the emotion (pretended) is not even one implying vicinity. This is the case
20
with attacks implying the other is inconsequential: an attack even stronger than
the one to helplessness, since it refers to a personal lack of power, for example by
an allocution that skips the other’s institutional role, like calling him simply
Mister/Madam.
To point at the other as inconsequential, the discrediter generally performs signals
of indifference: for example, by avoiding eye contact, not replying to the topic set
forth or the question asked, rather ignoring the opponent’s presence but
interacting with the moderator instead, or even by changing posture to turn to the
side opposite to the opponent; addressing a third interlocutor in such a way as to
underline the uselessness of the opponent’s discourse; making fun of him by
whispering with one sitting aside; simply turning one’s head away or making a
mouth click of impatience due to wasted time.
One more typical signal labeling the other as inconsequential is the expression of
contempt.
(15) The tabloid reporter Corona has been accused for taking pictures of
important persons and then asking money not to publish their pictures, and
is very proud of being very well-known in the media for this accusation.
During a talk show, he says that the left wing Minister Livia Turco is very
ignorant since she has just acknowledged that she does not know him.
When Turco claims her right not to know him yet being a worth politician,
Corona, while sitting down in a very relaxed posture, looks down on her
with a very fast head shake and a light asymmetrical smile, but without
uttering a word.
Another way to attribute an image of inconsequential to an opponent is to
simulate annoyance.
(16) During a debate with Daniele Capezzone, a spokesman of Berlusconi, the
left wing journalist Marco Travaglio assimilates Berlusconi to dictator
Videla, and Capezzone tells him he should be ashamed of saying so.
Travaglio simply half-closes his right eyelid, on the side opposite to
Capezzone’s, and looks down as if not wanting to see him at all, thus
conveying he is annoyed by him. Then he makes repeated head nods with
head tilted toward Capezzone, ironically pretending to agree with him; but
at the same time he frowns and corrugates his mouth, again expressing
annoyance.
Ridiculous
Ridiculing the other is an elegant and creative way to abase him/her, then to
change dominance relationships. When you ridicule someone you stress his
inadequacy and lack of power, while showing your superiority and thus play the
distant judge. All this gives more power to the discrediting person [31; 32; 45].
A way to ridicule the opponent is to create a sudden change, for example with an
unexpected code switching; but also simulating this contrast may ridicule the
opponent.
(17) During a debate Letizia Moratti, former Mayor of Milan, reminds that
“Travaglio has been subject to libel actions, and has been condemned”.
Since this is a recurrent accusation, not totally responding to truth, that
Travaglio very often receives during talk shows, he says: “Aridaje! e poi
21
tutte le settimane venite a raccontare le solite balle”. And while she goes
on accusing, he says: “Non è vero, non è vero, non è vero”.
(Oh, once again; and then every week you come and tell lies as usual: It’s
not true, it’s not true, it’s not true).
“Aridaje!” in the popular dialect of Rome means that you are really fed up with
always the same things being done or said. This sudden code switching from a
formal to an informal register ridicules Moratti’s evaluative and judging attitude.
Through this popular jargon Travaglio puts himself in a submitted position from
where he can ridicule the mayor’s “highest knowledge”, thus reversing the roles.
Then he interrupts her by repeating “It’s not true” three times, with a facial
expression that pretends to be sorry: he tilts his head to left fast, raises his
eyebrows, lowers his eyelids and frowns; but at the same time he disconfirms his
fake sadness with an asymmetrical smile of satisfaction, clearly signaling his
ironic intent through the contradiction between the two expressions [31; 32].
In another context, Travaglio makes grimaces to ridicule the opponent Daniele
Capezzone. Capezzone, a former deputy of a leftwing party who passed to a
rightwing party and became the spokesman of Berlusconi, is talking proudly of
this switch of himself saying it was in a sense a political suicide. Travaglio, to
argue that this move was not as brave a gesture as a suicide can be, but a
convenient opportunistic change, ridicules Capezzone through ironic grimaces: he
suddenly raises eyebrows and lip corners, thus showing surprise and amusement,
but then by eyes gazing downward he seems to imply “you cannot dupe me”. The
global meaning of these signals might be “no exaggeration please”; and lack of
eye contact plus a sudden restrained smile indicate amusement but also a negative
evaluation, that diminishes the nobleness of Capezzone’s “sacrifice”.
The goal of ridiculing is witnessed by more or less explicit laughter in various
fragments.
(18) Travaglio refers to Capezzone and Berlusconi as “tu e il tuo padrone” (you
and your master).
Capezzone replies to the offence by threatening: “Sei cascato male stasera,
io non mi faccio insultare da questo signore” (You are in the wrong place
tonight, I will not stay here to be offended by this gentleman), and
Travaglio, with raised eyebrows, makes a loud laughter.
Laughing after receiving a threat is a typical signal of ridiculization that conveys
“I am not afraid of you”, hence “I am stronger than you are”. Further Travaglio
opens his mouth wide as in surprise, thus making the serious thing the other is
saying ridicule; finally his tongue in cheek conveys allusion to the threat as
apparently serious but in fact comic .
4. Functions and levels of analysis in discrediting
through body signals
In this work we have analyzed a move often used to persuade the audience during
debates: discrediting the opponent. According to a typology of strategies proposed
in previous works, discrediting moves differ in terms of three criteria: the target
22
feature – the aspect of the opponent that is specifically attacked (dominance,
competence, benevolence); the route through which s/he is attacked (topic, mode
or directly the person); and the type of communicative act that conveys the attack
(insult, criticism, correction…). Focusing on cases in which discredit is conveyed
only or mainly through body signals, we have seen that all three target features
can be addressed also nonverbally, and that facial, gestural, postural and gaze
communication in debates can have an important role in discrediting moves, both
accompanied to verbal communicative acts, and in absence of them. Thus we
might wonder what are the differences between discrediting verbally and only
through body communicative acts.
One reason for the use of body signals in discrediting moves is their lower
accountability. If you insult someone by words you can be more easily prosecuted
than if you do so simply by a haughty posture. In this, the advantage of body
communication is similar to one of indirect communication.
Yet, another more relevant reason for the importance of body signals in
discrediting moves is that an important part of the induction of discredit resorts to
the expression of emotions.
A previous paper concerning the expression of dominance [41] has shown how in
dominance signals the expression of related emotions is crucial. For example, in
the strategy of “haughtiness” the Speaker expresses arrogant pride through its
typical body signals of smile, erected posture, and lifted chin, with the intention of
inducing a sense of inferiority or humiliation in the other.
In the very same way, the communication of discredit too often passes through the
expression of (sincere or faked) emotions. As we have seen the characters in our
examples, in a sincere, ostentatious or clearly pretended way, express anger (ex.
n.2), amusement (ex. n.7; 17;18), annoyance (ex. n.5; 1), sense of impotence (ex.
n.8), disgust (ex. n.9;11), compassion (ex. n.12; 13; 14).
In general there is a correspondence between the stance taken and the emotion
expressed (you cannot express anger if you want to ridicule the opponent), since a
stance typically entails affective aspects. Yet, there does not seem to be any
systematic correspondence between the stance taken – with its implied emotion –
and the target feature: one may stigmatize the other’s ignorance by showing
indignation, or pretended compassion, or exhibited impotence. In any case,
subsequent quantitative research on this topic might tell us if and which
correspondences hold among communicative acts and stance exploited, emotions
expressed, and target features. (See Table 2).
Another important reason why emotions are often displayed in discrediting moves
– and even make part of them – is that the negative evaluation you want to induce
in others with your communicative act may be better induced by transmitting
emotions. As appraisal theories have clearly demonstrated, emotions are a first
type of evaluation of objects, persons, and events. And the expression of an
emotion can affect others through contagion. Therefore, since emotions are best
conveyed through body expression, nonverbal signals are particularly effective to
convey discredit.
A final issue concerns the effectiveness of discredit conveyed verbally vs. through
body signals. On the one hand, discredit can be borne by body more frequently
than by verbal signals, if only because it can be conveyed also while the opponent
is speaking. On the other hand, that a politician makes grimaces or shows
haughtiness toward the present speaker can be seen as an incorrect move, hence
backfire toward the discrediter. This can also be the case when discredit is mainly
conveyed by emotion expression, both if the audience understands that this
23
behavior is deliberate and strategic, and if it comes to think that the discrediter is
one who cannot regulate one’s emotions and/or their expression.
To disentangle these possibilities, additional research is called for.
Table n.2. Target feaure, stance and emotion expressed
Es
Target
Stance
Expressed emotion
Di Pietro (2; 4)
Ignorant
Conflicting
Anger
Brunetta (3)
Ignorant
Didactic
Shame, annoyance
Travaglio (5)
Stupid
Didactic
Annoyance
De Magistris (6)
Stupid
Haughtiness
Letta (8)
Ignorant
Didactic
De Magistris (7)
Stupid
Ironic
Surprise, sense of
confusion
Sense of
impotence
Amusement
Lettieri (9)
Cheater
Haughtiness
Disgust
Sallusti (11)
Immoral
Haughtiness
Shame, disgust
La Russa (12),
Formigoni (13),
Moratti (14)
Helplessness
Compliant
Compassion
Corona (15)
Inconsequential
Haughtiness
Contempt
Travaglio (16)
Inconsequential
Haughtiness
Annoyance
Travaglio (17;
18)
Ridicule
Ironic
Amusement
Acknowledgments. Research supported by SSPNet Seventh Framework Program,
European Network of Excellence SSPNet (Social Signal Processing Network),
Grant Agreement N.231287.
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