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13Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities & Social Sciences 4 (2013 6) 589-602
УДК 81.00
Cognitive Scenarios of Discourses of Deception
Svetlana N. Plotnikova*
Irkutsk State Linguistic University 8 Lenin st., Irkutsk, 664025 Russia
Received 21.02.2013, received in revised form 28.02.2013, accepted 11.04.2013
The implication of this research for anthropological and cognitive linguistics is, first and most generally, that more attention should be given to the interactional basis of communication. Understanding of deception goes to the foundations of human communicative behavior. In contrast to politeness and other non-aggressive semiotic modes of expression, deception carries the presumption of threatening intentions. The suggested model presupposes the account of the nature of deception as a special kind of the speaker's cognitive scenario designed to gain an advantage over the addressee. More specifically, a deception scenario is defined as a non-linear knowledge and discourse structure - the construction by the speaker, by means of discursive and behavioral techniques, of two different (true and false) identities of himself. The difference between what is said and what is pragmatically indirectly calculated is basic for discourses of deception. Research in artificial intelligence seems to support the claim made in this paper that cognitive structures (scenarios) are crucial in determining the inference rules for discourse understanding. Viewed from this perspective, deceivers' intentions have been proved to be reconstructable on the basis of propositional analysis of the cognitive scenarios being used.
Keywords: discourse, deception, cognitive scenario, non-linear knowledge structure, deceiver's semiotic duplication, true vs false identity, true vs false proposition, actual vs possible world, direct vs indirect discourse, illegitimacy.
1. Theoretical Framework
The choice of deception as an object of investigation has been inspired, first and foremost, by the theory of politeness proposed by P. Brown and S. Levinson (1987).
Brown and Levinson's theory is widely recognized as one of the most significant achievements made in the social sciences in the last decades. The importance of this theory is in the fact that it has revealed, for the first time, the existence of hitherto unknown principles of self-
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organization of a human group, self-organization which is not imposed by some written laws but is determined by everyday interaction of speakers within a group. Politeness, as described by Brown and Levinson, can be obviously regarded as a fundamental principle of human self-organization because it is aimed, chiefly, at curbing aggression and, thus, at producing social order out of the chaos of non-organized human relationships. The fact that politeness is a phenomenon lying at the foundation of human social life is proved also by
its universality. It is inherent in any culture and any language and, as Brown and Levinson show, politeness strategies obtain generally, throughout the world.
Analysis of politeness raises the question of whether there exist any other phenomena of the same kind. It follows from Brown and Levinson's arguments that the place of politeness is within a semiotics of peaceful vs aggressive intentions. As the say, "This semiotic system is then responsible for the shaping of much everyday interaction, and in so shaping it, constitutes a potent form of social control" (1987: 2). Brown and Levinson point to another phenomenon which might belong to such a semiotics alongside of politeness. It is joking, or joking relations. They define them as relations which carry a non-threatening intention, and thus enable a social group to control its internal aggression while retaining the potential for aggression both internally, and, especially, externally, in external competitive relations with other groups.
I argue that one more phenomenon belonging to the same class as politeness is deception. In their analysis of politeness Brown and Levinson have discovered that there is no one-to-one correspondence between linguistic markers and politeness. As they point out, politeness is imposed by the semantic structure of the whole utterance and is not characterized by markers in a simple signaling fashion which can be quantified (1987: 22). Likewise I argue that deception is expressed by the whole cognitive structure of discourse and not by some specific linguistic means. What classifies the given discourse as a deception is not the presence of such-and-such language means but the underlying knowledge structure - a cognitive scenario.
M. Minsky, who introduced the notions of a frame and a scenario, defines them practically in the same way. A frame is defined as a data-structure for representing a stereotyped situation,
like being in a certain kind of living room or going to a child's birthday party. A scenario is understood by Minsky as a condensation of complex situations and sequences into compact words and symbols - again, like a birthday party scenario (Minsky 1980: 14-15).
Deception is viewed in this article as a planned activity, the planning being either conscious or unconscious. In this connection it is necessary to clarify in what sense the notion of planning is used and in what kind of entities it is analyzed.
Planning is understood here in the way in which it is treated in artificial intelligence, that is, as a formal process through which the target state is transformed into the goal state (for reference see Schank and Abelson 1977a, Wilensky 1983). In this sense the understanding of planning is close to that of problem solving as developed in cognitive science and psychology and defined as any kind of successful "means - ends" analysis.
Minsky does not connect scenarios/ frames with planning, explicitly. But his theory presupposes this connection very strongly. Thus he writes that the agent can have frames and that he can invent them. Schank and Abelson develop this distinction in their influential works. They propose two notions which reflect the difference between having and inventing - the notions of a script and of a plan; scripts handle stylized everyday situations whereas plans handle novel situations (1977b: 422). Schank and Abelson point out that a script is different from a plan in that it is used automatically by the actor. The actor is participating in a sequence of events much like other sequences which he has used many times before. He could teach his method to anyone who wanted to know (1977a: 62).
Schank and Abelson were also the first to describe the main constituents of the formal structure of scripts and plans. They analyze them in terms of actors, or agents, of roles played by
these agents, of goals, of action sequences, or event chains, leading to the goal.
In this article I use the term "scenario", indiscriminately for old and new planning. Planning is understood as a mental process terminating in the retrieval of an appropriate scenario from memory or in the creation of a new scenario. Accordingly, planning of deception is defined as a process which leads the speaker to the choice of a deception scenario according to which he/she will act in the given circumstances.
2. A generalized structure of a deception scenario
By generalized structure of a deception scenario I understand the network of structural characteristics which are always associated with deception. These characteristics correspond to Minsky's notions of "frame's terminals", or "frame's top levels" which are defined as being fixed and always true for the given frame (1980).
The main "terminal" of a deception scenario is the deceiver - the scenario is "written" from the deceiver's point of view, the other participants being involved in the structure imposed upon them by the deceiver.
From the perspective of the plurality of worlds (Lewis 1986b), the true "I" of the deceiver
is his identity in his actual world; the false "I", or false identity, is the deceiver's counterpart invited from another, possible world. Each of the two "I"-s has an intention (a want) and a goal. The logical space between the intention and the goal is filled in by an event-sequence and a discourse. The deceived is not included in the generalized structure of a deception scenario - the place of the deceived is within the event-sequences.
So, a deception scenario is a non-linear knowledge and discourse structure (see Fig. 1):
I treat deception as a phenomenon belonging to the class of phenomena defined by the general notion of insincerity, in the sense in which it is understood in artificial intelligence. Thus, P. Cohen and H. Levesque define insincerity as a notion independent of language denoting the agent's desire to induce false beliefs in others (1990).
As Fig. 1 indicates, deception is understood as a verbal activity, and that is why it is necessary to differentiate it from similar activities pertaining to the sphere of insincerity, first and foremost from lying. Even the very fact that in many languages (for example, in English, Russian, Hebrew) there exist two different neutral words to denote lying and deceiving shows that they are perceived at the level of folk notions as different phenomena.
-True "I": Intention......Event-Sequence and Discourse...... Goal
The Deceiver
False "I": Intention......Event-Sequence and Discourse
Fig. 1. Deception Scenario
Goal
As I see it, lying and deceiving represent two kinds of falsehood - the falsehood of propositions in any given world (lying) and the falsehood of the identity of the speaker from the point of view of the world in which he/she performs an event-sequence and produces a discourse (deceiving). These two kinds of falsehood correspond to two kinds of truth singled out by D. Lewis: "... there are pairs of semantic relations: truth in a language L, truth in a population P; analyticity in L, analyticity in P, and so on" (1986a: 203).
In my opinion, the main difference between deception and lying is in the level of their realization. Lying is a property of propositions and, derivatively, a property of sentences, or of similar units - statements, utterances, turns in conversation. Semantically, lying is the assigning by the speaker of the negative value to the proposition (truth +, lying -). Deception is a property of a discourse unit of some length and often of a discourse as a whole. Semantically, it is the construction by the speaker, by means of discursive and behavioral techniques, of two different identities of himself, and also the construction of two different propositions as goals of these identities. Being both verbal activities denoting insincerity, lying and deceiving are interwoven, but still they can be differentiated from each other, formally. When lying is sustained throughout a discourse unit of some length it becomes deception because the conversation is developed in such a way that there is a search for a possible world in which the false proposition expressed by the liar holds.
The other kinds of insincerity remain underdefined; it is even not clear how many of them can be singled out on proper formal grounds. It seems to me that in addition to lying and deception such identifiable kinds of insincerity are pretending and acting.
Pretending was studied by J. Austin in one of his philosophical essays. He understands
pretending mostly as performing non-genuine non-verbal actions, such as pretending to be cleaning the windows now; or magicians pretending to saw girls. Or: "On a festive occasion you are ordered, for a forfeit, to pretend to be a hyena: going down on all fours, you make a few essays at hideous laughter and finally bite my calf" (1966: 204).
As I see it, different kinds of insincerity can be explained and distinguished from one another on the basis of Lewis's notion of the totality of worlds. Lying can be regarded as a purely this-worldly semantic phenomenon (true/ false proposition in this-world). Deception is an invitation of your other-worldly identity to this-world so that it would help you to achieve your this-worldly goal. Pretending is the same phenomenon as deception, only non-verbal. Thus, when you pretend to be a hyena you are inviting your counterpart from a very distant world (where you are a hyena). If in this situation you are also producing some "hyena's discourse", then, according to the definition given above, you are deceiving. (Rational agents won't be deceived but, say, a child may be deceived by such discourse and behavior). As for acting, it can be defined as a phenomenon directly opposite in regard to deception. In acting it is you who shift from your world to another world and enter there somebody else's body (for example, an actor enters Othello's body). You, as a this-worldly person, disappear, or you should disappear, at least. For acting to be good, you should "become" Othello and continue your life within his body. The fact that you leave this-world in acting is brought into prominence by the existence of the formal "border" between the two worlds - the frame of the stage, or of the TV screen. In short, in acting you depart to another world, in deception the other comes from his/her world. An interesting proof of such kind of travelling through the totality of worlds is the matter of dying - who may die? In deceiving and
pretending it is a this-worldly "I" who will die in case of some tragedy (for example, "you" but not "the hyena"). In acting, on the contrary, it is the other-worldly "I" who will die (Othello but not the actor).
This observation about dying brings out, again, the major distinction which should be made between lying, on the one hand, and deceiving, pretending, and acting, on the other hand. Lying is connected with one identity and one world. Deceiving, pretending, and acting are connected, each, with two identities and two worlds.
3. Classification of deception scenarios according to the abstracted goals of the deceiver's true "I"
Deception scenarios can be successfully classified in accordance with different classifications of types of goals proposed in artificial intelligence, for example in accordance with the widely used classification of R. Schank and R. Abelson (1977a: 112-17). Their classification includes practically all kinds of occupations humans can possibly engage in:
(1) S: Satisfaction goal (biological needs: S-hunger, S-sex, S-sleep, etc.);
(2) E: Enjoyment goal (E-travel, E-entertainment, E-exercise, E-competition, etc.);
(3) A: Achievement-goal (A-possessions, A-power position; A-good job, A-social relationships, A-skill, etc.);
(4) P: Preservation goal (P-preserving possessions);
(5) C: Crisis goal (a special case of P-goals set up to handle serious and imminent threats -C-health, C-fire, C-storm, etc.);
(6) I: Instrumental goal (any goal in the service of S-, E-, A-, P-, and C-goal). All the goals in the event-sequence leading to the Goal Proposition (see Figure 1 above) can be considered as instrumental.
I consider the types of goals singled out by Schank and Abelson as goals of the deceiver's true "I" because they point to what the deceiver wants to get from the deceived in the deceiver's actual world as the final result of the usage of this or that deception scenario.
Schank and Abelson's classification actually combines two different factors - types of possessions the agent can have (for example, health, money, territory, etc.) and types of relationships between the agent and possessions (achievement of possessions, preservation of possessions, intermediate stages in the process of achievement or preservation).
In this connection I would like to mention one more classification of goals - that of Cohen and Levesque. Their classification suits the purpose of formalization better than that of Schank and Abelson, being based (as I see it) only on the relationship between the agent and the possessions. Two kinds of goals are distinguished -achievement goals and maintenance goals. Achievement goals are defined as those the agent believes to be currently false, maintenance goals are defined as those the agent believes to be true (1990: 50).
A more formal classification of the goals of the deceiver's true "I" can be given, then. I think that every one of such goals can be presented as one of the two abstracted goals: (1) The Deceiver Achieves Possessions; (2) The Deceiver Preserves Possessions.
4. Classification of deception scenarios according to the abstracted goals of the deceiver's false "I"
Goals of the deceiver's false "I" are conceptualized as goals expressing what the deceiver wants to give the deceived. As has been mentioned earlier, the deceiver's false identity is invited from the other worlds with the purpose of presenting it to the interlocutor, while the
true, this-worldly identity is retained for the deceiver himself. Now the problem is: What does this false identity offer the deceived in order to achieve his cooperation in the process of deceiving?
I claim that the false identity of the deceiver offers the deceived the opportunity "to buy" one of the following three propositions:
1. (I AM THIS PERSON);
2. (I DO THIS ACTION);
3. (I HAVE THIS PERSONALITY TRAIT).
Actually, these propositions convey the same content of "existing" - existing as a body taken as a whole; existing as an action performed by this body; and existing as a trait belonging to this body. So, different aspects of the existence of the false "I" are brought into prominence, and, accordingly, one can single out three kinds of deception scenarios which are considered below.
The three propositions are given in the form of sentences in the present tense, but, of course, their content can refer also to the past and the future.
If we return to the above-given definition of insincerity as a false belief which one agent induces in the other agent, then, as I claim, it is these three propositions that should be believed by the deceived. In other words, these three propositions place deception among other kinds of insincerity because they allow deception to correspond to the definition of insincerity. What the deceived should believe is actually expressed by the noun - he/she should believe in a person, or in an action, or in a trait.
To sum up, deception scenarios are classified in accordance with the foregrounded aspect of the deceiver's false identity, as it is perceived and believed by the deceived. The deceived believes, wrongly, that (1) the interlocutor is a person who has this name; or (2) the interlocutor is doing this action; or (3) the interlocutor has this trait.
4.1. The goal proposition
(I AM THIS PERSON)
This kind of deception scenarios usually (but not always) refers to the semiotic duplication of the deceiver's body into two bodies bearing different names. Sometimes the function of proper names can be performed by other nominations, such as the nomination of the person's profession, or of his title, or of his family status, or some other nomination which can be regarded as a substitute of a proper name.
The essence of a scenario of the given kind can be formulated in the following way: "If you believe that I am this person, that is, that I have this name, then, automatically, my true self has achieved/preserved possessions". The task of the deceiver in such a scenario is to prove to the deceived that he/she is the person he/she claims to be. If the deceiver carries out this task successfully, the deceived recognizes the deceiver, say, as Mr. X, or in case of nominations other than proper names - as a member of a certain group. Proof, on the part of the deceiver, and recognition on the part of the deceived, will be considered as two most basic underlying characteristics of the kind of deception under consideration.
An interesting example of this kind of deception can be found in the novel "Moll Flanders" by D. Defoe. This example shows not only proof and recognition but also the process of invitation of counterparts from other worlds, and as such, it illustrates the assumptions given earlier:
I had dressed myself in a very mean habit, for as I had several shapes to appear in, I was now in an ordinary stuff gown, and a straw hat; and I placed myself at the door of The Three Cups Inn in St. John's Street. There were several carriers used the inn, and the stage-coaches for Barnet, for Totterridge, and other towns that way stood always in the street in the evening, when they prepared to set out, so that I was ready for
anything that offered. The meaning was this: people come frequently with bundles and small parcels to those inns, and call for such carriers and coaches as they want, to carry them into the country; and there generally attend women, porters' wives or daughters, ready to take in such things for the people that employ them. It happened very oddly that I was standing at the inn gate, and a woman that stood there before, and which was the porter's wife belonging to the Barnet stage-coach, having observed me, asked if I waitedfor any of the coaches. I told her "Yes", I waitedfor my mistress, that was coming to go to Barnet. She asked me who was my mistress, and I told her any madam's name that came next me; but it seemed I happened upon a name a family of which lived at Hadley, near Barnet. I said no more to her, or she to me, a good while; but by and by, somebody calling her at a door a little way off, she desired me that if anybody called for the Barnet coach, I would step and call her at the house, which it seems was an alehouse. I said "Yes", very readily, and away she went. She was no sooner gone but comes a wench and a child, puffing and sweating, and asks for the Barnet coach. I answered presently, "Here". "Do you belong to the Barnet coach?" says she. "Yes, sweetheart," said I; "what do you want?" "I want room for two passengers," says she. "Where are they, sweetheart?"said I. "Here's this girl; pray let her go into the coach," says she, "and I'll go and fetch my mistress." "Make haste, then, sweetheart," says I, "for we may be full else." The maid had a great bundle under her arm; so she put the child into the coach, and I said, "You had best put your bundle into the coach too." "No," said she; "I'm afraid somebody should slip it away from the child." "Give it me, then," said I. "Take it, then," says she, "and be sure you take care of it." "I'll answer for it," said I, "if it were twenty pounds value." "There, take it then," says she, and away she goes. As soon as I got the
bundle, and the maid was out of sight, I walked away.
Here we can see the deceiver, Moll Flanders, and two deceived - the porter's wife and the maid. First Moll proves to the porter's wife that she is a servant and after the porter's wife recognizes her as a servant, Moll gets possessions - she usurps the place of her interlocutor and becomes "a porter's wife", semiotically (she is allowed to act and speak like a member of porters' wives' group). Moll proves that she is a servant both through discourse and behavior. She gets dressed like a low-class woman (in an ordinary stuff gown, a blue apron, and a straw hat). She stands at the inn gate where servants usually stand waiting for their masters. So, the way to prove that she is a servant used by Moll Flanders is to exhibit a usual behavior of a servant. Evidently, the porter's wife is satisfied with Moll's nonverbal behavior because she starts a conversation with her. In this conversation she puts Moll to a "discursive test", so to speak. She asks Moll if she is waiting for any of the coaches. Moll gives an answer exhibiting her knowledge of particular facts (I told her "Yes", I waited for my mistress, that was coming to go to Barnet). The porter's wife asks Moll the name of her mistress and Moll again gives the correct factual answer (a name a family of which name lived at Hadley, near Barnet).
To generalize, the deceiver's strategy in the given kind of deception is to invite from the worlds such a counterpart which may serve as a typical representative of the necessary social group - in this case, a typical servant. The deceived should be "satisfied" with the invited counterpart. Here we see that the porter's wife puts Moll to the test before she "recognizes" her, that is, before she believes in the goal proposition of Moll's false "I" (I AM A SERVANT).
This situation corresponds to the definition of this kind of scenario given above - as soon
as the deceived believes that the deceiver is the person she claims to be, the deceiver gets possessions. These possessions are rather peculiar - the deceived gives the deceiver her place in life, her social status. Now Moll presents herself as belonging to the Barnet coach to the second deceived, the maid.
The fact that Moll has seized the porter's wife's place in life makes her second case of deception very easy, technically. The maid asks her only one question (Do you belong to the Barnet coach?). She is satisfied with Moll's positive answer and does not put her to any further test. The fact that Moll has the right to be at the place reserved for porters' wives proves, by itself, without special inquiries, that she belongs to the necessary group of people.
I draw the conclusion that the most peculiar feature of this kind of deception scenarios is the fact that the false "I" of the deceiver struggles for its recognition by the deceived. The recognition is achieved, firstly, by establishing the fact of her belonging to the social group of low-class women. The nominations "servant" and "porter's wife" perform, practically, the function of proper names. The interlocutors believe that the person who is now in front of them bears the name "Servant"; they believe that she is indeed a servant, on these grounds she is admitted into their group and trusted. Secondly, the deceiver is recognized as a servant because she satisfies the interlocutors' expectations producing the "correct" discourse of a servant which is analyzed by the deceived and accepted as appropriate. When the deceiver achieves the recognition of her false identity she gets from the group what any servant would get in the same circumstances - the right to stand near the stage-coaches. So, the essence of this kind of deception scenarios is to make your interlocutor believe that you are this person and if he believes you, you will receive from him
the treatment which he would give to the person whose place you have managed to usurp.
The relation of belonging is viewed as fundamental for the given kind of deception. In such scenarios the deceiver proves that he/she belongs and the deceived acknowledges it. So in any example which can be referred to this kind of deception the analyst or, say, the computer program should look for the logical relationship: belonging (proof; recognition).
Deception scenarios with the abstracted goal proposition of the deceiver's false "I" formulated as (I AM THIS PERSON) demonstrate two kinds of illegitimacy. (Illegitimacy is understood as anything which is "wrong" from the standpoint of this-world, or actual world). Firstly, the deceiver bears his/her name illegitimately. Secondly, the deceiver tries to achieve what can be called an illegitimate entrance - to infiltrate into the group of the deceived.
In order to identify a deception scenario under the title (I AM THIS PERSON) the human agent or the computer program should answer the following questions: "Does my interlocutor bear this name illegitimately? If so, does my interlocutor want to enter my group, illegitimately?"
4.2. The goal proposition
(I DO THIS ACTION)
In this kind of deception scenarios the deceiver does not have to solve any problems connected with the name of his false identity - it is not disputed. The name of the deceiver's false identity either coincides with the name of his true identity and as such it is known to the participants as an indisputable fact, or it is taken for granted, without any ensuing consequences, or it is not important at all. In this kind of deception the deceiver gets possessions if she induces in the deceived the belief that she is doing (or did, had done, etc.) a certain action.
So, in this kind of deception the foregrounded aspect of the deceiver's false "I" is the action performed by this false "I". Such foregrounded action permeates the whole scenario, in the same way as the assertion of the name of the deceiver's false identity permeates the scenario of the previous type. The formal method of identification of such scenarios is to give them a title in accordance with the foregrounded action. For example, the following scenario from the novella "The Captain's Doll" by D.H. Lawrence can be entitled (I AM BUYING IT). The subject-matter is as follows. An English officer, Captain Hepburn, falls in love with a German aristocrat Hannele during the occupation of Germany after the First World War. Hannele and her friend Mitchka make dolls and sell them in their studio, for a living. Captain Hepburn's wife gets to know about her husband's love-affair and comes to Germany. She visits Hannele's studio and executes (I AM BUYING IT) scenario:
Entered the little lady in her finery and crumpled prettiness.
"You've got a charming studio - charming -perfectly delightful!"
Mitchka gave a slight ironic bow, and said in her odd, plangent English:
"Oh, yes. We like it very much also." Hannele, who had dodged behind a screen, now came quickly forth.
"Oh, how do you do!" smiled the elderly lady. "I heard there were two of you. Now which is which, if I may be so bold? This" - and she gave a winsome smile and pointed a white kid finger at Mitchka - is she -?"
"Annamaria von Prielau-Carolath," said Mitchka, slightly bowing.
"Oh!" - and the white kid finger jerked away. "Then this -"
"Johanna zu Rassentlow," said Hannele, smiling.
"Ah, yes! Countess von Rassentlow! And this is Baroness von - von - but I shall never remember even if you tell me, for I am awful at names. Anyhow, I shall call one Countess and the other Baroness. That will do, won't it, for poor me! Now I should like awfully to see your things, if I may. I want to buy a little present to take back to England with me. I suppose I shan't have to pay the world in duty on things like these, shall I?"
"Oh no," said Mitchka. "No duty. Toys, you know, they - there is -" Her English stammered to an end, and she turned to Hannele.
"They don't charge duty on toys, and the embroideries they don't notice," said Hannele.
"Oh, well. then I'm all right," said the visitor. "I hope I can buy something really nice! I see a perfectly lovely jumper over there, perfectly delightful. But a little too gay for me, I'm afraid. I'm not quite so young as I was, alas." She smiled her winsome little smile, showing her pretty teeth and the old pearls in her ears shook.
"I've heard so much about your dolls. I hear they are perfectly exquisite, quite works of art. May I see some, please? "
"Oh, yes," came Mitchka's invariable answer.
The conversation is continued in this way, the lady makes her purchases and Hannele does not realize that the buyer is her lover's wife. In contrast to pretending which has been defined earlier as doing non-genuine non-verbal action (for example, magicians pretending to saw girls), in this example the action of buying is genuine -the lady is really buying things. But it is only her false identity presented to her interlocutors that has the goal to buy things. Her true identity is that of a wife who wants to make acquaintance of her rival.
The peculiarity of this example is that the action performed by the deceiver's false "I" is imposed upon the deceived, socially. Hannele's
business is to sell her works and she cannot refuse anyone, without an obvious reason, to perform the action of buying in her studio. So any buyer can get acquainted with her, in principle. From this point of view such deception is very easy, both technically and intellectually.
Like in the previous kind of deception in which the deceiver gets possessions automatically, if his false identity is recognized by the deceived, in this kind of deception scenarios the deceiver also gets possessions automatically, on condition that her action is permitted by the deceived. The action of buying is permitted by Hannele and the deceiver automatically gets possessions - she makes acquaintance of Hannele.
Summing it up, in this kind of deception scenarios the deceiver adds an illegitimate action to the action performed by her in her actual world. The basic logical relationship underlying such scenarios can be formulated as doing (right; permission). This means that the deceiver's false "I" claims its right to do a certain action and this claim should be permitted by the deceived.
4.3. The goal proposition
(I HAVE THIS PERSONALITY TRAIT)
The essence of this kind of deception scenarios consists in the fact that the deceiver's false "I" exhibits a certain personality trait and if the deceived believes the proposition (I HAVE THIS PERSONALITY TRAIT), the deceiver automatically gets possessions.
The approach to the notion of personality proposed by Y. Scott, D. Osgood and C. Peterson, who claim that there is no basis for concluding that there is a thing called personality possessed by individuals, is radical but useful. They assert that personality is a set of characteristics imputed to the individual by an outside observer to account for stabilities in behavior. They define a personality trait as a behavior tendency, or
stability, for example generosity is a tendency to behave in a generous manner (1979: 16).
For the sake of convenience and simplicity of analysis I will treat a personality trait as an entity whose linguistic nomination can be reduced, sometimes after transformations, to an adjective, for example, rich, mad, foolish, modest, generous, kind-hearted, etc.
So, in this kind of deception scenarios the foregrounded aspect of the deceiver's false "I" is some personality trait. This trait permeates the whole scenario, in the same way as the name and the action permeate the previous two kinds of deception. The scenario can be entitled in accordance with the foregrounded trait, for example in the following passage Moll Flanders executes the scenario (I AM RICH):
The captain's lady, in short, put this project into my head, and told me if I would be ruled by her I should certainly get a husband of fortune. The first step she put me upon was to call her cousin, and go to a relation's house of hers in the country, where she directed me, and where she brought her husband to visit me, and calling me cousin, she worked matters so about, that her husband and she together invited me most passionately to come to town and live with them. In the next place she tells her husband that I had at least 1500 pounds fortune, and that I was like to have a great deal more. It was enough to tell her husband, there needed nothing on my side. I was but to sit still and wait the event, for it presently went all over the neighbourhood that the young widow at Captain-'s was a fortune, that she had at least 1500 pounds, and perhaps a great deal more, and that the captain said so; and if the captain was asked at any time about me, he had no scruple to affirm it, though he knew not one word of the matter than his wife had told him so; and in this he thought no harm, for he really believed it to be so. With the reputation of this fortune, I presently found myself blessed
with admirers enough and that I had my choice of men.
This deception scenario proves to be successful - having chosen her man Moll Flanders marries him. The deceiver's false "I" wants to exhibit. or to have, a certain personality trait - that of being rich. She displays this trait in a variety of ways. With the help of her friend, the captain's wife, she presents herself as a person having relatives and acquaintances - she goes to live first with her friend's relatives as a cousin, and then with the family of her friend. Being a relative of people of a certain class displays that Moll must have approximately the same income as they. She also disseminates information about the exact sum of her fortune, and she does it through a reliable source - her friend's husband. Such a display of the trait of being rich is observed by the deceived - the whole neighbourhood. They, in their turn, attribute the observed trait to Moll (Itpresently went all over the neighbourhood that the young widow at Captain-'s was a fortune). After the deceived believe the goal proposition of the deceiver's false "I" (I AM RICH), the deceiver gets possessions - she gets married.
The logical relationship underlying this kind of deception can be formulated as having (display; attribution). It means that the deceiver's false "I" displays a certain trait, illegitimately, and the deceived attributes the given trait to the deceiver as an outside observer.
5. The correlation between deception scenarios and life scenarios from the perspective of artificial intelligence
As is well established in artificial intelligence, up to a point, a computer may be programmed to take cognitive scenarios into account, thus, the details of deception scenarios, singled out in this paper, offer some support for the creation of the inference rules used in AI-programs, namely,
the rules of reasoning "backwards" from the deceiver's two conflicting goals.
Life scenarios are treated in artificial intelligence as predetermined stereotyped event-sequences performed by people in their everyday life. Life scenarios, or scripts, include according to Schank and Abelson (1977 a,b) such scenarios as BUS, MUSEUM-GOING, TRAIN, RESTAURANT; or: FLATTERER, JEALOUS SPOUSE, GOOD SAMARITAN, PICKPOCKET, SPY; or: BECOMING RICH, DO GOOD-WORKS, HONESTY, GOOD PROFESSOR, and so on. People are familiar with an immense number of life scenarios in the sense that they know what event-sequences should be performed by them in this or that situation.
Since the identification of the deceiver's false "I" and its characteristics is of paramount importance for the formal analysis of deception it is necessary to further clarify the process through which the analyzing system could arrive at the formulation of the goal proposition of the deceiver's false "I".
I suggest the following procedure. The analyzing system should identify the logical relationships underlying the three types of deception scenarios singled out above. These relationships are as follows:
(1) belonging (proof, recognition);
(2) doing (right, permission);
(3) having (display, attribution).
These relationships should be further specified. Each of them is expressed by three words. The analyzing system should know that the first two words characterize the deceiver's false "I" and the third word characterizes the deceived. This characterization has the following meaning. The deceiver's false "I" does what is denoted by the first word through doing what is denoted by the second word. The deceived endorses what is being done by the deceiver's false "I" by doing what is denoted by the third word.
In (1) the deceiver's false "I" does belonging through doing proof, that is, the deceiver proves that he/she has a certain name and belongs to a certain group. The deceived endorses the deceiver's belonging by doing recognition (the deceived recognizes the deceiver as the person who has this name).
In (2) the deceiver's false "I" does doing through claiming right (the deceiver claims the right to, and then does the action). The deceived endorses the deceiver's action through permission.
In (3) the deceiver's false "I" does having through doing display (of a personality trait). The deceived endorses the deceiver's having the given personality trait through attribution of that trait to the deceiver.
To specify further, the analyzing system should know what kind of illegitimacy (from the standpoint of the actual world) accompanies each kind of these logical relationships. In (1) the deceiver bears his name illegitimately, that is, in the actual world the deceiver has another name. In (2) the deceiver adds an illegitimate action to the action performed by him in the actual world. In (3) the deceiver displays an illegitimate personality trait which cannot be referred to his actual-worldly behavior by an outside observer.
The analyzing system should also look for the markers of illegitimate entrance which is characteristic of deception in general. The illegitimate entrance can be of two kinds: either the deceiver enters the group of flesh-and-blood people to which the deceived belongs, or the deceiver induces the deceived to enter an illusory group of counterparts created by him.
My inference is that the event-sequence performed by the agent, when it is completed to a certain degree, evokes one of the three logical relationships mentioned above, if of course we deal with deception. Or vice versa, each logical
relationship, taken in its formulation given above, can become a general title for the discourse and behavior produced by the agent, if the agent deceives.
In these terms, the identification of this or that discourse as a deception becomes easy. The analyzing system should put the formulation of each logical relationship as the title of the discourse and see which of them, if any, suits the discourse.
6. Conclusion
The work done in cognitive linguistics raises two questions central to the model proposed in this paper. On the one hand, are there, as the model would predict, discernable patterns of language use characteristic of deception, and on the other, are discourses of deception interpretable in terms of parameters provided in the model? As I have found out, the unfolding of deception, that is, the gradual creation of the scenario which will eventually lead from the deceiver's intention to his goal is realized in two event-sequences - one of them is performed by the deceiver's true "I"; the other is performed by the deceiver's false "I".
My account basically suggests that understanding deception is a matter of reconstructing deceivers' communicative intentions and goals from their discourses. The question of a universal generalized structure of deception scenarios vs their propositional particulars is highlighted.
The problem of the unfolding of deception brings out the more general problem of the relationship between deception scenarios and the so-called life scenarios. Deception is different from a life scenario not qualitatively, but quantitatively. As my analysis has shown, a deception scenario is a super-scenario because it is a combination of two life scenarios at a time. One of these two life scenarios is primary, from the point of view of the speaker's interests (the
scenario performed by the true "I"); the other life scenario is instrumental (the scenario performed by the false "I").
It is the goal of the deceiver's false identity which is presented to the deceived; so, the event-sequence performed by the false identity is at the foreground and the event-sequence performed by the true identity is at the background, being often insignificant, broken, or altogether absent. The internal structure of discourse is adapted to the realization of the goal of the false identity.
My proposal for a computer program for automatic understanding of deception which fulfils the criteria of the three types of goal propositions will probably remain beyond the boundaries of feasibility for a long time, but it does demonstrate both the need for a greater contribution of ideas from cognitive and discourse linguistics to work in artificial intelligence, and the necessity to present them in a form that can be applied by computer programmers.
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Когнитивные сценарии обмана и их дискурсивная реализация
С.Н. Плотникова
Иркутский государственный лингвистический университет Россия 664025, Иркутск, ул. Ленина 8
В статье доказывается, что исследование обмана является важной составной частью изучения интерактивных параматров коммуникации. Обман, направленный на выражение враждебных интенций, противопоставляется вежливости и другим неагрессивным типам коммуникативного поведения. Выявляется когнитивная природа обмана - лежащий в его основе особый когнитивный сценарий, представляющий собой нелинейную структуру знания, отражающую семиотическое удвоение обманывающего: одновременную реализацию его истинной и фальшивой идентичности. Определяется алгоритм дискурсивного конструирования фальшивой идентичности: замена действительного мира возможным, прямого дискурса - непрямым. Анализируется механизм последовательного дискурсивного выражения ложных пропозиций в трех базовых типах когнитивных сценариев обмана.
Ключевые слова: дискурс, обман, когнитивный сценарий, нелинейная структура знаний, семиотическое удвоение обманывающего, истинная vs фальшивая идентичность, истинная vs ложная пропозиция, действительный vs возможный, прямой vs непрямой дискурс, нелегитимность.
