| As a common speech act in daily life,persuasion has long been researched in the field of linguistics.Previous studies of persuasion mainly focus on one-way persuasion,while few studies pay attention to the language strategies and discourse characteristics of joint persuasion.Drawing upon Aristotle’s rhetoric theory(logos,ethos,and pathos),politeness principle,and Bakhtin’s polyphony phenomenon,a video retrieved from www.bilibili.com,depicting the Chinese policemen successfully mediate in a real-life suicide through joint persuasion,was analyzed based on quantitative and qualitative methods to explore the pragmatic strategies.The results suggest that in joint persuasion,explicit and implicit strategies are alternately employed to persuade the suicide victim,that is,"explicit interactions between persuaders and the suicide victim" and "implicit interactions among the persuaders".These two dimensions of the closedloop interaction model jointly promote communication towards the goal of persuasion.Regarding explicit interactions,each policeman involved in the act of joint persuasion adopts either pathos,logos,or ethos as his main persuasive strategy.To be specific,logos appeal is realized by fact manifestation and logical induction strategies;ethos appeal resorts to building authority and kindness,and pathos appeal is carried out by face giving and perspective taking strategies.In terms of implicit interactions,the policemen echo each other through two attitudinal markers:affirmation and concession.Each policeman cooperatively contributed to the successful mediation of the suicide attempt,which can also be explained by Chinese crosstalk.This study contributes to filling the void of knowledge of joint persuasive acts and provides an effective reference for social emergency interventions. |
