Lying, Liars and Language

2020

Lying is a familiar and somehow unavoidable concept virtually for all of us and linguists have written a lot about what it means to lie. The problem of deception detection is very challenging. Only trained people with special knowledge are able to demonstrate an accuracy that is sufficiently higher than random predictions. This paper considers common definitions and distinctions of the concept of lying, the linguistic features of deceptive speech, and the forms of lies used in everyday speech. Starting with a widely accepted linguistic definition of lying, in the practical part of my research, I focus on the following questions: what are the main reasons for lying? What kind of verbal signs do we see when liars deceit? What methods do people use to lie and at what age do they lie most frequently? What forms of deception are more frequently employed during such games as, Mafia, Spyfall, and Suspicious evening?

Linguæ & - Rivista di lingue e culture moderne, 2021

What happens when we lie? What do we lie for? Are we always aware of it? Can we define its nature once and for all? Since the beginning of history, human beings have tried to define and interpret lying according to criteria provided to them by changing cultural environments and worldviews, so to give this phenomenon a definite place in their existence. All domains of human knowledge – from mythmaking to philosophy, from theology to neuroscience, from art to linguistics – have been involved. This special issue of Linguæ & aims to contribute to this multi- and interdisciplinary discourse by proposing a common core of insights on lying through contributions from the humanities and psychology.

Utilitas

In ideal conditions, communication is honest and cooperative. A message is exchanged between a sender to a receiver; as a result of the process, truthful and relevant information is shared. The study of human communication has often focused on investigating such ideal cases. Unfortunately, however, communication does not always happen under ideal conditions. Speakers are frequently insincere, and they sometimes aim to deceive and manipulate their audience for selfish goals. To develop a full picture of how human communication works, non-ideal cases need to be studied too, and our theory of how honest communication works needs to be complemented with a theory of how dishonest communication works, and of its ethical, epistemological and political implications. The collection of essays Lying, Knowledge, Ethics and Politics, edited by Eliot Michaelson and Andreas Stokke, is a welcomed contribution in this emerging field of studies, that both expands on the existing research and opens up new pathways for future investigation. Several of the essays in the volume deal with definitional questions about lying, insincerity,

Open Insight Volumen IV • ISSN: 2007-2406, 2013

There is a tendency to assume that, under certain circumstances, lying is morally justifiable. There are numerous logical and philosophical arguments, which claim to have objective validity, point out that a world where only truth exists would be unbearable. This brings, as a necessary consequence, the relativization of the importance of truth and its function of being the pillar mode of the moral principle of honesty, turning truthful discourse into a tool, as usable as lying for pragmatic matters that are sometimes disguised as moral. Frankly in disagreement with such positions, this essay aims to present a detailed counter argument, claiming that lying is always immoral.

Revue Roumaine de Linguistique [RRL], LXIII, 1-2, 2018, p. 147-166.

The paper explores the dialogical representation of lying in the political discourse. It aims to analyse the instances of lying as a speech act in spontaneous, face-to-face communication and to evaluate its offensive and self-prejudicial potential. The examples are taken from three recorded presidential election debates, from three cultural spaces: 1) Ségolène Royal – Nicolas Sarkozy (2007); 2) Traian Băsescu – Crin Antonescu – Mircea Geoană (2009); 3) Hillary Clinton – Donald Trump (2016). Through this comparative analysis, the study intends to grasp the cognitive and sociodiscursive function of lying as well as its cross-cultural variations and constants.

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics

Does an individual's aversion to a lie depend upon the language used to communicate the lie? We adapt the Lopez-Perez & Spiegelman (2013) dot experiment to measure how a "weak" vs. "strong" message affects individuals' propensities for truthfulness when there is a monetary incentive to lie and no other person is affected by the communication. Weak messages state a fact, whereas strong statements "solemnly swear" to the fact. In our first (between-subject) experiment, strong (vs. weak) statements increase the percentage of subjects choosing to tell the truth by approximately 30 percentage points in each of three different payoff scenarios that favor lying to a different extent. Because lies increase payoffs in the experiment, the weaker aversion to weaker lies is socially advantageous. In a second (within-subject) experiment participants choose between messages of different strength and we find (1) a preference for lying with weak (vs. strong) language, and (2) a significant fraction of subjects who are willing to pay a positive amount to avoid a strong vs. weak lie. From both experiments, we conclude that our subjects tend to be intrinsically less averse to dishonesty when a lie is conveyed with weak vs. strong language.

Topics in Cognitive Science, 2020

We describe some recent trends in research on lying from a multidisciplinary perspective, including logic, philosophy, linguistics, psychology, cognitive science, behavioral economics, and artificial intelligence. Furthermore, we outline the seven contributions to this special issue of TopiCS.

Utilitas

Review of "Lying: Language, Knowledge, Ethics, and Politics", by E. Michaelson and A. Stokke (Oxford University Press, 2018)

2023

This is a review I wrote for Linguist List of Jörg Meibauer (ed.) "The Oxford Handbook of Lying". I reviewed the paperback edition published in 2022. The book was originally published in 2019. The review was published on 26 July 2023.

2010