Persuasion in Cyber Blackmail’s Emails: A pragma-dialectical Study

Abstract

This study is concerned with analyzing Cyber Blackmail’s Emails using the Pragma-dialectical approach.
It is not specified, as believed, what strategies are used in constructing cyber blackmail. Thus, the present
study attempts to fill in this gap as it aims at identifying blackmailers’ dialectical strategies and finding out
how these strategies are realized pragmatically. In compatible with the aims, it is hypothesized that cyber
blackmailers employ some persuasive strategies, and these strategies are realized pragmatically in the
speech act’s classification. An eclectic model has been developed to investigate the Speech Act theory
and the use of some persuasive strategies. Additionally, a new persuasive strategy has been invented to
be added to the model and examined through the data, i.e., Appeal to Promise. A mixed-method has
been used to conduct the study. Finally, the study concluded that blackmailers utilize persuasive
strategies to convince and gain victims’ compliance. These strategies are realized using various forms of
speech acts with mainly two functions; threatening and requesting. Some persuasive strategies are
realized in more than one utterance, in which the payment requested occurs in combination with other
strategies. This point additionally has led to the conclusion that blackmailing is a conditional demand
rather than a conditional threat.