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.