Language is arguably the most powerful anchoring device. Anchoring mechanisms in communication often disclose shared values, ambitions or knowledge.
Language is arguably the most powerful anchoring device, and an understanding of the linguistic, rhetorical, and narratological phenomena involved is crucial for all Work Packages. Successful communication is largely dependent on ‘common ground management’: in communication, speakers strive to anchor what is new, contested, or potentially controversial to the recipient in a certain aspect of the (supposed) common ground. Anchoring mechanisms in communication often disclose shared values, ambitions or knowledge, frequently in a subtle and implicit way. This is also (maybe especially) the case in manipulative anchoring. Work Package 1 investigates three aspects of ‘communicative anchoring’ as a prerequisite for any successful innovation: (1) a discourse linguistic and rhetorical perspective to common ground management; (2) a cognitive-semantic study of value discourse; (3) the structure of a number of specific anchoring discourses and rhetorical tropes.
