Deceptiveness as a tactic in political English: A case study from 1789

Abstract

The article examines Roger Sherman’s tactic of argumentation in a Congressional debate in June 1789 against considering a bill of rights in a timely fashion. It is argued that Sherman had a covert intention with his objections, and that they were only pretexts, put forward to create a deceptive implicature to block any consideration of amendments and of a bill of rights. The article then focuses on the evidence for claiming that Sherman had a covert intention in the debate and attention is also drawn to the political circumstances of the debate that may have been relevant to his choice of tactics. A distinction between overt and covert intentions is shown to be needed in the investigation of deceptive implicatures. The article also provides an example of how historical databases can be used as a source of data in the pragmatic study of language.