Att övertyga mellan raderna : en retorisk studie om underförstådda inslag i modern politisk argumentation

Sammanfattning: The purpose ofthe present thesis is to discuss the persuasive effect ofimplicitness in modern political argumentation. The aim is to guide the reader towards a reflected attitude on implicitly conveyed messages, both as a sender, as a receiver, and as an argumentation analyst. All angles of approach are significant for the discipline of Rhetoric. From a sender’s perspective it is beneficial to know how efficient implicit messages can be, and to be aware of the accompanying responsibility. From a receiver perspective it is beneficial to tune his/her ability to profit by implicitly conveyed messages, and to beaware of the possible ways for a sender to convey messages covertly, i.e. to possess avigilance for the insidious use of implicitness.A rational standpoint, it is assumed, is concerned with the whole triad ethos, pathos and logos. I discuss the possible persuasive effects of implicitness from a rhetorical point ofview and try to show that the rhetorical tools can be useful for a reflective decisionmaking process that not only emphasises the logos part of the persuasion process.To be able to analyse persuasive communication in general, and implicitness in particular, it is necessary to reconstruct the argumentation prevalent today. A close observation of procedures from different argumentation analysis approaches to persuasive communication, is carried out to be able to reconstruct implicitness in a way that facilitatesa reflected standpoint. To be able to reconstruct different types of implicitness, different supplementional procedures are needed. More context-dependent implicitness, for example irony, differs from the implicitness that could be reconstructed with text-internal and logical clues, for example enthymeme.