SPEECH MANIPULATION IN DIGITAL COMMUNICATION: A NEUROLINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF PERSUASIVE LANGUAGE PRACTICES ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Abstract

The rapid expansion of digital communication has transformed the ways individuals receive, interpret, and respond to information. Social media platforms have become influential environments where linguistic strategies are employed not only to inform but also to shape attitudes, emotions, and behavioral decisions. This study investigates speech manipulation in digital communication through a neurolinguistic perspective, focusing on persuasive language practices in social media discourse. The research aims to identify the most common manipulative linguistic mechanisms and examine their potential cognitive effects on digital audiences. A corpus of 120 publicly accessible social media texts was compiled from Telegram, Instagram, and X (formerly Twitter). The study employed qualitative discourse analysis and quantitative content analysis to classify manipulative strategies according to six categories: emotional triggering, authority framing, fear appeals, social proof, scarcity strategies, and repetition patterns. The findings indicate that emotional triggering and social proof are the most frequently utilized persuasive mechanisms, accounting for more than half of all identified manipulative instances. Neurolinguistic analysis suggests that these strategies activate heuristic processing, reduce critical evaluation, and increase message acceptance. The study contributes to applied linguistics by demonstrating how language functions as a cognitive tool in digital persuasion and by proposing an analytical framework for examining manipulative discourse in online environments. The findings may support future research on digital literacy, media communication, and linguistic influence in virtual communities.