Document Type : Research

Authors

• Shima Solati ¹
• Ali Izanloo ²
• Azam Estaji ³

¹ Linguistic Department of Ferdowsi University of Mashhad

² Ferdosi University

³ Department of Linguistics, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to detect verbal cues to deception, including hedges, negative emotions and negative statements, in Farsi discourse of near-death experience (NDE). We examined these three verbal cues in stories of a group of people who claimed to have near-death experience (NDE) and compared them to another group who fabricated NDE stories. Our zero hypothesis was that both groups produce the same number of hedges, negative statements and negative emotions. However, statistics showed that all three verbal cues associated with deception examined in this study were produced more by liars and this is aligned with previous studies regarding deceptive language use. It can be concluded that some feelings of fear and guilt merely because of lying in addition to remembering sins can be reflected in negative statements and negative emotion expressions. Also, employing hedges can be the result of liars’ lack of cognitive creativity, which leads to liars distancing themselves from the event, feeling less responsible and less committed and consequently, being more uncertain.

Keywords

• Hedges
• Near-death experience
• Negative emotion expressions
• Verbal cues to deception

Main Subjects

• Semantics and pragmatics