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63-595: The root word mock traces to the Old French mocquer (later moquer ), meaning to scoff at, laugh at, deride, or fool, although the origin of mocquer is itself unknown. Labeling a person or thing as a mockery may also be used to imply that it or they are a poor quality or counterfeit version of some genuine other, such as the case in the usages: "mockery of man" or "the trial was a mockery of justice". Australian linguistics professor Michael Haugh differentiated between teasing and mockery by emphasizing that, while

126-407: A prefix or a suffix can attach. The root word is the primary lexical unit of a word , and of a word family (this root is then called the base word), which carries aspects of semantic content and cannot be reduced into smaller constituents. Content words in nearly all languages contain, and may consist only of, root morphemes . However, sometimes the term "root" is also used to describe

189-402: A "more superficially 'respectable', morally sensitive way of doing class-based distinction than less civil disgust." The philosopher Baruch Spinoza took a dim view of mockery, contending that it rests "upon a false opinion and proclaim[s] the imperfection of the mocker". He reasoned that either the object of the mockery is not ridiculous, in which case the mocker is wrong in treating it in such

252-458: A facet of Bushmen culture designed to keep individuals who are successful in certain regards from becoming arrogant. When weaker people are mocked by stronger people, this can constitute a form of bullying . Root (linguistics) A root (also known as root word or radical ) is the core of a word that is irreducible into more meaningful elements. In morphology , a root is a morphologically simple unit which can be left bare or to which

315-406: A fair degree of accuracy by operating a certain mechanism, just as a motorist can regulate the speed of his car by manipulating the flow of gasoline." Bernays advised that to change the attitudes of the masses, a propagandist should target its "impulses, habits and emotions" and make "emotional currents" work to achieve the goal. Indeed, some contemporary authors have attributed the popularity of

378-423: A general evaluative summary of the information derived from these bases." Political scientist George Marcus (writing with Russell Neuman and Michael Mackuen) identifies two mental systems through which reason and emotion interact in managing and processing political stimuli: The second system, the surveillance system, "acts to scan the environment for novelty and sudden intrusion of threat ." In other words,

441-420: A more loving stance toward the object being mocked on occasions. An example of such loving mockery can be found in the cult film This Is Spinal Tap; while the film makes fun of some of the ridiculous aspects associated with heavy metal music, there is also an evident fondness for the culture and, in particular, for the characters. The English comedy troupe, Monty Python , was considered to be particularly adept at

504-675: A positive relationship exists between anger and attitude change". Specifically, researchers found that "anger evoked in response to issues of juvenile crime and domestic terrorism correlated with acceptance of legislative initiatives proposed to address those issues". Not unlike fear, anger was associated with close (central) information processing including of persuasive messages. However, "unintentionally induced anger in response to supposed guilt and fear appeals has been shown to correlate negatively with attitudes". The persuasive uses of anger have also been studied in political campaigns, since anger can be evoked strategically by politicians to increase

567-1034: A tendency to have words that are identical to their roots. However, such forms as in Spanish exist in English such as interrupt , which may arguably contain the root -rupt , which only appears in other related prefixd forms (such as disrupt , corrupt , rupture , etc.). The form -rupt cannot occur on its own. Examples of ( consonantal roots ) which are related but distinct to the concept developed here are formed prototypically by three (as few as two and as many as five) consonants. Speakers may derive and develop new words (morphosyntactically distinct, i.e. with different parts of speech) by using non-concatenative morphological strategies: inserting different vowels . Unlike 'root' here, these cannot occur on their own without modification; as such these are never actually observed in speech and may be termed 'abstract'. For example, in Hebrew ,

630-478: A tool of privileged groups , which ensures normative responses from non-privileged groups. They emphasize that mockery may be used ironically and comedically, to identify moral stigma and signal moral superiority, but also as a form of social encouragement, allowing those who are providing social cues , to do so in a way that provides a level of social distance between the criticism and critic through use of parody and satire . In this way, mockery can function as

693-415: A way, or it is ridiculous, in which case mockery is not an effective tool for improvement. Though the mocker reveals that they recognize the imperfection, they do nothing to resolve it using good reason. Writing in his Tractatus Politicus , Spinoza declared that mockery was a form of hatred and sadness "which can never be converted into joy". Catholic Bishop Francis de Sales , in his 1877 Introduction to

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756-453: Is an application of social psychology . It is only fallacious when the emotions that are elicited are irrelevant to evaluating the truth of the conclusion and serve to distract from rational consideration of relevant premises or information. For instance, if a student says "If I get a failing grade for this paper I will lose my scholarship. It's not plagiarized." the emotions elicited by the first statement are not relevant to establishing whether

819-415: Is aroused and experienced, it can involve a number of psychological processes that can then be used as a platform for promoting and securing influence and compliance". Regardless, it would stand to reason, then, that affecting a subject's emotional state, in conjunction with a political message, could affect that subject's attitudes. In modern philosophy, there are two main types of appeal to emotion. One

882-461: Is correlated negatively with attitude change. This is consistent with the idea that disgust results in a rejection of its source. A number of recent studies support the role of compassion in skewing moral judgment. The researchers' findings show there is a major relationship between moral judgment and empathic concern in particular, specifically feelings of warmth and compassion in response to someone in distress. Images of suffering children are

945-441: Is followed by relief results in greater compliance to a request than fear, because the relief causes a temporary state of disorientation, leaving individuals vulnerable to suggestion. The suggestion is that relief-based persuasion is a function of less careful information processing. Experiments have shown that appeals to hope are successful mainly with subjects who self-report as being predisposed to experiencing fear. While hope

1008-484: Is kept apart from the passions." Centuries later. French scientist and philosopher, Blaise Pascal wrote that "People [...] arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof , but on the basis of what they find attractive." Baruch Spinoza characterized emotions as having the power to "make the mind inclined to think one thing rather than another." Disagreeing with Seneca the Younger that emotion destroys reason,

1071-462: Is morphologically similar to the production of frequentative (iterative) verbs in Latin , for example: Consider also Rabbinic Hebrew ת-ר-מ ‎ √t-r-m ‘donate, contribute’ (Mishnah: T’rumoth 1:2: ‘separate priestly dues’), which derives from Biblical Hebrew תרומה ‎ t'rūmå ‘contribution’, whose root is ר-ו-מ ‎ √r-w-m ‘raise’; cf. Rabbinic Hebrew ת-ר-ע ‎ √t-r-' ‘sound

1134-412: Is often found in the form of comparing a nuanced circumstance or argument to a laughably commonplace occurrence or to some other irrelevancy on the basis of comedic timing, wordplay, or making an opponent and their argument the object of a joke. This is a rhetorical tactic that mocks an opponent's argument or standpoint, attempting to inspire an emotional reaction (making it a type of appeal to emotion ) in

1197-409: Is still an underdeveloped topic of research, a number of scholars are demonstrating that manipulating emotions concerning a persuasive message does affect that message's effectiveness. It has been shown, for example, that people tend to adjust their beliefs to conform with their emotions, since feelings are treated by people as evidence, and when feelings match beliefs, that is considered as validation of

1260-445: Is the appeal to force (known as ad baculum ) the other is the appeal to sympathy, known as ad misericordiam . These are only considered fallacies when used for doxastic systems. Accepted wisdom is that, "[w]hen it comes to issues of emotional importance, convincing someone to change his or her existing beliefs appears to be a virtually hopeless undertaking." And yet, manipulating emotions may help change attitudes: Though it

1323-543: Is the emotion that is experienced when an individual violates an internalized moral, ethical or religious belief. Guilt's effect on persuasion has been studied only cursorily. Not unlike fear appeals, the literature suggests that guilt can enhance attainment of persuasive goals if evoked to a moderate degree. However, messages designed to evoke excessive levels of guilt may instead arouse anger that may impede persuasive success. Anger 's effect on persuasion has also seldom been studied. A couple of studies, however, "suggest that

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1386-645: The Arabic language : Similar cases occur in Hebrew , for example Israeli Hebrew מ-ק-מ ‎ √m-q-m ‘locate’, which derives from Biblical Hebrew מקום ‎ måqom ‘place’, whose root is ק-ו-מ ‎ √q-w-m ‘stand’. A recent example introduced by the Academy of the Hebrew Language is מדרוג ‎ midrúg ‘rating’, from מדרג ‎ midrág , whose root is ד-ר-ג ‎ √d-r-g ‘grade’." According to Ghil'ad Zuckermann , "this process

1449-401: The 18th century Scottish philosopher George Campbell argued, instead, that emotions were allies of reason, and that they aid in the assimilation of knowledge. However, Campbell warned of the malleability of emotion and the consequent risk in terms of suggestibility: Propaganda theorist Edward Bernays asserted confidently that "in certain cases we can effect some change in public opinion with

1512-564: The Devout Life , decried mockery as a sin : But as derision or mockery are never without scoffing, therefore it is a very great sin; so that divines are right in saying that mockery is the worst kind of offence a man can be guilty of against his neighbour by words; for other offences may be committed with some esteem for the party offended, but this is committed with scorn and contempt. Alternatively, while philosophers John Locke and Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury agreed on

1575-467: The Sanskrit root " √bhū- " means the root " bhū- ". English verb form running contains the root run . The Spanish superlative adjective amplísimo contains the root ampli- . In the former case, the root can occur on its own freely. In the latter, it requires modification via affixation to be used as a free form. English has minimal use of morphological strategies such as affixation and features

1638-539: The United States, the television show, Saturday Night Live has been noted as having "a history of political mockery", and it has been proposed that "[h]istorical and rhetorical analyses argue that this mockery matters" with respect to political outcomes. Mockery appears to be a uniquely human activity. Although several species of animal are observed to engage in laughter , humans are the only animal observed to use laughter to mock one another. An examination of

1701-450: The appearance of the capacity for mockery during childhood development indicates that mockery "does not appear as an expectable moment in early childhood, but becomes more prominent as the latency child enters the social world of sibling rivalry , competition , and social interaction ". As it develops, it is "displayed in forms of schoolyard bullying and certainly in adolescence with the attempt to achieve independence while negotiating

1764-401: The attitude object, and behavior has been used to describe overt actions and responses to the attitude object". Affect, meanwhile, describes "the positive and negative feelings that one holds toward an attitude object", that is, the emotional dimension of an attitude. Modern theorists have modified the tripartite theory to argue that an attitude "does not consist of these elements, but is instead

1827-443: The audience and to highlight any counter-intuitive aspects of that argument, making it appear foolish and contrary to common sense . This is typically done by making a mockery of the argument's foundation that represents it in an uncharitable and oversimplified way. Mockery is one form of the literary genre of satire , and it has been noted that "[t]he mock genres and the practice of literary mockery goes back at least as far as

1890-512: The beliefs. Other research shows that "emotional stimuli can influence judgment without a judge's awareness of having seen or felt anything (e.g., Bargh, 1997; Murphy & Zajonc, 1993)." Indeed, "recent studies have confirmed that affect does play a general role in attitude change, whether due to persuasive communication, or to cognitive dissonance processes (Petty et al., 2001)". Psychologists Petty & Cacioppo found that there are two ways of processing persuasive messages: (1) to emphasize

1953-439: The building blocks for affixation and compounds . However, in polysynthetic languages with very high levels of inflectional morphology, the term "root" is generally synonymous with "free morpheme". Many such languages have a very restricted number of morphemes that can stand alone as a word: Yup'ik , for instance, has no more than two thousand. The root is conventionally indicated using the mathematical symbol √; for instance,

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2016-410: The category-neutral approach, data from English indicates that the same underlying root appears as a noun and a verb - with or without overt morphology. In Hebrew , the majority of roots consist of segmental consonants √CCC. Arad (2003) describes that the consonantal root is turned into a word due to pattern morphology. Thereby, the root is turned into a verb when put into a verbal environment where

2079-404: The changing of beliefs due to significant data. Referring to the work of Marcus, political scientist Tom Brader says that, "by appealing to specific emotions, [communicators] can change the way citizens respond to political messages". The only widely studied emotion, with respect to persuasion, is fear . Fear has been found to force individuals "to break from routine and pay close attention to

2142-421: The conflicts arising out of encounters with authority." One common element of mockery is caricature , a wide-ranging practice of imitating and exaggerating aspects of the subject being mocked. It has been suggested that caricature produced "survival advantages of rapid decoding of facial information", and at the same time that it provides "some of our best humor and, when suffused with too much aggression, may reach

2205-414: The content and quality of the message (central processing), or (2) to emphasize instead external cues (such as the source of the message) and to disregard its content (peripheral processing). "When participants use the central/systematic route of responding to message content, they tend to be persuaded more by strong arguments, and less by weak arguments. However, the strength of the argument matters less when

2268-516: The external world," including persuasive messages. Moreover, fear has been found to encourage political engagement: More generally, "fear is associated with both attitude and behavior change." However, "four variables that may interact to influence processing depth of a fear-inducing message: (a) type of fear (chronic vs. acute), (b) expectation of a message containing reassuring information, (c) type of behavior advocated (e.g., disease detection vs. health promotion), and (d) issue familiarity." Guilt

2331-447: The form of mockery". Mockery serves a number of social functions: Primitive forms of mockery represent the attempt to use aggression to protect oneself from engulfment, impingement or humiliation by diminishing the perceived power and threat of the other. However, mockery may also preserve the object relationship, because the other is needed to provide the material for caricature. Caricature in everyday life, at its most effective, involves

2394-436: The forms derived from the abstract consonantal roots , a major Hebrew phonetics concept ג-ד-ל ( g-d-l ) related to ideas of largeness: g a d o l and gd o l a (masculine and feminine forms of the adjective "big"), g a d a l "he grew", hi gd i l "he magnified" and ma gd e l et "magnifier", along with many other words such as g o d e l "size" and mi gd a l "tower". Roots and reconstructed roots can become

2457-400: The head bears the "v" feature (the pattern). Consider the root √š-m-n (ש-מ-נ). Although all words vary semantically, the general meaning of a greasy, fatty material can be attributed to the root. Furthermore, Arad states that there are two types of languages in terms of root interpretation. In languages like English, the root is assigned one interpretation whereas in languages like Hebrew,

2520-733: The ideal triggers of this instinctive compassion. Once triggered, compassion causes individuals to favor the few they see suffering over the many who they know to be suffering but in the abstract: "People who feel similar to another person in need have been shown to experience more empathic compassion for that person than do those not manipulated to feel similar to another." Dan Ariely notes that appeals that, through visual cues or otherwise, make us focus on specific, individual victims affect our attitudes and cause us to take action whereas, "when many people are involved, we don't. A cold calculation does not increase our concern for large problems; instead, it suppresses our compassion." "Little studied in

2583-464: The importance of critical inquiry regarding the views of authority figures, Shaftesbury saw an important role specifically for mockery in this process. Shaftesbury held that "a moderate use of mockery could correct vices," and that mockery was among the most important challenges for truth, because "if an opinion cannot stand mockery" then it similarly would be "revealed to be ridiculous". As such all serious claims of knowledge should be subjected to it. This

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2646-400: The judgments we deliver are not the same when we are influenced by joy or sorrow, love or hate." Aristotle warned that emotions may create beliefs where none existed, or change existing beliefs, and may enhance or decrease the strength with which a belief is held. Seneca similarly warned that "Reason herself, to whom the reins of power have been entrusted, remains mistress only so long as she

2709-427: The literature on the features of mockery as consisting of the following: In turn, the audience of the mockery may reply with a number of additional cues to indicate that the actions are understood as non-serious, including laughter, explicit agreement, or a continuation or elaboration of the mockery. Jayne Raisborough and Matt Adams alternatively identified mockery as a type of disparagement humour mainly available as

2772-465: The mockery of both authority figures and people making a pretense to competence beyond their abilities. One such sketch, involving a nearly-deaf hearing aid salesman and a nearly-blind contact lens salesman, depicts them as "both desperately unsuccessful, and exceedingly hilarious. The comicality of such characters is largely due to the fact that the objects of mockery themselves create a specific context in which we find that they deserve being ridiculed". In

2835-415: The most destructive political forces in modern history to the ability of their propagandists to enchant (rather than convince) publics and to oppose "the heavenly ecstasies of religious fervor" to "naked self interest" and individualism. Similarly, Drew Westen , professor of psychology psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Emory University, using current psychiatric and psychological research to demonstrate

2898-405: The motivation and engagement of their sympathizers, although the historian Nicole Hemmer has noted that the potential for an American candidate to use anger effectively is contingent on their identity. Sadness arousal has been associated with attitude change in the context of AIDS , illicit drugs , and juvenile crime . Disgust , in the context of messages opposing animal experimentation,

2961-399: The paper was plagiarized. Also, the statement "Look at the suffering children. We must do more for refugees." is fallacious, because the suffering of the children and our emotional perception of the badness of suffering is not relevant to the conclusion (to be sure, the proper role, if any, for emotion in moral reasoning is a contested issue in ethics). Appeals to emotion are intended to cause

3024-640: The peripheral route is chosen. In that case, other "peripheral" factors, such as the credibility of the source of the message or the intention of the communicator become important in the persuasive process." Petty and Cacioppo suggest that negative affect should result in more central processing and positive affect to more peripheral processing. That is, "In happy moods, people tend to be persuaded equally by strong and weak arguments, whereas in sad moods, people are persuaded only by strong arguments and reject weak arguments." Said otherwise, positive moods encourage easy acceptance of arguments, while negative moods encourage

3087-686: The power of emotions in affecting political cognition and preferences, wrote that, "when reason and emotion collide, emotion invariably wins". Westen, an advisor to Democratic political campaigns , believes that evolution has equipped people to process information by emotions and that people respond to emotional cues more than to rational arguments. Accordingly, Westen believes that emotion is vital for effective persuasion and that appeals to emotion will always be more effective appeals to reason: A social psychology theory suggests that attitudes have three components — affect , cognition and behavior . The cognitive dimension refers "to beliefs that one holds about

3150-545: The recipient of the information to experience feelings such as fear, pity, or joy, with the end goal of convincing the person that the statements being presented by the fallacious argument are true or false, respectively. The power of emotions to influence judgment, including political attitudes, has been recognized since classical antiquity. Aristotle , in his treatise Rhetoric , described emotional arousal as critical to persuasion, "The orator persuades by means of his hearers, when they are roused to emotion by his speech; for

3213-602: The root can form multiple interpretations depending on its environment. This occurrence suggests a difference in language acquisition between these two languages. English speakers would need to learn two roots in order to understand two different words whereas Hebrew speakers would learn one root for two or more words. Alexiadou and Lohndal (2017) advance the claim that languages have a typological scale when it comes to roots and their meanings and state that Greek lies in between Hebrew and English. Appeal to emotion Appeal to emotion or argumentum ad passiones (meaning

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3276-480: The roots' vowels, by adding or removing the long vowels a , i , u , e and o . (Notice that Arabic does not have the vowels e and o .) In addition, secondary roots can be created by prefixing ( m− , t− ), infixing ( −t− ), or suffixing ( −i , and several others). There is no rule in these languages on how many secondary roots can be derived from a single root; some roots have few, but other roots have many, not all of which are necessarily in current use. Consider

3339-586: The same in Latin) is an informal fallacy characterized by the manipulation of the recipient's emotions in order to win an argument, especially in the absence of factual evidence . This kind of appeal to emotion is irrelevant to or distracting from the facts of the argument (a so-called " red herring ") and encompasses several logical fallacies, including appeal to consequences , appeal to fear , appeal to flattery , appeal to pity , appeal to ridicule , appeal to spite , and wishful thinking . Appeal to emotion

3402-442: The second system monitors the environment for any signs of threat. If a threat is found, that system takes people out of habitual, casual processing and puts them in a state of alertness and receptivity to new information: Marcus further argues that "emotional engagement will motivate people toward making more deeply reasoned decisions about politics than those who remain dispassionate". Other people have argued that "when an emotion

3465-418: The sixth century BCE". Mockery, as a genre, can also be directed towards other artistic genres: [T]o parody another work, or other works, does often entail an evaluative stance towards the material being referred to, as it generally involves mockery. Within this mocking cultural mode there nevertheless exist degrees of criticism, from gentle mockery to acerbic ridicule. Such mockery can, however, exist alongside

3528-488: The social influence context, the one clearly identifiable study of pride and persuasion considered the role of culture in response to advertising , finding that members of a collectivist culture (China) responded more favorably to a pride-based appeal, whereas members of an individualist culture (the United States) responded more favorably to an empathy-based appeal." Some researchers have argued that anxiety which

3591-416: The sublimation of aggression and may reach the form of humor— witness our fascination with political satire, often an exercise in the caricature of authority. Less sublimated aggression results in a type of mockery directed at the ongoing humiliation of the weak, reminding such persons that they have little power and are not worthy of full humanity or social membership. Richard Borshay Lee reported mockery as

3654-569: The syntactic environment. The ways in which these roots gain lexical category are discussed in Distributed Morphology and the Exoskeletal Model . Theories adopting a category-neutral approach have not, as of 2020, reached a consensus about whether these roots contain a semantic type but no argument structure, neither semantic type nor argument structure, or both semantic type and argument structure. In support of

3717-434: The tools of etymology . Secondary roots are roots with changes in them, producing a new word with a slightly different meaning. In English, a rough equivalent would be to see conductor as a secondary root formed from the root to conduct . In abjad languages, the most familiar of which are Arabic and Hebrew , in which families of secondary roots are fundamental to the language, secondary roots are created by changes in

3780-460: The trumpet, blow the horn’, from Biblical Hebrew תרועה ‎ t'rū`å ‘shout, cry, loud sound, trumpet-call’, in turn from ר-ו-ע ‎ √r-w-`." and it describes the suffix. Decompositional generative frameworks suggest that roots hold little grammatical information and can be considered "category-neutral". Category-neutral roots are roots without any inherent lexical category but with some conceptual content that becomes evident depending on

3843-403: The two do have substantial overlap in meaning, mockery does not connote repeated provocation or the intentional withholding of desires, and instead implies a type of imitation or impersonation where a key element is that the nature of the act places a central importance on the expectation that it not be taken seriously. Specifically in examining non-serious forms of jocular mockery, Haugh summarized

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3906-438: The word without its inflectional endings, but with its lexical endings in place. For example, chatters has the inflectional root or lemma chatter , but the lexical root chat . Inflectional roots are often called stems . A root, or a root morpheme , in the stricter sense, may be thought of as a monomorphemic stem. The traditional definition allows roots to be either free morphemes or bound morphemes . Root morphemes are

3969-497: Was a view echoed by René Descartes , who saw mockery as a "trait of a good man" which "bears witness to the cheerfulness of his temper ... tranquility of his soul ... [and] the ingenuity of his mind." In philosophical argument, the appeal to ridicule (also called appeal to mockery, ab absurdo , or the horse laugh) is an informal fallacy which presents an opponent's argument as absurd , ridiculous , or humorous , and therefore not worthy of serious consideration. Appeal to ridicule

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