The Language and Cross-Cultural Perceptions of Deception

摘要: The Language and Cross-Cultural Perceptions of Deception Brent Logan Laing Department Linguistics English Language, BYU Master Arts While much research has shown that some linguistic features can indicate a person is lying, this line led to conflicting results. Furthermore, very little been done verify these supposed deception are universal. In addition, few studies have researched the cross-cultural perceptions deception, which knowledge could greatly improve detection across cultures. current study addresses gaps in literature by analyzing comparing truthful deceptive discourse eight native English-speaking Americans non-native Ghanaians. was elicited one-on-one interviews where each interviewee spontaneously responded questions about themselves. Later, responses were judged 47 Englishspeaking 35 results showed Ghanaians lie differently—Americans’ lies more superfluous redundant; had pronoun inconsistencies, adjectives, adverbs, modal verbs; fewer negative emotion words than their truths. Ghanaians’ lies, on other hand, also inconsistencies but negations groups’ baseline speech differed superfluousness, positive words, word count, response latency. Regarding detecting slightly accurate significantly confident Americans. Both groups judging veracity statements within own Neither group, however, demonstrated truthor lie-bias cross-culturally. These implications for law enforcement investigators analysts who learn differences between Americans’ so as accurately detect through language. perception communication understanding.