LINGUO-SUGGESTIVE POTENTIAL OF ANCHORING TECHNOLOGY IN THE DISCOURSE OF FOOTBALL FANS (based on German language)

The article reveals the results of the study of the linguo–suggestive potential of the football fans discourse. It is found out that the discourse of fans is built in the paradigm of “us – them” and is aimed at forming a certain emotional state of the discursive community, which involves the implementation of linguo-suggestive influence. It is proved that anchoring technique is one of the leading techniques of neuro-linguistic programming in the communication of a fan group as a discursive community. The research presents an algorhythm for its implementation, which has six stages: 1) determining the situation, 2) creating the key anchor-stimulus, 3) finding the image-standard in the minds of the community, 4) forming the image presentation, 5) choosing the channel of broadcasting, 6) ensuring synergy through verbal and nonverbal means. Video recordings, publications and posts of football fans of German lingual culture on the Internet (on the example of protest discourses) became the empirical material for the study of anchoring technique. The research material proved that three types of broadcast channels are used in discourse: visual, audio and kinesthetic. The effectiveness of the impact is achieved through their complex combination and the use of verbal and nonverbal semiotic signs. The article singles out and analyzes the means of spelling, graphic, lexical-semantic and grammatical-stylistic levels due to which the pragmatic effect is achieved.

Two Empirical Tests of Informal Predictions from Helson's Adaptation-Level Theory

Two experiments on adaptation-level theory are reported which arise from informal predictions made by Helson (1964). They both involved interpolated anchors in comparative judgments, in order to avoid the sorts of response factors inherent in the category scaling technique normally employed in adaptation level studies. The first experiment indicated the operation of time error as interstimulus intervals are increased. The second showed that if the anchor stimulus is not judged it is less effective in producing contrast compared with when it is judged. In addition, response times and confidence ratings of judgments were shown to be potentially useful indices of differences in effectiveness among the various anchor stimulus levels used. The strong relationship between these two measures is discussed.

Effects of Anchor Stimuli on Category and Ratio Scaling

Two experiments compared the influence of an anchor stimulus on judgments of size using a category-scaling procedure and two ratio-scaling procedures—Stevens' magnitude estimation and direct size estimation. Using an anchor stimulus smaller than any of the judged series stimuli (Exp. I) produced slight contrast effects for category scaling, assimilation for size estimation and no anchoring effects with magnitude estimation. The downward concave relationship between the category scale and the ratio scales was not obtained under any anchoring condition. Use of an anchor stimulus larger than the judged series (Exp. II) produced similar results, with the exception that size estimation did not show consistent assimilation effects.