adversarial mirroring

[David Boromisza]

Dear All,

I am starting to work on an article addressing a discursive pattern or routine that I like to call adversarial mirroring. I use this term to refer to exchanges that usually involve (1) a first speaker using a folk term for communicative action in an allegation ('You are a liar.'), (2) and the target of the allegation responding by accusing the first speaker of having performed the communicative action s/he is accusing the target of through the very act of the allegation ('The fact that you've just called me a liar proves that you are the real liar.') I call this pattern adversarial mirroring because the target "mirrors" the first speaker's allegation with the intent of discrediting them and their allegation.

Could any of you point me to literature that discusses this or similar kinds of phenomena?

Thanks very much in advance,

Cheers, DBH

--
David Boromisza-Habashi, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Communication
University of Colorado
270 UCB
Boulder, CO 80309-0270, USA

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