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Emotive conjugation, or Russell conjugation, is a rhetorical technique used to create an intrinsic bias towards or against a piece of information. Bias is created by using the emotional connotation of a word to prime a response from the audience, thus creating a loaded statement. Used seriously, such loaded language can lend false support to an argument through emotional connotation and implication, rather than through fact.

History and Research

The idea was originally defined by Bertrand Russel in 1948 on the BBC news network. During an interview, he gave multiple examples of emotive conjugation in full effect. His most famous example is the following:

I am firm. You are obstinate. He/she is a pig-headed fool.

While firm, obstinate, and pig-headed are all synonymous with stubbornness, the emotive connotation of these words are different. Firm carries a positive connotation, obstinate carries a neutral (or slightly negative) connotation, and pigheaded carries a negative connotation. Thus, most individuals have a positive reaction toward the speaker, and a negative reaction toward the pig-headed fool. Russel notes that no additional information is given on each individual, yet a strong opinion forms nonetheless.

Russell explains this phenomenon by defining humans as social creatures. He claims that the mind is always asking “What is the social consequence of accepting the facts as they are?” which causes the audience to mimic the emotions presented by the speaker. This claim was later supported by Frank Luntz in the 1990s, after he conducted a study on changes in authoritative language. Luntz found that the majority of opinions were reached based off of the emotive conjugation that was used, rather than any underlying facts. He found this to be true, even in situations where these opinions contradicted themselves. For example, an individual would oppose the idea of a “death tax” while supporting an “estate tax” despite the fact that the description was the same. Luntz also notes that these contradictions would still appear if the definitions were given in close proximity to one another.