The sender-receiver relationship as moderator of the persuasive effect in polysemic communication

Abstract

The article presents the results of an empirical experimental study into the functional aspects of polysemous communication in politics. The analyses of the results have led to the following conclusions in terms of the functional limitations of the application of polysemy in communication (from the point of view of the evaluation of a sender of a polysemous message): a message with a stronger polysemous markedness generated a higher agreement with the sender among respondents, the sender of a more polysemous message was evaluated as more credible, the level of polysemous markedness of a message was irrelevant for the evaluation of the competences of its sender, both for the evaluation of the agreement with the sender, and her/his credibility and competences, the level of the receivers’ awareness in terms of the message’s polysemy was irrelevant; however, the influence of credibility and the evaluation of competences on the agreement with the sender was significant.

Keywords

• cognitive polysemy
• limitations of polysemous communication
• communication in politics
• polysemy and sender’s credibility
• polysemy and sender’s competences