Scammer Exchange: A Critical Discourse Analysis

This study explored the conversational discourse employed by online scammers through the lens of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), with the principal aim of elucidating how linguistic and stylistic features construct asymmetrical power relations and facilitate the victimization of individuals in digital environments. Drawing on Fairclough’s (2013) three-dimensional framework and van Dijk’s (2008) socio-cognitive approach to discourse and power, the study analyses authentic WhatsApp interactions collected via virtual ethnography. Virtual ethnography was selected to capture naturalistic discourse, using an ethical measure of a covert, responsiveparticipant role. This approach involves deception of human subjects, the absence of informed consent, potential emotional harm to participants (scammers), and the researcher’s own risk of vicarious trauma. These dilemmas were systematically addressed through institutional ethics review, strict harm-minimisation protocols, and ongoing psychological supervision, aligning the study with consequentialist justifications that prioritise public benefit in preventing widespread harm to future victims. Three pseudonymised case participants' discourses were analysed across three recurrent discursive strategies: constructing narratives of extreme urgency, performing accelerated declarations of love, and fabricating backgrounds of tragic isolation and bereavement. The findings reveal how specific linguistic features—high-modality vulnerability markers, exclusive-we pronouns, sequential emotional entrapment cycles, and deliberate omission of perceptual detail—systematically invert traditional power hierarchies, commodify empathy, and exploit global economic and cultural inequalities. In the unverifiable context of digital spaces, these features transform everyday language into a potent instrument of ideological domination and financial dispossession. By exposing micro-level linguistic mechanisms through which power and inequality are enacted in cyber fraud, the study contributes original insights to critical discourse studies, forensic linguistics, and digital criminology, while underscoring the urgent need for linguistically informed prevention strategies and policy interventions.

Scammer discourse, Critical Discourse Analysis, Linguistic Features

1. Anafo, C. (2020). On the grammar of scam: Transitivity, manipulation and deception in scam emails. World Englishes, 39(2), 248–262. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

2. Boellstorff, T., Nardi, B., Pearce, C., & Taylor, T. L. (2012). Ethnography and virtual worlds: A handbook of method. Princeton University Press. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

3. Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (1987). Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge University Press. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

4. Button, M., Nicholls, C. M., Kerr, J., & Owen, R. (2014). Online frauds: Learning from victims why they fall for these scams. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 47(3), 391–408. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

5. Button, M., Lewis, C., & Tapley, J. (2014). Not a victimless crime: The impact of fraud on individual victims and their families. Security Journal, 27 (1), 36-54. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

6. Chilton, P. (2004). Analysing political discourse: Theory and practice. Routledge. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

7. Calvey, D. (2017). Covert research: The art, politics and ethics of undercover fieldwork. Sage. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

8. Ess, C. (2014). Ethics in internet ethnography. In Handbook of ethnography (pp. 487-503). Sage. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

9. Fairclough, N. (2013). Critical discourse analysis: The critical study of language (2nd ed.). Routledge. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

10. Federal Trade Commission. (2023). Consumer sentinel network data book 2022. FTC. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

11. Hammersley, M., & Atkinson, P. (2007). Ethnography: Principles in practice (3rd ed.). Routledge. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

12. Hine, C. (2000). Virtual ethnography. Sage. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

13. Lazarus, S. (2018). Birds of a feather flock together: The Nigerian cyber fraudsters (Yahoo Boys) and hip hop artists. Criminology, Criminal Justice, Law & Society, 19 (2), 63-80. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

14. Machin, D., & Mayr, A. (2012). How to do critical discourse analysis: A multimodal introduction. Sage. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

15. van Dijk, T. A. (2008). Discourse and power. Palgrave Macmillan. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

16. Vrij, A., Granhag, P. A., & Porter, S. (2010). Pitfalls and opportunities in nonverbal and verbal lie detection. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 11 (3), 89–121. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

17. Whitty, M. T., & Buchanan, T. (2012). The psychology of the online dating romance scam. University of Leicester. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

18. Whitty, M. T., & Buchanan, T. (2016). The online dating romance scam: The psychological impact on victims—both financial and non-financial. Criminology & Criminal Justice, 16 (2), 176–194. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

19. Wodak, R., & Meyer, M. (Eds.). (2016). Methods of critical discourse studies (3rd ed.). Sage. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

20. Xu, W., Zhang, Y., & Li, Y. (2023). What makes deceptive online reviews? A linguistic analysis perspective. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 10, 1–12. [Google Scholar] [Crossref]

• Assessment of the Role of Artificial Intelligence in Repositioning TVET for Economic Development in Nigeria
• Teachers’ Use of Assure Model Instructional Design on Learners’ Problem Solving Efficacy in Secondary Schools in Bungoma County, Kenya
• “E-Booksan Ang Kaalaman”: Development, Validation, and Utilization of Electronic Book in Academic Performance of Grade 9 Students in Social Studies
• Analyzing EFL University Students’ Academic Speaking Skills Through Self-Recorded Video Presentation
• Major Findings of The Study on Total Quality Management in Teachers’ Education Institutions (TEIs) In Assam – An Evaluative Study