The language of pick-up artists: selling online discourses of the seduction industry

Acknowledgments1 Introduction1.1 Introduction1.2 Pick-up artists: Who are they?1.3 Why study pick-up artists?1.4 Can words seduce?1.5 Which tools to use?1.6 Why discourse analysis?1.7 Overview of the book2 Pick-up artists and the seduction industry2.1 Introduction2.2 Rise and fall of the pick-up artist2.2.1 PUAs and negative publicity2.2.2 PUAs in the press2.3 Speed seduction: Industry or community?2.3.1 The seduction industry2.3.2 Seduction community2.4 PUA genres2.4.1 Dimensions of genre variation in the PUA community2.4.2 Offline genres: In-fields2.4.3 Offline genres: Guru lectures2.4.4 Online genres: Guru how-to videos2.4.5 Online genres: Social media2.4.6 Online genres: Field reports on forums2.4.7 Online genres: Websites and newsletters2.5 Conclusion3 Lexical aspects of pick-up artist discourse3.1 Introduction3.2 Data and methodology3.2.1 The Field Reports + Replies Corpus3.2.2 The e-PUA Corpus3.2.3 Semantic tagging3.3 Making it look like science: Pseudo-scientific vocabulary3.4 Lexical markers of pick-up belonging: Keyword analysis3.5 Where does it come from: Pick-up word-formation3.5.1 Semantic Shift3.5.2 Compounding and zero derivation3.5.3 Acronyms and abbreviations3.6 The numbers' game: Quantification in pick-up discourse3.7 Hashtags for friends: Technological affordances for affiliation3.8 Conclusion4 The pragmatics of pick-up artist interactions4.1 Introduction4.2 Field reports as a PUA genre: A refresher4.3 Invoking expectations through frames4.4 Never a fail, always a success4.4.1 The schema: PUA field report4.4.2 The frame: Success or failure4.5 Confidence building through self-praise4.5.1 The self-praise iceberg4.5.2 Types of self-praise in field reports4.6 Conclusion5 Conversations in the field 5.1 Introduction5.2 What are in-fields?5.3 Power imbalance in seduction encounters5.3.1 A quantitative approach to analysing power in talk5.3.2 Power in talk: Topic control5.3.3 Modal verbs5.4 Macro-analysis of pick-up artists' seduction techniques5.4.1 Pick-up models5.4.2 Understanding in-fields with the help of conversation analysis5.4.3 The Daygame Blueprint and preference organisation5.4.4 Discursive moves in the Capture Phase: Model vs. reality5.5 Conclusion6 Teaching and selling seduction6.1 Introduction6.2 Data and methodology6.2.1 The PUA-Lecture Corpus6.2.2 The PUA-How-To Corpus6.3 The instructional nature of the videos6.4 Becoming and being a PUA guru6.4.1 Creating an expert identity6.4.2 Information-related strategies6.4.3 Experience-related strategies6.4.4 Identity-related strategies6.4.5 Interaction-related strategies6.4.6 Expert identity strategies in PUA-How-To6.5 Comparing PUA-Lecture and PUA-How-To: Guru evolution6.6 Conclusion7 Conclusion7.1 Pick-up artists: A language-based view7.1.1 Language is a part of the shared repertoire and a constitutive element of the PUA community7.1.2 The persuasive intent of PUA discourse is aimed at other PUAs7.1.3 Prioritising engagement over liking7.1.4 Representation does not match reality7.2 Seduction as persuasive talk7.3 Is it just words?7.4 Concluding remarksAppendix A: Transcription conventionsAppendix B: Lists of videos included in PUA-Lecture and PUA-How-ToGlossary of pick-up artist termsReferencesIndex

Introduction -- Pick-up artists and the seduction industry -- Lexical aspects of pick-up artist discourse -- The pragmatics of pick-up artist interactions -- Conversations in the field -- Teaching and selling seduction -- Conclusion -- Appendix A: Transcription conventions -- Appendix B: Lists of videos included in PUA-Lecture and PUA-How-To -- Glossary of pick-up artist terms.