Politicians vs ChatGPT. A study of presuppositions in French and Italian political communication

TL;DR

This study compares political texts from French and Italian politicians with ChatGPT 3.5 outputs, analyzing presuppositions to understand linguistic features of manipulation and pragmatic competence in language models.

Contribution

It introduces a cross-linguistic analysis of presuppositions in political discourse and ChatGPT outputs, highlighting the models' pragmatic capabilities.

Findings

ChatGPT 3.5 replicates presupposition patterns in political texts.

Presupposition use varies between French and Italian political communication.

Implications for understanding LLMs' pragmatic and manipulative potential.

Abstract

This paper aims to provide a comparison between texts produced by French and Italian politicians on polarizing issues, such as immigration and the European Union, and their chatbot counterparts created with ChatGPT 3.5. In this study, we focus on implicit communication, in particular on presuppositions and their functions in discourse, which have been considered in the literature as a potential linguistic feature of manipulation. This study also aims to contribute to the emerging literature on the pragmatic competences of Large Language Models.