Discursive Infiltration via Ideographic Combinatorics: Analyzing Hoax Papers through McGee's Ideograph

This paper uses McGee’s concept of the ideograph to explain how certain discursive domains become vulnerable to infiltration via hoax papers. It extends McGee’s account by drawing on standard semantic and semiotic distinctions between denotation and connotation, alongside an additional variable of positional meaning, to explain the discursive mechanism behind ideographs’ rhetorical force despite their unclear empirical reference. Ideological discourse is shown to depart from classical epistemic norms insofar as conformity to a discourse’s evaluative framework can take precedence over empirical correspondence in judging descriptive claims. The paper applies this framework to hoax papers, arguing that such texts pass review because they combine ideographs correctly and signal in-group membership despite denotational vacuity. Hoax papers are thus interpreted as acts of discursive infiltration: the imitation of admissible form without corresponding ideological sincerity.