The Persuasive Function of Rhetoric in Advertising Slogans

Academic Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, 2013

Throughout the decades, there have been changes in persuasive strategies used by advertisers. A study was carried out on 500 advertising slogans dating from the late 19 th century till the early 21 st century, spanning a period of over a hundred years. The slogans were selected from 13 multinational and established companies and arranged according to the year they were created. The companies selected were ones that existed from the late 1800s and which still exist today. A cross-section of the slogans were analysed qualitatively for the presence of rhetorical figures and various persuasive strategies in a pilot study. The trend of the use of rhetorical figures and communicative and stylistic strategies used throughout this period was also calculated using quantitative analysis. The findings reveal a rise and fall pattern throughout the decades of both rhetorical figures and communicative and stylistic strategies used in advertising slogans. The pattern is also present in the layering of the rhetorical figures throughout the decades. Therefore the study has discovered the presence of a cyclical continuum that involves the selection of certain rhetorical figures and persuasive strategies in a particular period but not in others.

Imperial journal of interdisciplinary research, 2016

Art is an integral part of human existence and t he question about art which has always perplexed human minds is what can be included under the gamut of art? As times progressed, this question became all the more persuasive followed by the birth of certain activities, such as advertisements, often deemed creative but not always considered artistic. This debate over the artistic or the non-artistic nature of advertisements is based on the debate of banality of art and the conflict between high and low art. Certainly this debate regarding the artistic or non-artistic status of advertisements is divided between two schools, each taking a side either in favor of the artistic status of advertisement or the opposite. There have been many theories and techniques devised to determine the status of advertisements. One of the techniques or devices that can be used particularly for ads abundant with texts is language and its usages as it is a determining factor from various perspectives. This ...

2013

There are two interpretations of rhetoric that are backed by a long tradition: as the theory of argumentation and persuasion, which is how it was born in Antiquity, and as the taxonomy of rhetorical figures, which is the form in which it reigned supreme from the 16th century onwards. In both of these senses, advertising discourse today is the favoured, and in fact almost exclusive, domain of rhetoric. In this essay, we consider the revival in recent decades of both traditions, by Chaim Perelman and Groupe μ, respectively, and their importance to publicity, in particular to advertising pictures. In both senses of the term, rhetoric relies heavily on the presuppositions that are to a greater or lesser extent shared between the initiator of the message and its recipients. In the case of rhetorical figures, it is the organisation of the world of our experience according to topological properties such as neighbourhood, sequence, enclosure, and the like that has to be taken for granted; i...

2019

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui komponen-komponen dan figur retorika dari wacana persuasif tertulis pada iklan cetak. Penelitian ini menggunakan desain evaluasi deskriptif yakni analisa isi yang menjelaskan tiga komponen iklan persuasi (etos, patos, logos) dan figur retorika iklan (skema dan kiasan). Hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa dari 20 iklan minum ringan, sebagian besar (90%) memiliki patos. Logos berada pada posisi kedua (80%). Sebagian iklan tidak memiliki etos, hanya 60% atau 12 iklan. Selanjutnya semua iklan minuman ringan (100%) memiliki skema, hanya 40% atau 8 iklan yang memiliki kiasan.nnn

2012

In this article I set forth a conceptual distinction between two levels on which inventio takes place in advertising, one of which is critical for rhetoricians to examine: the diegetic content. I argue that current rhetorical studies have an inadequate construal of advertising content and I identify the source of this confusion in an older stream of research in consumer psychology. I perform a close analysis of several print advertisements and show that the diegetic content has important rhetorical effects on audience response which are not to be ascribed neither to product features nor to aspects concerning elocutio, as the current framework suggests. The results of my analysis are then used to explain why issues concerning relevance, credibility and persuasive power of an advertisement can only be accurately measured and explained if researchers pay close attention to the diegetic content itself.

International Journal of English Language, Literature & Translation Studies , 2017

Although advertisements are ephemeral in that each one is short-lived, their effects are longstanding and cumulative: they leave traces of themselves behind, which combine to form a body of messages about the culture that produced them. These messages can then function both to reflect and to construct cultural values: they can reflect the values of the powerful groups in society who produced the texts. Almost all the ads use taglines to attract the customers. Everything matters in an advertisement. The kind of color, background, people who are appearing, the words used by the people are all matters in advertisements. Above all, the culture depicted in advertisements plays a crucial role in promoting the particular product of a company. It needs a lot of imagination and creativity. Those who work hard and smart can excel in this field. This paper critically analyses the language used in advertisements with reference to the products they shown in mass media, in papers, and in journals. Introduction The aim of the paper is to propose a simple approach to monitoring the language of the advertisement use it. The work provides the analysis of the language of advertising from a language point of view and specifies linguistic means used in advertising texts. The work brings knowledge about the use of linguistic devices in the advertisement. In this paper, the researchers' are concerned with the language of advertisement. The main reason to choose this topic was the interesting use of language in media culture, how the English language gets molded by the advertisers, to grab the attention of the audience towards their product. Language plays a great role in persuading and making others listen and pay attention. The language of advertisement is therefore used, to persuade the audience. English language and its use in different contexts is interesting to note and is been studied for ages. The language of advertisement is yet another interesting creation and use of the English language. Researchers of this paper worked on, to discover its anatomy of creative writing and grammatical structures. The objective of the work is to provide the analysis of the language of advertising from a linguistic point of view and specify linguistic means used in advertising texts.

Jurnal Bahasa Inggris Terapan

This research is under the pragmatic studies particularly focusing on the use of presuppositions found in 12 newspaper car advertisements. The researcher used descriptive research method because all the data is obtained from the taglines on advertisement displays and is reviewed based on theory of presuppositions. The data sources include newspaper Pikiran Rakyat and Pasundan Express, and the analysis is based on the theory proposed by Yule (1996) about the type presuppositions to find out the types frequently used in the car advertisements. The result shows that there are three types of presupposition used, namely, 7 existential (50%), 2 factive (14.3%), and 5 lexical (35.7%). The type of presupposition mostly used is Existential Presupposition because existential is the assumption that convey the existence of the car.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2015

This qualitative-descriptive study highlights the semantic property of the slogans of TV commercials. The study focuses on the analysis of linguistic tools used by the copywriters of TV commercials to influence the target audience. associative meaning with its sub-types provide a theoretical basis to the study. The research displays multiple strategies used by the copywriters. It underscores the associations attached to the keywords of the selected slogans according to the mentioned theory of meaning. The research helps the TV viewers to understand the guile used by the copywriters to entrap them as well as the researchers of the field of semantics.

ABSTRACT The language of advertising has a powerful impact on the branding of automobiles and sustaining its customer‟s loyalty. This study aims to identify the arguments used in advertisements; particularly on its claims, warrants and data to influence the automobile buyers in a diverse international market. It analyses the rhetorical devices and language equivalence used in the English and German print advertisements. A contrastive analysis of three cars‟ print advertisements, namely Mercedes Benz, BMW and Volkswagen from the German and Malaysian English dailies was carried out using Toulmin‟s model to identify the arguments and the rhetorical devices used in the advertisements. The study reveals two main similarities, particularly in the arguments put forth as well as the stylistic approach of the advertisements. The BMW and Mercedes Benz focused on their technological superiority and advancements, while the Volkswagen focused on its affordability. The German adverts were more pe...

2015

This study intends to analyse the text meaning of the slogan. As we know, the usage of the word in slogan text is so meaningful. Sometimes the meaning of the word in slogan has a figurative meaning and commercial purposes. The writer uses 30 kinds of English slogan as the object of the research, 7 slogans come from the advertisements that serve a service and 23 slogans come from the advertisements that serve a product. In this research, the writer uses the qualitative method. The collected data of English slogans advertising from the English newspapers or English magazines are analyzed qualitatively based on related theory or approaches, such as Semantics and stylistics.From 30 kinds of slogan, the writer finds 7 slogans that not contain a figurative language. Usually the producer uses an ordinary word in making their slogan. So the meaning can be understood from its denotation. There are 8 slogans that use hyperbole as a figurative language in order to describe the product. Key Wor...

One of the ways to promote certain products is through advertisement. Advertisements may appear in brochures, magazines, newspaper, radio, television and also internet. The interesting thing from advertisements is the language they use. They frequently use persuasive language in order to attract the consumers or buyers. One of the ways to persuade the consumers or buyers is using interesting slogans. The interesting slogan will be easily remembered by the consumers or buyers. The aim of this study was to analyze the language used in the advertisement of motorcycle particularly its English slogans from pragmatics view focusing on certain features of pragmatics namely, linguistic form, speech acts, and conversational maxims. The data collected in this study were 23 English slogans found in motorcycle advertisements. The design of the study was qualitative descriptive. In analyzing the speech acts features the study focuses on 5 types of speech acts, they are representatives, commissives, directives, declaratives, and expressive. The study found that there were two linguistics forms used in the slogans, they were sentences and phrases. Two sentences appeared in declarative forms. Three kinds of phrases were found. By the speech acts analyzing the study found there were 15 utterances belonged to representatives, 1 utterance included in commissives, 1 utterance followed to expressive, and 6 utterances belonged to directives. All slogans belonged to quantity and quality maxims at once.

2019

Aristotle's Rhetorical persuasive elements, namely logos, ethos, and pathos, are widely adapted in any kind of business document with the intention to hook the audience's attention. This paper analyses one McDonald's (also known as "MEKDI" in Malaysia) video advertisement on the application of rhetorical elements based on Aristotle's persuasion of appeal. Identifying these three elements is the main purpose of this paper in realising the persuasive content drawn towards the audience in the advertisement, leading this paper to conclude whether the usage of rhetoric element strategies is overwhelming or not, given the author's specific purpose and specific audience. The document studied is one video advertisement of the famous fast-food chain McDonald's Malaysia. The rhetorical analysis was used to interpret the meaning of this assessment topic. Based on the findings, the video advertisement uses emotional content to engage with the audience rather th...

VNU Journal of Science: Policy and Management Studies, 2017

Advertising mobilizes many methods relevant to three fundamental elements of Rhetoric such as Ethos, Pathos and Logos by using, for example Rhetorical Figures such as special images, unusual words, and arrangement of informations leading to desirable deduction and strong emotion. Methods using images are more efficient than traditional ones using words. They are known as Visual rhetoric. In television, these methods prove a good combination of word and image for high efficiency.

Culture is "ordinary" and is simply "the way of life'. If we try to define the culture of the "India today" we cannot turn a deaf ear to the consumerist culture of our country. Advertisements and shopping had penetrated deep into the mind of Indian people, thereby controlling and influencing their way of life, enough to change their outlook towards modern culture. Advertisements are luring people into buying things, out of their interest rather than necessity. In other words, consumption is taken for granted to maintain comfort in life. Copywriters are in search of new vistas and avenues and are leaving no stone unturned to launch their product pleasingly luring. In this endeavour, they eloquently play with human sentiments, emotions and intellect and create a very persuasive verbal and visual rhetoric to inculcate a consumerist culture in the masses. Advertisement, as a popular visual rhetoric, conveys information about a product or service in general and subtly it creates, perpetuates transfer and manipulates culture or way of life of people. The visual rhetoric of some selected advertisements as the pivotal, this study, tries to analyse how meaning is encoded and decoded to create a visual impact in the audience to bring about a desired response towards the product or service in the light of visual semiotics. It also focuses on the positive and negative effects on culture which is subtly communicated through the visual rhetoric.

2018

The article deals with the peculiarities of the advertising discourse based on various linguistic theories. It focuses on the different classification of discourse analysis, psychological aspects of advertisements, the mechanisms of influence on readers, the basic principles and types of advertisements, which are mainly used in the advertising industry. Specifically, it examines the basic characteristics of the advertising discourse. However, the study does not mean to exhaust all the aspects of this particular discourse, or to answer all the problems it poses. Rather, it aims at uncovering the basic elements of the most influential discourse of our time. Firstly, it investigates the types of advertisements and advertising discourse. Advertisements make use of a wide range of material of other discourses. Secondly, it explores the various strategies of the advertising discourse, investigates how advertisements influence readers’ decisions, what cultural variation they have and what genres the advertising discourse use. Advertising is omnipresent in every day life. It clarifies the importance of the advertising discourse for the society, its daily communication and detects the human’s inner world. This paper has tried to shed some light on the many interesting aspects that advertising discourse presents.