Linguistic Features in Print Advertisements

By

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would take this opportunity to thank my research supervisor, family and friends for their support and guidance without which this research would not have been possible.

DECLARATION

I, [type your full first names and surname here], declare that the contents of this dissertation/thesis represent my own unaided work, and that the dissertation/thesis has not previously been submitted for academic examination towards any qualification. Furthermore, it represents my own opinions and not necessarily those of the University.

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ABSTRACT

Media produces and reflects much of the public language used in society. The institution of advertising generates one type of media language that is designed for mass consumption with a readily identifiable goal: to convince its audience to buy or use a product or service. The purpose of the study is to examine the discourse of print advertising and its pragmatic/linguistic features that are used to effect persuasion. It will attempt to find trends or preferential tendencies in persuasive strategies used by advertisers that characterize and distinguish between different types of advertisements. As for conversational implicature, all of the advertisements, regardless of product or magazine, generated conversational implicature through the flouting of one or more maxims. This seems to support the notions put forth by many of the researchers that conversational implicature—means by which meaning is conveyed by more than what is said—is heavily relied upon in advertisements to perform the persuasive work.This study has examined the discourse of print advertising and attempted to determine whether a set of discourse and pragmatic strategies used by advertisers to effect persuasion differ according to the commodity being advertised or to the magazine audiences being marketed to.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTii

DECLARATIONiii

ABSTRACTiv

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION1

Background1

Rationale4

Aim6

Research questions7

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW8

The language of advertising8

Pragmatics8

Pragmatics of advertising discourse9

Grice's maxims and the language of advertising17

Theoretical foundation of the thesis20

Pre supposition and conversational implicature20

Classification and Case Analysis of Presupposition28

Presupposition triggers28

Existential presupposition31

State presupposition33

Belief presupposition34

Factive presupposition35

Behaviour presupposition36

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY38

Motivation and Methodology38

Limitations of previous study40

CHAPTER 4: DISCUSSION41

Conversational Implicature41

Examples41

Presupposition contributes to Conciseness46

Quantitative Analysis50

Presupposition in classified ads54

Distribution of conversation implicature56

Summary58

Distribution in categorized advertisements59

Some findings on the least frequent used presuppositions61

Distribution of conversational implicature in categorized advertisements62

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION63

REFERENCES69

BIBLIOGRAPHY74

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

Background

Media produces and reflects much of the public language used in society. The institution of advertising generates one type of media language that is designed for mass consumption with a readily identifiable goal: to convince its audience to buy or use a product or service. Advertising therefore, creates an opportunity for the linguist to study “language in use” with a persuasive purpose and the discourse-pragmatic features of language that are used for persuasion. Among the studies that examine the language of advertising, some suggest that there are two main types of advertising discourse—labelled by Simpson (2001) as “reason” and “tickle”. According to Simpson, reason advertising attempts to persuade the consumer by making direct and easy-to-decipher reference to a motive or a reason for the purchase, whereas tickle advertising takes a more “oblique” approach by appealing to humour, emotions, and mood. Although these and other linguistic features of ...