Advertising is nowadays a form of persuasive communication. Its goal is to provide not only pieces of information about products and services, but also to influence consumer behaviour. From a pragmatic perspective, advertising becomes a communicative event in which linguistic choices are designed to achieve persuasion. In this study, the theory of speech acts offers a framework for explaining how language in advertising perform actions in order to make persuasion more effective.
Nevertheless, advertising is a persuasive discourse, as it is mainly oriented towards persuasion. Its communicative intention extends beyond a mere transmission of information because product description and brand messages are organised in order to influence attitudes and consumer behaviour. Cook (2001) approached advertising as a discourse and laid emphasis on the interaction between text, context, participants, and visual images. From a pragmatic perspective, persuasion emerges from communicative actions performed by means of language. O’Keefe (2016) defined persuasion as a communicative attempt to influence attitudes and behaviour while preserving a major role for the receiver or the interlocutor. Still, illocutionary acts create a meaningful relation between the linguistic form and the persuasive intention as these concepts reveal communicative actions performed in different utterances.
In addition, a persuasive strategy is perceived as recurrent communicative act through which an advertisement succeeds in shaping audience interpretation, evaluation, and intended action. Persuasion strategies might be conveyed through speech acts or a combination of illocutionary acts across a commercial. Assertive speech acts can describe product characteristics or formulate evaluations. Their apparent informational character might conceal an indirect directive function. By asserting that a product is safer or more effective, the advertiser might indirectly recommend its selection.
Persuasion strategies also involve directing the consumer towards taking action. Imperatives are prototypical resources used in order to take action. Directive force might also be realised by means of invitations, recommendations, and suggestions. Searle (1975) and his account of indirect speech acts is mainly relevant because an advertisement might influence consumer behaviour without explicitly making a command upon the audience.
The strength of a directive is usually softened by uttering an invitation which frames the desired behaviour as an attractive opportunity. A recommendation presents an action as beneficial to the consumer while a rhetorical question might encourage self-persuasion by determining the audience to provide an implied answer.
Commissive speech acts represent a persuasion strategy based on a future benefit. Promises and guarantees commit the speaker to a future state of affairs. The persuasive value of a commissive is closely related to reassurance. Consumer decisions might involve uncertainty concerning quality, price, or effectiveness. By guaranteeing a service or promising a result, the advertiser reduces perceived risk. Cialdini (2007) demonstrated that persuasion frequently relies on recurrent principles of social influences. These principles will still preserve the pragmatic meaning, as a particular speech act becomes persuasive in context.
Furthermore, emotional appeal is also a recurrent advertising strategy. Advertisements might associate products with concepts such as happiness, confidence, success, security, or belonging. Evaluative vocabulary, expressive speech acts, music, and visual images establish an affective frame. Both expressive and assertive speech acts might be of utmost importance in emotional positioning. Compliments can enhance the consumer’s positive face while a praise of a certain lifestyle can be valued as well. Emotional framing might support indirect directive acts; for instance, a commercial that constructs an attractive image of family might encourage purchase without expressing an overt command.
From a pragmatic perspective, participant roles affect the interpretation of illocutionary acts. Advertising also persuades by constructing social relationships. Cialdini (2007) identified social evidence and unity as for major principles of influence. Commercials might imply that a product is widely chosen, socially approved of, or associated with a certain group.
Linguistically, this strategy can be realised by means of personal pronouns, collective nouns, or references to other consumers. This type of utterances frequently takes assertive form, but they convey a certain behaviour or choice.
Moreover, many television advertisements convey persuasion through a problem-solution structure. The advertisement introduces a problematic situation, explicitly or implicitly, while the product is positioned as the solution. The problem might be addressed by means of questions, negative evaluations, complaints, or assertive descriptions. The solution might then be introduced through promises, guarantees, or positive claims.
Therefore, advertising exploits the speech act theory, with reference to the illocutionary acts which interfere with the cooperative principle, the conversational implicature, presuppositions, deixis and context. These mechanisms enable advertising to convey persuasive meanings indirectly.
Bibliography
Cialdini, R. B. (2007). Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. New York: Harper Collins.
Cook, G. (2001). The Discourse of Advertising (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.
O’Keefe, D.J. (2016). Persuasion: Theory and practice (3rd ed). Sage Publications.
Searle, J. (1975). Indirect Speech Acts. In P. Cole, & J. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and Semantics 3: Speech Acts (pp. 59-82). New York: Academic Press.