English Advertising: A Rhetoric Of Identification

In light of New Rhetoric and based on the findings of classical rhetoric,advertising, consumer psychology, communication and semiotics, thisdissertation attempts to establish a rhetorical model of advertising identification,the purposes of which are to reflect the rhetorical relationship of advertisingparticipants in modern times, to reveal the rhetorical process of advertising, andto provide guidelines for rhetorical formulation and rhetorical reception inadvertising. The first part of the study proposes a theoretical framework of advertisingidentification. The second part applies the theoretical model to expound thespecific means of advertising identification. The rhetorical model of advertising identification is framed withphilosophical, psychological and semiotic substances. The major claims of themodel are: identification is both the means and the end of advertising; it is theresult of the dynamic cooperation of rhetorical formulation and rhetoricalreception; and it occurs in both rhetorical content and rhetorical form. Inrhetorical formulation, admen choose rhetorical content to be "consubstantial"with their readers via traditional persuasive means, and new rhetorical"identification by inaccuracy," as well as considerations of cost and convenience.Rhetorical forms are chosen to arouse rhetorical tension, which stimulatesreaders' involvement and transfers the involvement to their identification with therhetorical content. Rhetorical reception is a process of actualizing identificationas the end of advertising. It not only involves the notion of "self as audience" inadvertising construction, but also requires that ad readers be cooperative enoughto make information processing as relevant as possible and to make aestheticeffort as much as possible.