| The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the persuasive discourse of American consumer magazine advertising within the frameworks of sociolinguistics and investigate whether and how discourse or pragmatic strategies vary according to the types of commodities advertised or the consumer audiences that are targeted. The study also attempts to explore the notion that there are two main types of advertising discourse: "reason" or hard-sell advertising which persuades the consumer by making direct and easy-to-decipher references to a motive or a reason for the purchase, and "tickle" or soft-sell advertising which takes a more indirect approach by appealing to humor and emotions. The data for this study consist of print advertisements collected from a sampling of one year's issues of three magazines that differ in terms of the targeted gender group. A total of 252 unique advertisements representing three types of commodities---cars, prescription medication, and snack foods and candy---are collected and analyzed. Results seem to indicate that differences in advertising language strategy correlate to some degree with commodity type. That is, prescription medication advertisements seem to use the most reason-oriented strategies, and snack foods and candy product category seems to lend itself most readily to tickle or soft-sell advertising. In general, given the pervasiveness of pragmatic strategies in the advertisements analyzed, the present study supports the previous findings and descriptions which have suggested that advertising discourse derives much of its persuasive efficacy from the ability of language to convey implicit information through discourse forms and functions and from the principles of conversation whereby the consumer participates actively with the advertising text to infer the actual meaning conveyed. |
