A Case Study Of The Use Of English Advertisements In Business English Teaching

Problems in the business English teaching, such as monotony in forms and out-of-date in contents, have made the teachers fail to arose the students' motivation and meet the demand of learners. Meanwhile, the BE teachers pay all their attention to basic skills of English, hearing, reading, speaking and writing, and neglect to train the students' communicating ability.As a type of commercial discourse, advertisements can be characterized from western commercial rhetoric perspectives. In the present age of globalization, English advertisements that prevail in everyday life offer valuable resources of language use to English learners. It is of great importance to fully utilize these resources to improve the quality of English teaching, especially learners' abilities to use English. Western rhetoric is the art of employing symbolic means to influence other people's understanding, attitude, behavior, etc. Globalization has become a major trend. Spearheaded with their advertisements that tend to preach the values of the advanced industrial nations, many multinational businesses have extended their presence all over the globe, at the expense of traditional cultural values of the developing countries. The effects of their ad compaigns both result from and add to the cultural hegenomy the western powers enjoy.As the biggest developing country in the world, China has become a major target country for Western commercials. As such, its traditional culture values have also encountered hostile ads from the multinationals. Many controversial foreignadvertisements have angered the Chinese public with their perceived insult against Chinese culture. Is the Chinese public's perception justified? Do they intentionally or unintentionally try to put down the Chinese culture? This thesis undertakes to analyze a controversial foreign advertisement - the 'Chamber of Fear' ad campaign of the Nike Corporation, from the perspective of western rhetoric. For this purpose, the discussion would focus primarily on the following aspects of the advertisement: its rhetorical situation, the intended audience, the artistic proofs employed, and the effects produced. Finally, several strategies are offered, based on the foregoing analyses to help the Chinese students to gain a better understanding of the hidden intention of the western advertisers, and to enhance the students' awareness of Western rhetoric and the crucial functions it performs. The more we understand Western rhetoric, the better we will be able to deal with hostile advertisements such as Nike's "Chamber of Fear."Based on an analysis , this paper proposes a framework of using advertisements for teaching purposes from Rhetoric point of view. The paper also points out that there is considerable scope for the exploration of Western Rhetoric and advertisements in Business English teaching.