On Persuasive Means In Advertising Language From A Rhetorical Perspective

Advertising is a kind of persuasive activity, and advertising language is the most important device of realizing its persuasive purpose. Scholars at home and abroad have made substantive and extensive study on advertising from the perspectives of pragmatics, semantics, sociolinguistics and so on. However, the research on persuasive means in advertising language from the angle of western rhetoric is rarely seen. Hu Fanzhu (1998) holds that it results from the"absence"of Chinese rhetoric in the studies of actual communication situations. Ji Qingfen (2005) points out that the study of rhetoric in China is still in a marginal place while western rhetoric has been applied to various fields. Therefore, the thesis attempts to analyze the persuasive means in advertising language from the perspective of western rhetoric, in the hope of making more in-depth study of advertising language and shedding light on the application of western rhetoric, so as to provide some reference for the use of Chinese rhetoric.There are three elements in rhetorical situation of advertising: adman, subject-matter and ad reader/audience. The thesis hereby analyzes persuasive means in advertising language from these three aspects. To establish a good image is the first important thing that an adman has to consider. Competence, trustworthiness and good will are qualities for setting up a good image; subject-matter is the advertisement copy, it is the core of advertising communication which appeals to both the rational and emotional factors, among which, emotional appeal can be realized by figure of speech, personal pronoun and presupposition. While rational appeal can be realized through Toulmin's Argumentation Model. And the last step is audience adaptation, that is, to adapt to the audience so as to gain their approval. Obviously, emotional appeal is more important in this section. Advertising language can make it through catering for audience's need psychology, adapting to their values and empathy.It is found that rhetoric theories may serve as sound explanatory tools for persuasive means in advertising language. In any persuasive discourse, the three persuasive means of ethos, pathos and logos may be employed solely or predominantly, or as a combination of any two or all of them at the same time. We separate them from one another just for the convenience of analysis. Actually, in advertising activities, these three means are often used simultaneously. The choosing of the means is partly determined by the nature of the product, partly by consumers'psychology, age, gender, social status and so on. Audience adaptation is an essential step to realize advertising persuasion, which should be paid more attention to by advertisers. In addition, findings in academic fields of rhetoric, psychology and linguistics can be used to guide advertising creation.