Three Rhetorical Appeals In Chinese Real Estate Advertisements: A Rhetorical Perspective

With the development of real estate market in China, academicians have analyzed the discourse of real estate advertisements from the linguistic, Systemic-Functional, pragmatic, or literary critical perspective. The author intends to study the real estate advertisements from another distinct angle, that is analyzing the Chinese real estate advertisements with Aristotle's rhetorical theory of three appeals—ethos, pathos and logos(The rhetor usually utilizes ethos, pathos, or logos to persuade the audience). According to Aristotle, ethos consists of good sense, virtue, and good will. The present study makes qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis of 300 Chinese real estate advertisements collected from the Internet. Qualitatively, this study aims to prove the feasibility of analyzing the discourse of Chinese real estate advertisements with such a theory. Quantitatively, it intends to discover the distribution of ethos, pathos and logos in Chinese real estate advertisements in order to show the importance of pathos in Chinese real estate advertisements.The findings in qualitative analysis are:1). The Chinese real estate advertisers usually use words with positive connotation, the name of the company or its product, and concrete details to show good sense. The Chinese real estate advertisers take advantage of cheap price and additional advantages to show good will.2). The main figures of speech used by the Chinese real estate advertisers to realize pathos are repetition, parody and embed-character, etc. And the values used by the Chinese real estate advertisers to realize pathos are nature, enjoyment, and status, etc.The findings in quantitative analysis are: 1). the advertisements using pathos accounts for the largest percentage in all the Chinese real estate advertisements using three rhetorical appeals; 2). the advertisements using repetition accounts for the largest percentage in all the Chinese real estate advertisements using figures of speech; 3). the advertisements appealing to nature accounts for the largest percentage in all the Chinese real estate advertisements resorting to values.