A Comparative Study Of Male And Female Advertisements From The Perspective Of Three Rhetorical Appeals

On the background of commodity economy,advertising has become an indispensable part of people's current life.Not only can exquisite advertising language convey information about ware and service,but also it contributes to consumers5 aesthetic enhancement,thus leading to a purchase decision to achieve persuasive function of advertising.Nevertheless,advertisers employ the advertising language differently according to different consumers.Aristotle put forward three rhetorical appeals which have had a profound influence on rhetoric,that is,rational appeal,emotional appeal and ethical appeal.Additionally,gender differences have become the focus in linguistics since in the 1960s.Scholars mainly discussed the female language by means of some theories in sociolinguistics.From middle 1980s to early 1990s?studies considering language and gender mainly lied in the differences between male and female language both abroad and at home.Although scholars both at home and abroad have done profound researches on cosmetic advertising texts from the aspects like linguistics,pragmatics,rhetoric,systemic-functional linguistics,etc.,no comparative study on gender language in advertising texts from a rhetoric perspective has made.On the basis of this,the present study will discover what persuasive strategies are commonly employed both in male Chinese skin care products5 advertising texts and female ones,and how they are utilized in two kinds of Chinese skin care products9 advertising texts and the persuasive effect made.Furthermore,this study intends to discuss the similarities and differences.And it5s hoped to inject fresh energy to gender language in advertisements from the perspective of rhetoric.The present study takes 30 male Chinese skin care products5 advertising texts and 30 female ones as research data from some official websites of cosmetic brands and constructs two corpora for them.After identifying the use of three rhetorical appeals in two corpora,the writer was intended to make a comparison between two corpora from the following perspectives considering previous studies:to begin with,rational appeal can be interpreted from the use of material nouns,numbers and figures,declarative sentence,problem-solution pattern and generalization-concreteness pattern,then emotional appeal can be analyzed from the use of words that exaggerate effects,words for sensory appeals,imperative sentence,interrogative/exclaxnatory sentence and figure of speech,eventually,ethical appeal can be probed into by the use of the authority.Having determined aspects for comparison,the writer made a quantitative analysis of three appeals and specific strategies to realize them.Besides,discussion on these similarities and differences was explored.The results of the study have found that both similarities and differences do exist between male Chinese skin care products' advertising texts and female ones in employing the three appeals to persuade consumers.As a whole,in both male Chinese skin care products5 advertising texts and female ones,it's rational appeal that is used most frequently,followed by emotional appeal and ethical appeal(authority)is the least employed.However,male Chinese skin care products' advertising texts are prone to employ rational appeal more frequently,while no significant difference emerges in the use of rational appeal between two kinds of Chinese skin care products' advertising texts,what's more,female ones prefer to use emotional appeal and ethical appeal,but the significant difference has been found in the use of emotional appeal.Due to the fact that this kind of advertising texts realize the ethical appeal by authority at length,this paper makes further exploration on the specific measures of realization of logos and pathos between male Chinese skin care products5 advertising texts and female ones.As for logos,the use of declarative sentence is the primary measure in two kinds of Chinese skin care products5 advertising texts,followed by the use of material nouns.The other measures are not prominent,including numbers and figures,problem-solution pattern and generalization-concreteness pattern.Whereas the striking differences between male Chinese skin care products5 advertising texts and female ones have been detected in the use of problem-solution pattern,numbers and figures and declarative sentence.When it comes to pathos,the frequency of the use of words for sensory appeals is relatively close in two kinds of Chinese skin care products' advertising texts.However,significant differences in male Chinese skin care products' advertising texts and female ones reflect the use of figure of speech,imperative sentence,interrogative&exclamatory sentence and words that exaggerate effects.Based upon related theories and previous studies,this research tries to discuss persuasive strategies and gender differences between male Chinese skin care products'advertising texts and female ones.It is noticed that the study can enrich the scope of three rhetorical appeals and provide a new perspective for a comparative study on gender language in advertisements.It' ^hoped that this study can give some guidance for advertisers to design advertising texts and help consumers to appreciate advertising language.