A Comparative Study Of Truthful And False Advertisements Of Health Care Products

In recent years,the market of health care products has been expanding year by year,and the market demand is strong.However,some businesses make use of false advertisements of health care products(“AHCPs”)to exaggerate the effectiveness of their products and even convey false information,leading to consumers’ property loss and even security incidents.This paper aims to find out the linguistic features that can help distinguish truthful AHCPs from false ones by carrying out a comparative analysis of such discourses.30 AHCPs have been collected as the corpus of this research..The first group of data is collected from T-mall and some mainstream video apps,and the second from State Administration for Market Regulation and China Judgments Online.Based on the analytical framework of genre analysis and vagueness in language use,the collected advertisements corpus is carefully annotated.Both qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis have been carried out on the dataset.The research findings are as follows:(1)The similar communicative purposes of the false AHCPs and the truthful ones lead to their similar genre structures.However the move of “theory” is unique to the false AHCPs;the moves of “comparison of competitive products” and “target group” are only included in the truthful ones;the strategies employed in the false AHCPs are more complex than the truthful ones employ.(2)Simile/metaphor,personification and hyperbole are the common rhetorical devices used in these two types of AHCPs.Hyperbole is the most frequently used rhetorical device in the false AHCPs,the main purpose of which is to exaggerate the effect of a product and ultimately induce consumers to purchase.On the other hand,the truthful AHCPs frequently use simile/metaphor and personification to enhance language performance and leave a deep impression on the audience,thus attracting the audience to consume.(3)The types of vague words used in the truthful and false AHCPs are roughly similar,but they are used much more frequently in false AHCPs than in truthful ones.In addition,there are significant differences in the use of totality modifiers and adaptors to strengthen the tone.The frequency of using these two types of words in false AHCPs is significantly higher than that of the latter group,because the main purpose of such AHCPs is also to exaggerate the effect of the product and mislead consumers to yield to their consumption impulse aroused thereby.It is hoped that the findings of this study can help consumers distinguish false AHCPs from truthful ones so as to protect their consumer rights and interests.