A Linguistic Analysis of Strategies of Argumentation in English Print Ads

Seminar paper from the year 2012 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,3, University of Kassel, language: English, abstract: No matter where we are advertisements are everywhere, but how do people decide which product to buy? Today consumers may choose which toothpaste or shampoo they want to purchase because there is a huge range of brands that offer the same goods, therefore companies have to persuade consumers to buy their product. As a student of linguistics I asked myself how argumentative persuasion in advertising functions and how it contributes to its effectiveness. I found two very interesting approaches by Clemens Ottmers and Nina Janich who determined different argumentation strategies for analysing advertisements. Although there is a lot of literature dealing with language and advertising, there are only few works concerned with strategies of argumentation in advertising. Since 1945, and especially during the economic miracle, there has been a steady increase of research in the field of language and advertising. First works dealing with argumentation and advertising were published in the 1960s. In the course of years linguists concentrated more on specific linguistic aspects of advertising and presented first analysing methods. Furthermore, they focused on rhetoric figures, strategies of advertising, and on the effects of images. Nowadays, linguistic research concentrates on semiotics and image-text-relations, as well as on intentions, persuasion in advertisements, and TV spots. However, the main problem of linguistic research of advertising is the lack of a fundamental work dealing with language of advertising and its versatility with reference to images and advertising media.