Comparative Analysis Adverts
Characteristics of persuasive language and comparative analysis of two texts
Introduction and literature review Kress and Leeuwen (1990: 2-3) state that all kinds of texts ‘today involve a complex interplay of written text, images and other graphic elements’ which together can define ‘visual literacy’. In addition, Goddard (2002: 5) argues that we are so used to being surrounded by advertisements that we do not think about ‘its nature as a form of discourse, as a system of language use’. In persuasive texts, Kress and Leeuwen (1990: 17) remind us that two interactive participants are involved: the author and the reader. To persuade readers, authors of persuasive texts use features of verbal texts and visual texts. After having discussed these different characteristics, I will use some of them to compare a famous World War II American propaganda poster (cf Text A) with an anti-smoking advertising (cf Text B).
Firstly, the meaning of verbal texts and their connection with the context - referring to everything out of the text - and the co-text - directly surrounding the text - are crucial to understand the producer’s purposes. Use of words, verbal phrases or noun phrases as slogans in advertising is very frequent. The persuasive power of marketing texts, as Culpeper et al (2009: 454-455) highlight, depend on a ‘clever use of language’. Producers often play with different linguistic features such as spelling, morphology, lexical choice, semantics and pragmatics. Mullany and Stockwell (2010: 11) add that the blending between the two last features called ‘deixis’ and defining what is pointed out in a text is largely used as well to persuade. Furthermore, marketing teams appeal to our background knowledge using concepts such as ‘intertextuality’. Goddard (2002: 51) explains that ‘intertextuality’ occurs when words of a text are based on another text already known. That means that readers have to remember the origin of this text to understand its aim.
Introduction and literature review Kress and Leeuwen (1990: 2-3) state that all kinds of texts ‘today involve a complex interplay of written text, images and other graphic elements’ which together can define ‘visual literacy’. In addition, Goddard (2002: 5) argues that we are so used to being surrounded by advertisements that we do not think about ‘its nature as a form of discourse, as a system of language use’. In persuasive texts, Kress and Leeuwen (1990: 17) remind us that two interactive participants are involved: the author and the reader. To persuade readers, authors of persuasive texts use features of verbal texts and visual texts. After having discussed these different characteristics, I will use some of them to compare a famous World War II American propaganda poster (cf Text A) with an anti-smoking advertising (cf Text B).
Firstly, the meaning of verbal texts and their connection with the context - referring to everything out of the text - and the co-text - directly surrounding the text - are crucial to understand the producer’s purposes. Use of words, verbal phrases or noun phrases as slogans in advertising is very frequent. The persuasive power of marketing texts, as Culpeper et al (2009: 454-455) highlight, depend on a ‘clever use of language’. Producers often play with different linguistic features such as spelling, morphology, lexical choice, semantics and pragmatics. Mullany and Stockwell (2010: 11) add that the blending between the two last features called ‘deixis’ and defining what is pointed out in a text is largely used as well to persuade. Furthermore, marketing teams appeal to our background knowledge using concepts such as ‘intertextuality’. Goddard (2002: 51) explains that ‘intertextuality’ occurs when words of a text are based on another text already known. That means that readers have to remember the origin of this text to understand its aim.