The Language of Consumer Advertising: Linguistic and Psychological Perspectives

Abstract

This study examines the consumer advertising which is directed towards the promotion of some product or service to the public. The study, however, is not meant to exhaust all the aspects of this particular discourse, or present an answer to all the problems it poses. Rather, it aims at uncovering the basic elements of the most pervasive, influential and inescapable discourse of the 21st century; the advertising text. It focuses on the interaction of language, image and layout, and examines advertising persuasive strategies. In doing so, it draws on various linguistic (particularly pragmatic, psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic) theories. In addition, this study provides analyses of some ads, using different ways of interpretations; and ends with a discussion on the interrelationship between culture (schemes) and advertising discourse. In this connection, instances from the Egyptian media, and their analyses are provided, with a view to clarifying some rhetorical categories in Arabic Advertising, and showing that texts construct meaning through interaction with other types of discourse, and inseparable from the culture of the advertising text.