Persuasiveness in Tourism Brochures

Abstract

This paper aims at examining the linguistic persuasiveness techniques based on Grice Maxims (1975) which are employed in Iraqi and Malaysian brochures, beside comparing the violations of Grice Maxims (1975) in Iraqi and Malaysian brochures. Beside that to verify a key hypothesis in this study that the violation of Grice Maxims is a basic pragmatic strategy in advertising to achieve persuasion. Qualitative method has been adopted while analyzing the data. The frequency of every violation has been counted and given a percentage. The results have shown a new dimension added to the previous literature, quantity maxim is frequently violated in Iraqi brochures. Quality maxim is the most violated maxim in Malaysian brochures. Furthermore ellipsis is highly used in Iraqi brochures while hyperbole is frequently used in Malaysian brochures to persuade the tourist. Furthermore the recent results confirm the key hypothesis through the instances of frequent violations of the maxims in both Iraqi and Malaysian brochures which persuade and tempt the reader to head to these destinations. The present study supports Leech’s (1966) goals of advertising. Memorability, Force and Participation exist in all the data in both contexts. Violations of Grice Maxims contribute to these goals. Simply because these violations strengthen the message of the brochures and give additional non-literal interpretation. The study suggests to carry out a further research on persuasion linguistic techniques used in tourism brochures about different cities and towns around the world adopting different theories.