Persuasion and Relevance in the Commercial Advertisements in American Magazines

Abstract

‘Persuasion’ is a multidisciplinary concept, that is, it can be defined, based on a context, from different fields, such as philosophy, rhetoric, and psychology. In this research, however, persuasion is defined from a pragmatic perspective since the language of advertisements is used in an artistic manner to achieve its purpose (i.e., persuasion). This research aims to investigate how persuasion is achieved pragmatically in six commercial advertisements in two American magazines, namely, Life and People magazines. Persuasion can be investigated by depending on Sperber and Wilson’s (1987) communicative principle. Consumers should clearly recognize the message of the advertisement by providing them with ostensive-stimulus which communicates its optimal relevance. The method followed in this research is a qualitative descriptive one. The analysis of six commercial advertisements reveals that no advertisement is used without non-verbal communication. This research reaches the conclusion that the mode of communication used in the commercial advertisement is ostensive-inferential communication. If consumers successfully recognize the advertiser’s informative intention, then persuasion is achieved. This research is divided into eight sections. The first section defines the concept of ‘persuasion’ in the context of the commercial advertisements. The second section provides a theoretical explanation of the relevance theory. The third section presents a number of definitions of the commercial advertisements. Through section four, the relation between persuasion and relevance in the context of the commercial advertisements is examined. The fifth section outlines the methodology. The sixth section presents the data analysis. The seventh section addresses the discussion of the results and findings. The final section presents the conclusion followed by a list of references.