What linguistic features are typically employed when the English language is used to persuade? In what ways do these features vary according to context? Illustrate your answer by reference to specific examples.
This essay will be looking at the linguistic features utilised when using the English Language to persuade. To illustrate my argument I will be examining a political speech, a government safety campaign and adverts for beauty products. These are all sources that I believe are employing persuasive methods and I will be considering features such as the use of pronouns, repetition, metaphor and euphemisms. I will also examine the context of the text and consider the writer and the audience.
Politicians make regular public speeches and often use rhetoric, ‘the art of using language effectively so as to persuade or influence others’ (OED).
According to Beard (2007, p55) rhetoric is a term that ‘has increasingly negative connotations’. The Conservative Prime Minister, David Cameron, made a speech at the end of the Conservative Party Conference in October 2011 and his audience where the Conservative government and Conservative party members. However, the speech was also broadcast nationally and quoted and reported on in the media. Although the speech was presented by Cameron it is possible that he receives help with his speeches and that his wider audience would have been very much in mind during its writing.
Evidence that Cameron is aware of this wider audience is shown through his slightly ambiguous use of the personal pronoun ‘our’ when he refers to “our economic future, our social problems, our political system”. He could just be referring to the Conservative party or he could mean the general public and prospective voters. Further use of pronouns can be seen when he says “I’m proud of my team, I’m proud of our members, I’m proud to lead this party – but most of all, I’m proud of you”. One would imagine in this instance that the ‘you’ he is proud of is the people of Britain. The use of the personal pronoun “I’m” could serve to demonstrate his perceived personal relationship with the audience, as well highlight his position of responsibility.
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Cameron makes many references to Britain as a nation in his speech. He refers to positive national characteristics which aim to ingratiate him to the voters. He talks about “The real us. Hard-working, pioneering, independent, creative, adaptable, optimistic, can-do. That’s the spirit that has made this United Kingdom what it is”. His use of the pronoun ‘us’ shows that he considers himself to have all those attributes as well and is therefore one of “the people of Britain, and the spirit of Britain” he refers. Beard states that “politicians try to identify with what they perceive as positive characteristics which their electorate believe to be typical of themselves and their nation.” (2007, p55)
According to Beard “repetition by lists is popular with politicians when they address live audiences because they send out signals about how the audience should respond” (2007, p56).
There is a lot of repetition and use of lists in Cameron’s speech. He uses two lists in just one paragraph when he says “ Clear instructions. Clear objectives. And from me: a clear understanding that in these difficult times, it is leadership we need. To get our economy moving. To get our society working, and in a year – the Olympics year – when the world will be watching us, to show everyone what Great Britain really means.” Further examples of the inclusive use of the pronoun ‘our’ can also be seen in this paragraph as well as another positive reference to ‘Great Britain’.
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Another device used in political rhetoric is metaphor. Cameron alludes to the Conservative Party’s stability and strength when he uses building metaphors and claims that they are “laying the foundations for a better future” and “it will be us, the Conservatives, who finally build an economy that works for everyone and gives hope to everyone in our country.” He also uses a sailing metaphor when he states that “we can turn this ship around” suggesting that the previous government were going in the wrong direction and the Conservatives will go the right way. Both of these metaphors are also examples of contrast, a way in which a politician can “accentuate the value of their own party’s approach by comparing it to that of their opponents” (Beard, 2007, p56).
Advertising also uses persuasive language and attempts to “persuade by acting upon the reader’s emotions” (Beard, 2007, p62).
There was a recent government campaign for road safety and speed awareness that really played on the reader’s emotions. There was a series of TV adverts and printed media which showed the emotional consequences of killing a child while speeding.
The TV adverts and accompanying printed media are multimodal, that is a “text with both words and images” (Beard, 2007, p46) and show a man going about his daily routine but in each scene there is the crumpled image of a dead child. The strap line at the end of the advert is “Kill your speed or live with it” followed by “It’s 30 for a reason. THINK!” This isn’t an advert in the traditional sense, in that it isn’t selling anything to the viewer. It is actually a government information campaign but it is using similar persuasive advertising techniques. Goodman states that “’advertising language’ is seen to be crossing over into the domain of information.” This process is called ‘Marketisation’. (Goodman, 2007, p206)
According to Goddard “the idea of the narrator and the narrative point of view” (Beard, 2007, p64) is useful when examining advertisements. Beard goes on to say that advisements also contain an “ideal reader” that is “a reader who both understands and agrees with the message being put forward” (Beard, 2007, p64).
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There would appear to be two narrators in this instance; the silent voice of the child who has been run over and the authoritative voice telling you to ‘kill your speed’. The ideal reader will agree with the ‘kill your speed’ statement, they are meant to put themselves in the position of the driver and feel empathy for the emotional trauma he is experiencing and thus, take care when driving in the future.
In stark contrast to the emotional significance of the advert discussed above is the message delivered in two beauty adverts I will also examine. Both are adverts for beauty products and both are appealing to the aspirations of the reader. “Advertising depends upon the emotional idea that our lives are in some way imperfect” (Beard, 2007, p62) and if we buy the products then our lives will improve.
The first advert is for a make-up product called ‘Wake up and Glow’. The advert features a picture of the supermodel and party girl Kate Moss and uses a large, colourful attention grabbing font in a box for the name of the product. A smaller font tells the reader that it is “Your Secret weapon against late nights”. The informality of the adverts’ layout suggests that the intended audience is young women and the ideal reader will aspire to the party lifestyle and effortless morning-after beauty. The use of the pronoun ‘your’ suggests that the text is having a dialogue with the reader. According to Beard “advertisements manipulate what can be called a dialogic, or dialogue-like, structure of discourse to their advantage” (2007, p66).
The final advertisement is for an anti-wrinkle serum by Vichy Laboratories’. This advert uses a more formal information giving style of layout with bullet points of scientific facts about the quality of the product. The narrator informs the reader that the serum is only available in pharmacies, a device that suggests this is a serious medical product. Furthermore, the lack of any personal pronouns suggests an attempt to give additional weight and credence to the product and one would imagine that Vichy believe that this requirement is important to its intended ideal reader.
This essay has looked at the methods employed when the English Language is used to persuade. To demonstrate this I have looked at political rhetoric and advertising and have examined linguistic features such as metaphor, the use of pronouns, repetition and contrast. I have shown that the linguistic methods employed when using English to persuade vary according to the context they are presented in. How these persuasive texts are received is very much open to interpretation and “how we ‘read’ them very much depends on our own context” (Beard, 2007, p72).
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Comparing and Contrasting Two Magazine Advertisements In today's world, adverts have a great deal of influence over what we buy and do. Nearly everywhere we go some type of advert bombards us. For example, there are adverts on buses, on television, in magazines and on the street. Within this essay I am going to compare and contrast an advert for Organics Shampoo and an advert for Shiseido The ...
References
Beard, A (2007) ‘Using English to persuade’ in Maybin, J., Mercer, N. and Hewings, A. (eds) Using English, London, Routledge/ The Open University, pp. 43-81
Goodman, S (2007) ‘Market forces speak English’ in Maybin, J., Mercer, N. and Hewings, A. (eds) Using English, London, Routledge/ The Open University, pp. 205-244
David Cameron’s speech:
http://www.newstatesman.com/uk-politics/2011/10/world-economy-work-leadership
Government speed campaign:
http://think.direct.gov.uk/speed.html
Beauty product adverts:
From Red Magazine, March 2012
