Volume 8, Issue 7 (2018)                   LRR 2018, 8(7): 391-427 | Back to browse issues page

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1- Associate Professor of Linguistics, Central Tehran Branch. Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.
2- M.A. inLinguistics, Central Tehran Branch. Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.
Abstract:   (6525 Views)
Nowadays, commercial advertising is an inseparable part of urban life and billboards as significant components of outdoor advertising are used to persuade consumers unconsciously. In addition, billboards are usually used to reach a very large audience and high cost is spent on them, so they are expected to be efficient enough to persuade their audience to choose among the mass of similar products. In this study, 100 randomly photographed billboards of London and Tehran in 2014-15 are analyzed from the perspective of functions of inductive action, with a particular focus on various persuasion techniques.
Umi (2010) defines persuasion as an art of verbal with the intention to assure someone to do something appropriate with the speaker’s purpose for the present time. It means that the purpose of persuasion is that the speaker tries to persuade the listener to act something with no violence and coercion. So, in persuasion the speaker needs the efforts for stimulating the addressee in taking decision. Larson (1986) believes that Persuasion is a process to change attitude or behavior, and opinion. Persuasion occurs only through cooperation between sender and receiver. The focus of persuasion is not only on the sender, the message, or the receiver, but all of them are equally focused on. All of them have to make cooperative in making a persuasive process, so it can be said that persuasion is a result of the combined efforts of source and receiver.
According to the findings, it can be argued that advertisers tried to use a particular language depends on different techniques and various linguistic devices to purposefully persuade and generally attract the attention of the audience. The results of the research proved how advertisers employed a myriad of techniques and devices such as exaggeration-based/ value-based manipulative actions to convince potential customers. Furthermore, this study showed that techniques such as explicit claims with the frequency of 64% - 56% (respectively in Persian and English), association with the frequency of 82% - 54% (respectively in Persian and English), and the provision of contact details with the frequency of 46% - 66% (respectively in Persian and English), were the most common techniques in both languages. Therefore, this study aims to investigate similarities and differences of Persian and English billboards according to discursive devices and diversity and distribution of persuasion techniques.
Moreover, the results indicated that in these English and Persian samples, the frequency distribution of the techniques were almost identical. This conclusion is logical due to the existence of mass media and mass communications in the modern era of technology. In general, in both languages, the samples were rich in the variety and the number of the techniques which were used so they were expected to deliver the message to the customers well. But the extent of their success in convincing them can be studied in other researches
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Article Type: Research Paper | Subject: Linguistics
Published: 2018/02/20

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