Advertising Language

Advertising is one of the most linguistically creative and manipulative forms of communication. Advertisements are designed to persuade — to make the audience buy a product, adopt a belief, or take an action. The study of advertising language is particularly relevant to AQA A-Level English Language because advertisements deploy the full range of language levels (lexis, grammar, phonology, graphology, pragmatics, discourse) and are rich in representation choices. This lesson examines the key persuasive techniques, analytical frameworks, and language features of advertising.

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Functions of Advertising Language

Advertising language serves multiple functions simultaneously:

Function	Description	Example
Informative	Providing factual information about the product	Specifications, ingredients, prices
Persuasive	Convincing the audience to buy or act	Emotional appeals, rhetorical techniques
Phatic	Establishing a relationship with the audience	Friendly tone, conversational register
Poetic	Drawing attention to the form of the language itself	Rhyme, alliteration, wordplay, unusual syntax
Conative	Directly addressing and influencing the audience	Imperatives, second person pronouns, direct appeals