Covert Persuasion in English Advertisements and Political Speeches
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Published:
Jun 17, 2020
Keywords:
Covert Persuasion, Metaphor, Allusion, Metonymy, Overt Persuasion Covert Persuasion, Metaphor, Allusion, Metonymy, Overt Persuasion
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Abstract
Persuasion has always been an integral aspect of human interaction that operates in different professional and lingua-cultural settings. The notion of persuasion as a key component of communication was brought into the world by classical rhetoric. Although, the art and science of persuasion has been of interest since the time of the Ancient Greeks, there are fundamental differences between the ways in which persuasion occurs today and how it has occurred in the past. While previous studies have been conducted regarding persuasion in advertisement and political speeches, the current research, however, is a quest for the underlying covert persuasion strategies adopted by advertising agencies and political figures or parties. Moreover, while previous studies have concentrated on how language relates to power and what linguistic elements are used by politicians and advertisers to persuade their voters and costumers, the current paper has meticulously focused on the covert attempts and endeavors by politicians and advertisers who employ various elusive techniques to serve their concealed intentions. The scope of this research primarily focuses on two major fields – Advertisement and Political Speeches. Ten texts have been analyzed where persuasion plays a vital role in the way of getting customers and voters to change attitude, belief and act in certain ways.
It has been found that covert persuasion best functions within the trope category (mainly metaphor, allusion, and metonymy) which is primarily realized through the mediation of semantic meaning. Schemes have no function within covert persuasion as they are basically more blatant. Two persuasion strategies, three persuasion techniques, and the use of personal pronouns all serve covert persuasion purposes. And covert persuasion can be more effective than overt persuasion in that they batter serve positive face.
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How to Cite
Dawd, K. O. and Salih, S. M. (2020) “Covert Persuasion in English Advertisements and Political Speeches”, Koya University Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 3(1), pp. 41-52. doi: 10.14500/kujhss.v3n1y2020.pp41-52.
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References
Beard, A. 2000. The language of politics. London: Routledge.
Bloom, Harold 1975. A Map of Misreading. New York: Oxford University Press.
Bramley, Nicolette Ruth (2001) “Pronouns of politics: the use of pronouns in the construction of ‘self’ and ‘other’ in political interviews”. PhD Thesis, Australian National Uni.
Bruke, K. (1969) A Rhetoric of Movies, University of California Press
Campbell, M. C., Mohr, G., & Verlegh, P. W. (2012). Can disclosures lead consumers to resist covert persuasion? The important roles of disclosure timing and type of response. Journal of Consumer Psychology, Forthcoming. 23(4), pp.483-495.
Charteris-Black, J. (2005). Politicians and Rhetoric: The Persuasive Power of Metaphor. Houndmill, Basingstoke, Hampshire, New York: Palrav, MacMillan.
Charteris-Black, J. (2011). Politicians and rhetoric: The persuasive power of metaphor. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.
Christensen, A.-K.K. and Hasle, P.F.V. (2007) Classical Rhetoric and a Limit to Persuasion, Conference Paper · April 2007. Pp 307-310
Connor, U., & Lauer, J. (1985). Understanding persuasive essay writing: linguistic/rhetorical approach. Text 5, 309-326.
Corbett, E. and Connors, R. (1999). Classical rhetoric for the modern student. New York: Oxford University Press.
Crook, J., (2004. On overt communication in Advertisement. Journal of Pragmatics. 6(4):715-738
Cuddon, J. (1976). The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and literary theory.London: Penguin Books.
Dastpak, Mehdi and Taghinezhad, Ali (2015) Persuasive Strategies Used in Obama’s Political Speech: A CDA Approach Based on Fairclough’s Framework, Journal of Applied Linguistics and Language Research, Volume 2, Issue 6, , pp. 13-27
Festinger, L. (1962). A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. California: Stanford Uni Press.
Goddard, A. (1998). The language of advertising. London: Routledge.
Halmari, H. and Virtanen, T. 2005). Persuasion across Genres. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 6-7.
Hart, Roderick, P., Frederich, Gustav, W., and Brummet, Barry. (1983). Public Communication. USA: Herper and Row Publisher.
Hogan, K. and Speakman, J. (2006). Covert persuasion. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Holt, R., & MacPherson, A. (2010). “Sense-making, rhetoric and the socially competent entrepreneur”. International Small Business Journal, 20
Huhmann, B.A. (2008). A model of the cognitive and emotional processing of rhetorical works in advertising. In E. McQuarrie, & B.J. Phillips (Eds.), Go figure! New directions in advertising rhetoric (pp. 85-113). Armonk, US: M.E.
Johnstone, B. (1989). Linguistic Strategies and Cultural Style for Persuasive Discourse. Texas A&M University.
Karapetjana I. (2011). Pronominal Choice in Political Interviews. Baltic Journal of English Language, Literature and Culture, Volume 1.pp. 36-45. Riga: University of Latvia.
Keraf, G. 1991. Argumentasi dan narasi. Jakarta: Gramedia.
Lakoff, G. (2009). Metaphor and War: The Metaphor System Used to Justify War in the Gulf. Cognitive Semiotics.
Lakoff, G., Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Lucas, S. (2009). The Art of Public Speaking. McGraw-Hill Education: University of Wisconsin—Madison.
Maslow, A. (1943). A Theory of Human Motivation. Psychological Review, 50, 370-396. Retrieved June 2001, from http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Maslow/motivation.htm.
Milewicz, J., & Herbig, P. (1997). “A quantitative analysis of the relative efficiency between overt and covert market signals”. Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, 5(4), 45–57.
Mulholland, J. (2005). Handbook of Persuasive Tactics. London: Routledge
Perloff, R.M. (2003). The Dynamics of Persuasion: Communication and Attitudes in the Twenty-First Century. UK: Lawrence Erlbaum Publishing.
Perri, Carmela (1978). On alluding. Poetics pp.289.
Piller, I. (2003) '10. Advertising as a Site of Language Contact', Annual review of applied linguistics, 23, pp. 170-183.
Quinn, N. (1993). The cultural basis for metaphor. Metaphor: The Theory of Tropes in Anthropology. Ed. Beyon. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Rizka, E (2016) Persuasive “Techniques Used in Nike Advertisement”. SS Thesis, Islamic University of Malang
Shabrina, Izzah (2016) “Persuasive Strategies Used in Hillary Clinton’s Political Campaign Speech” SS Thesis, Islamic University of Malang.
Stiff, J. and Mongeau, P. (2003). Persuasive Communication. Princeton, N.J.: Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic.
Sperber, D. and Wilson, D. (1995). Relevance. Oxford: Blackwell.
Stanojević, M. (2009). Konceptualna metafora u kognitivnoj lingvistici. pregled pojmova. Suvremena lingvistika, pp. 341.
Tanaka, Keiko, (1992). The pun in advertising: A pragmatic approach. Lingua.
Wilson, J. (1990). Politically speaking. Oxford: Blackwell.
Zollo, S.A. (2014). Promotion, Popularization and Pedagogy: An Analysis of The Verbal and Visual Strategies in the COE’s Human Rights Campaigns. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Online References
Barack Obama appealing to Ethos. https://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/robert-schlesinger/2008/08/28/obama-speech-excerpts Accessed May, 2019
Donald Trump appealing to Logos https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-members-angel-families-immigration/ Accessed May, 2019
Cognitive Dissonance, example of Pantene Shampoo https://www.sloganlist.com/cosmetics-slogans/Pantene-Slogans.html Accessed May, 2019
Negative and Positive Motivation https://money.howstuffworks.com/10-ad-campaigns1.htm Accessed May, 2019
Appeals to Needs, Muhammadu Buhari, a Nigerian Presidential candidate speech: https://punchng.com/dont-be-afraid-of-rumours-of-violence-and-unrest-buhari-urges-nigerians/ Accessed May, 2019
Rationalization technique used by Saddam Hussein. Accessed May, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/1991/02/27/world/war-gulf-iraqi-leader-saddam-hussein-s-speech-withdrawal-his-army-kuwait.html Accessed May, 2019
Suggestion, advertising a shampoo https://www.facebook.com/ExquisiteHairStudio/photos/give-your-hair-a-second-lifek%C3%A9rastase-r%C3%A9sistance-rebuilds-the-internal-substance/1271936259485461/ Accessed May, 2019
Nike’s slogan ‘You will Notice, You will scream’, an example of Conformity
https://rachelshaw16.weebly.com/rhetorical-analysis.html Accessed May, 2019
Compensation, iPhone 3G example https://www.imore.com/history-iphone-3g Accessed May, 2019
Displacement https://collection.maas.museum/object/347237 Accessed May, 2019
Projection https://news.nike.com/news/stability-has-never-been-faster Accessed May, 2019
Choverlet ‘See it, Try it, and Buy it’https://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/rcmaxwellco_XXH0291/ Accessed May, 2019
Obama’s Speech 2012 Election Campaign, an example of Covert Persuasion
https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-xpm-2012-may-05-la-pn-transcript-obama-campaign-kickoff-20120505-story.html Accessed May, 2019
ASICS Company advertisement for sports products, an example of overt persuasion.
http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/2015/asics-its-a-big-world-go-run-it/ Accessed May, 2019
Attention Value, an example from Snickers Hungry Campaign https://thebrandgym.com/snickers-youre-not-you-when-youre-hungry-the-best-global-campaign-ever/ Accessed May, 2019
Example of Readability with AMX using Second Person Pronoun https://trademarks.justia.com/764/61/it-s-your-world-take-76461077.html Accessed May, 2019
Cheryl Cole appearing in Casting Crème Gloss 2018 advertisement, an example of memorability https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbV2hYdgl6o Accessed May, 2019
Nike’s famous ‘Just Do It’ advertising, example of Selling Power https://news.nike.com/featured_video/just-do-it-dream-crazy-film Accessed May, 2019
An example of Alliteration used by Bill Clinton 1992 http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19920717&slug=1502595Accessed May, 2019
Anaphora example used by Robert Kennedy 1968 https://www.npr.org/2008/04/04/89365887/robert-kennedy-delivering-news-of-kings-death Accessed May, 2019
Example of Antimetabole STOPS STATIC BEFORE STATIC STOPS YOU. Bounce Fabric Softener
https://www.bouncefresh.com/en-us/bounce-benefits/stop-static/stop-static-cling-before-it-does-you-in Accessed May, 2019
Example of Epistrophe in Nelson Mandela’s speech
https://speakola.com/political/nelson-mandela-inauguration-1994 Accessed May, 2019
George Carlin’s famous Quote on religion ‘Atheism is a non-prophet organization”, an example of Puns.
https://www.azquotes.com/quote/48059 Accessed May, 2019
Example of Rhetorical Questions found in Ronald Reagan's 1980 Republican National Convention Acceptance Address.
https://usa.usembassy.de/etexts/speeches/rhetoric/rraccept.htm Accessed May, 2019
An example of Simile found in Martin Luther King, Jr. American Minister and activist. https://washingtonmonthly.com/2014/11/28/until-justice-rolls-down-like-waters-2 Accessed May, 2019
Metaphor example in Ronald Rogan’s speech 1985
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ronald-reagan-inaugural-address-1985/ Accessed May, 2019
Allusion Example found in Martin Luther King's speech 1963
http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/documents/1951-/martin-luther-kings-i-have-a-dream-speech-august-28-1963.php Accessed May, 2019
Metonymy example in Obama’s national announcement of killing Bin Laden
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2011/05/02/osama-bin-laden-dead Accessed May, 2019
Another example of Covert Persuasion is found in Obama’s speech delivered March 18, 2008
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88478467
Accessed May, 2019
Bloom, Harold 1975. A Map of Misreading. New York: Oxford University Press.
Bramley, Nicolette Ruth (2001) “Pronouns of politics: the use of pronouns in the construction of ‘self’ and ‘other’ in political interviews”. PhD Thesis, Australian National Uni.
Bruke, K. (1969) A Rhetoric of Movies, University of California Press
Campbell, M. C., Mohr, G., & Verlegh, P. W. (2012). Can disclosures lead consumers to resist covert persuasion? The important roles of disclosure timing and type of response. Journal of Consumer Psychology, Forthcoming. 23(4), pp.483-495.
Charteris-Black, J. (2005). Politicians and Rhetoric: The Persuasive Power of Metaphor. Houndmill, Basingstoke, Hampshire, New York: Palrav, MacMillan.
Charteris-Black, J. (2011). Politicians and rhetoric: The persuasive power of metaphor. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.
Christensen, A.-K.K. and Hasle, P.F.V. (2007) Classical Rhetoric and a Limit to Persuasion, Conference Paper · April 2007. Pp 307-310
Connor, U., & Lauer, J. (1985). Understanding persuasive essay writing: linguistic/rhetorical approach. Text 5, 309-326.
Corbett, E. and Connors, R. (1999). Classical rhetoric for the modern student. New York: Oxford University Press.
Crook, J., (2004. On overt communication in Advertisement. Journal of Pragmatics. 6(4):715-738
Cuddon, J. (1976). The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and literary theory.London: Penguin Books.
Dastpak, Mehdi and Taghinezhad, Ali (2015) Persuasive Strategies Used in Obama’s Political Speech: A CDA Approach Based on Fairclough’s Framework, Journal of Applied Linguistics and Language Research, Volume 2, Issue 6, , pp. 13-27
Festinger, L. (1962). A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. California: Stanford Uni Press.
Goddard, A. (1998). The language of advertising. London: Routledge.
Halmari, H. and Virtanen, T. 2005). Persuasion across Genres. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 6-7.
Hart, Roderick, P., Frederich, Gustav, W., and Brummet, Barry. (1983). Public Communication. USA: Herper and Row Publisher.
Hogan, K. and Speakman, J. (2006). Covert persuasion. Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Holt, R., & MacPherson, A. (2010). “Sense-making, rhetoric and the socially competent entrepreneur”. International Small Business Journal, 20
Huhmann, B.A. (2008). A model of the cognitive and emotional processing of rhetorical works in advertising. In E. McQuarrie, & B.J. Phillips (Eds.), Go figure! New directions in advertising rhetoric (pp. 85-113). Armonk, US: M.E.
Johnstone, B. (1989). Linguistic Strategies and Cultural Style for Persuasive Discourse. Texas A&M University.
Karapetjana I. (2011). Pronominal Choice in Political Interviews. Baltic Journal of English Language, Literature and Culture, Volume 1.pp. 36-45. Riga: University of Latvia.
Keraf, G. 1991. Argumentasi dan narasi. Jakarta: Gramedia.
Lakoff, G. (2009). Metaphor and War: The Metaphor System Used to Justify War in the Gulf. Cognitive Semiotics.
Lakoff, G., Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Lucas, S. (2009). The Art of Public Speaking. McGraw-Hill Education: University of Wisconsin—Madison.
Maslow, A. (1943). A Theory of Human Motivation. Psychological Review, 50, 370-396. Retrieved June 2001, from http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Maslow/motivation.htm.
Milewicz, J., & Herbig, P. (1997). “A quantitative analysis of the relative efficiency between overt and covert market signals”. Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, 5(4), 45–57.
Mulholland, J. (2005). Handbook of Persuasive Tactics. London: Routledge
Perloff, R.M. (2003). The Dynamics of Persuasion: Communication and Attitudes in the Twenty-First Century. UK: Lawrence Erlbaum Publishing.
Perri, Carmela (1978). On alluding. Poetics pp.289.
Piller, I. (2003) '10. Advertising as a Site of Language Contact', Annual review of applied linguistics, 23, pp. 170-183.
Quinn, N. (1993). The cultural basis for metaphor. Metaphor: The Theory of Tropes in Anthropology. Ed. Beyon. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Rizka, E (2016) Persuasive “Techniques Used in Nike Advertisement”. SS Thesis, Islamic University of Malang
Shabrina, Izzah (2016) “Persuasive Strategies Used in Hillary Clinton’s Political Campaign Speech” SS Thesis, Islamic University of Malang.
Stiff, J. and Mongeau, P. (2003). Persuasive Communication. Princeton, N.J.: Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic.
Sperber, D. and Wilson, D. (1995). Relevance. Oxford: Blackwell.
Stanojević, M. (2009). Konceptualna metafora u kognitivnoj lingvistici. pregled pojmova. Suvremena lingvistika, pp. 341.
Tanaka, Keiko, (1992). The pun in advertising: A pragmatic approach. Lingua.
Wilson, J. (1990). Politically speaking. Oxford: Blackwell.
Zollo, S.A. (2014). Promotion, Popularization and Pedagogy: An Analysis of The Verbal and Visual Strategies in the COE’s Human Rights Campaigns. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Online References
Barack Obama appealing to Ethos. https://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/robert-schlesinger/2008/08/28/obama-speech-excerpts Accessed May, 2019
Donald Trump appealing to Logos https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-members-angel-families-immigration/ Accessed May, 2019
Cognitive Dissonance, example of Pantene Shampoo https://www.sloganlist.com/cosmetics-slogans/Pantene-Slogans.html Accessed May, 2019
Negative and Positive Motivation https://money.howstuffworks.com/10-ad-campaigns1.htm Accessed May, 2019
Appeals to Needs, Muhammadu Buhari, a Nigerian Presidential candidate speech: https://punchng.com/dont-be-afraid-of-rumours-of-violence-and-unrest-buhari-urges-nigerians/ Accessed May, 2019
Rationalization technique used by Saddam Hussein. Accessed May, 2019
https://www.nytimes.com/1991/02/27/world/war-gulf-iraqi-leader-saddam-hussein-s-speech-withdrawal-his-army-kuwait.html Accessed May, 2019
Suggestion, advertising a shampoo https://www.facebook.com/ExquisiteHairStudio/photos/give-your-hair-a-second-lifek%C3%A9rastase-r%C3%A9sistance-rebuilds-the-internal-substance/1271936259485461/ Accessed May, 2019
Nike’s slogan ‘You will Notice, You will scream’, an example of Conformity
https://rachelshaw16.weebly.com/rhetorical-analysis.html Accessed May, 2019
Compensation, iPhone 3G example https://www.imore.com/history-iphone-3g Accessed May, 2019
Displacement https://collection.maas.museum/object/347237 Accessed May, 2019
Projection https://news.nike.com/news/stability-has-never-been-faster Accessed May, 2019
Choverlet ‘See it, Try it, and Buy it’https://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/rcmaxwellco_XXH0291/ Accessed May, 2019
Obama’s Speech 2012 Election Campaign, an example of Covert Persuasion
https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-xpm-2012-may-05-la-pn-transcript-obama-campaign-kickoff-20120505-story.html Accessed May, 2019
ASICS Company advertisement for sports products, an example of overt persuasion.
http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/2015/asics-its-a-big-world-go-run-it/ Accessed May, 2019
Attention Value, an example from Snickers Hungry Campaign https://thebrandgym.com/snickers-youre-not-you-when-youre-hungry-the-best-global-campaign-ever/ Accessed May, 2019
Example of Readability with AMX using Second Person Pronoun https://trademarks.justia.com/764/61/it-s-your-world-take-76461077.html Accessed May, 2019
Cheryl Cole appearing in Casting Crème Gloss 2018 advertisement, an example of memorability https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbV2hYdgl6o Accessed May, 2019
Nike’s famous ‘Just Do It’ advertising, example of Selling Power https://news.nike.com/featured_video/just-do-it-dream-crazy-film Accessed May, 2019
An example of Alliteration used by Bill Clinton 1992 http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19920717&slug=1502595Accessed May, 2019
Anaphora example used by Robert Kennedy 1968 https://www.npr.org/2008/04/04/89365887/robert-kennedy-delivering-news-of-kings-death Accessed May, 2019
Example of Antimetabole STOPS STATIC BEFORE STATIC STOPS YOU. Bounce Fabric Softener
https://www.bouncefresh.com/en-us/bounce-benefits/stop-static/stop-static-cling-before-it-does-you-in Accessed May, 2019
Example of Epistrophe in Nelson Mandela’s speech
https://speakola.com/political/nelson-mandela-inauguration-1994 Accessed May, 2019
George Carlin’s famous Quote on religion ‘Atheism is a non-prophet organization”, an example of Puns.
https://www.azquotes.com/quote/48059 Accessed May, 2019
Example of Rhetorical Questions found in Ronald Reagan's 1980 Republican National Convention Acceptance Address.
https://usa.usembassy.de/etexts/speeches/rhetoric/rraccept.htm Accessed May, 2019
An example of Simile found in Martin Luther King, Jr. American Minister and activist. https://washingtonmonthly.com/2014/11/28/until-justice-rolls-down-like-waters-2 Accessed May, 2019
Metaphor example in Ronald Rogan’s speech 1985
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ronald-reagan-inaugural-address-1985/ Accessed May, 2019
Allusion Example found in Martin Luther King's speech 1963
http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/documents/1951-/martin-luther-kings-i-have-a-dream-speech-august-28-1963.php Accessed May, 2019
Metonymy example in Obama’s national announcement of killing Bin Laden
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2011/05/02/osama-bin-laden-dead Accessed May, 2019
Another example of Covert Persuasion is found in Obama’s speech delivered March 18, 2008
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88478467
Accessed May, 2019