Discourse Analysis of Persuasive Language in Philippine Print Advertising

Abstract

This qualitative study employed discourse analyses of the persuasive language of 115 print advertisements of beauty products from a year’s worth of issues of three local magazines. Results showed that the persuasive language of print advertising is embedded in indirect convincing through an appeal to emotional needs, an appeal to celebrity image, and an appeal to the colonial mentality of consumers. Furthermore, persuasive language is embedded in analogy through the use of metaphor and future events. Results also showed that the syntactic and semantic features of print advertising in Philippine context include the use of adjectives, time expressions, figurative language, clipping, blending, poetic devices, imperatives, code-switching, and problem-solution structure. An interesting social issue generated from the result of the study is the myth of women’s agelessness and perfection. It is recommended that a similar study be conducted to radio and television advertising to improve the practice and use of advertising language.