Rhetoric in the advertisements 广告中的英语修辞

Rhetoric in the advertisements1204402048 英语学术班夏松Advertisement is not only an economic activity, but also a cultural communication. In the advertisement, the application of all kinds of rhetoric is very common. Advertisements generally use simile, metaphor, personification, pun, alliteration etc. Most sorts of figures are concise, vivid and humorous. The application of rhetoric is to make the thought expressed more striking and effective, for the rhetoric has the power to illustrate and vivify it. After taking this semester’s course of English Rhetoric, I would like to looking into the application of rhetoric in advertisement by discussing some typical cases one by one.Parallelism comes the first. Parallelism means giving two or more parts of the sentences a similar form so as to give the whole a definite pattern. It’s a balance of two or more similar words, phrases, or clauses. The application of parallelism in sentence construction can sometimes improve writing style clearness and readability. It helps create balanced structure, powerful tone; improves expressive force, appeal; and illustrate the idea clearly. Hence, it is widely used in advertisement.“For racer, is speed.For child, is red.For father, is blood.For car fan, is lover.For individual, is challenge.For group, is legend.For us, is everything.”This is a piece of advertisement of Ferrari. The seven sentences are in a parallel structure that can impress the listeners deeply. It can make the listeners have a brief view of this sort of car. It seems to be attracted by all kind of people, no matter what you are and no matter you are. In that case, the consumers are likely to pay attention to this for the sake of their eager for appreciation from others.And Repetition comes the second. Like parallelism, it has the same elements, but the repetition focuses on the repeated parts while parallelism with similar structure and related content does not concentrate on the same elements. Poems, songs and advertising slogan make full use of repetition. It is mainly to emphasize, to clarify the meaning of a piece of writing or to express strong feelings. There are two examples.“Introducing FITNESS magazine. It’s about health, it’s about exercise, it’s about your image, your energy, and your outlook.”The use of repetition forms a strong tone to convince readers of the abundant content of the magazine. It seems that this magazine cares abouteverything of yourself and all the consumers will care about the fitness of themselves and their families. And this piece of advertisement is able to drive the consumers to pay attention to it.And now we can move on to Antithesis. Antithesis is a counter-proposition and denotes a direct contrast to the original proposition. In setting the opposite, an individual brings out a contrast in the meaning by an obvious contrast in the expression.“Going East , Staying Westin.”The slogan of the hotel, Westin, is designed subtly. Westin looks and pronounces like West which corresponds to East. It makes customers feel like going across a long distance. And followed are some other examples.“We lead, others copy. (Ricoh Company)”“No business too small，no problem too big. (IBM)”“Tide’s in, Dirt’s out. (Tide)”“The choice is yours.The honor is ours.”The slogans not only have nice rhythms but also express the products performance.And there is another function of this kind of advertisements. For example, “Tide’s in, Dirt’s out. (Tide)”, when us consumers hear this piece of advertisement, we can have an illusion that Tide is the best company to produce washing powder. In that case, whenthe consumers choose this kind of product in the supermarket where quantities of same kinds of products placed side by side, they will come up with this advertisement and choose the best at once. At least, I will do so. That is the function of advertisement.Hyperbole is also comely used in the advertisement. Hyperbole is a common figure of speech popular known as exaggeration or over statement. It’s not the same as telling lies. With hyperbole, there is no intent to deceive the audience. In fact, in the speaker’s mind he is truly describing his intense feeling at the time. For instance,“Take Toshiba, take the world.”It is impossible for you to take the world, so the advertiser puts emphasis on that the Toshiba can give you what you need. And it also indicates that the technology can assist you get access to the world easily. And Toshiba succeeds in telling the audience that we can connect to the world by their products. And another example is “Look young in only two weeks.” We are so familiar with this kind of advertising that we can hear it everyday. Hyperbole applied here not to cheat the consumers but emphasize on the function of the product for making up. As far as I am concerned, this kind of advertisements are the most common ones in our daily life. And almost all the female consumers will be attracted by this kind of advertisement since all the girls or the women want to keep young and amazing as soon as possible although they know that it is impossiblein two weeks. And this kind of advertisements can also be seen in the advertisements of teeth protection products and the medicine for easing headache.Ans Metaphor is also an important rhetoric device applied in the advertisements.Metaphor in advertisement can express more implication with fewer words. It not only attracts audience's attention, but also delivers commercial intention in a distinctive language form, then provokes the potential audience's desire to purchase, finally achieves seller's purpose of promotion and sale. For instance,“EBEL, the architects of time.”(EBEL Watch)Time is so elusive for a human being that it is a complex concept. So people create many vehicles to simplify the concept. The use of metaphor not only simplifies the concept of time, but also tell people that EBEL watch is stronger than others and is perfect.Another example is “Sophisticated, sweet-to drink pink Lady.” (Wine)In this advertisement, advertiser associates the beer bottle with “sophisticated, sweet-to drink pink Lady”that can stimulate the consumptive appetite of people.And then we come to the device of Rhetorical question which is a statement that is formulated as a question but that is not supposed to be answer. The advantage of the rhetorical question is that it can cause readers' attention with a curious question and offer some informationabout the product or highlight the product with an answer.“—What kind of man reads Playboy?—He's a man who demands the best life has to offer.”This is a advertisement of magazine Playboy. The headline catches customers' attention and the answer indicates the importance of the book in order to have a best life."Wouldn't you really rather have a Buick?"This is a high-grade car advert of Data General Corporation. It reminds customers' attention and arouses their purchasing desire."What are luxury car should be?"(advert of Lincoln car)This advertisement is simple but wonderful. It causes readers' inquisitiveness to seek the answer, then the answer comes out to be the luxury car—Lincoln.After listing these kinds of rhetoric devices,we can conclude that rhetoric is quite useful in making the expression more appropriate, more attractive, more forcible, and more humorous; and thus in ensuring a higher rate of success in advertising.。