Pragmatics of Persuasive Discourse in Spanish Television Advertising

This investigation analyzes pragmatic ways in which Spanish is used to achieve persuasion in television advertising. The author applies pragmatic models to commercials for products and services from three countries--Chile, Spain, and the United States. She addresses the questions: (1) Which pragmatic devices occur most frequently? (2) How are these devices linguistically coded? (3) Are any differences evident between regional varieties of Spanish? and (4) How are pragmalinguistic features of television advertising used to effect persuasion? The most representative variables include speech acts, indexicals, politeness, implicatures, violations of Grice's Maxims, and speaker considerations. The study contributes to the cross-linguistic understanding of pragmatics and of persuasion in Spanish by (1) offering a procedure that may be replicated; (2) addressing multiple pragmatic categories; and (3) examining the relationship between pragmatic strategies and persuasion among Spanish speakers. Given the vital role of the media in society, Spanish television advertising reflects the pragmatic communication of persuasion by and to Spanish speakers. Pragmtica de discurso persuasivo de publicidad de television en espaol. Esta investigacin analiza las maneras pragmticas en las cuales se usa el espaol para persuadir en la publicidad de televisin y contribuye al entendimiento lingstico de pragmtica y persuasin en espaol. El libro est escrito en ingls.