Figures of Speech as Used in Social Advertising Discourse

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of stylistic figures employed to increase the effectiveness of social advertising. The purpose was to describe the figures of speech that are most often used when developing the argumentation of messages. The material was collected from various media banks on the Internet by a continuous sampling method. We have analyzed environmental social advertising posters, more than 4,000 units in total. Stylistic figures are traditionally classified into the figures of addition, omission, transposition, and comparison. The figures of addition in social advertising are represented by various forms of repetitions; the most actively used is anaphora, which helps the author of the text to emphasize the main idea of the message. The figures of addition clarify what has been said, they are a noticeable means of enhancing the expression of the text. Omission figures are much more common. This group includes ellipsis (the most frequent of all the described figures), asyndeton, aposiopesis. The main function of transposition figures is to facilitate assimilation of the thesis of the message: they are mainly employed to place logical accents, required for understanding the thesis of the message. They are divided into symmetrical (chiasm, inversion, parallelism) and asymmetric (parcellation, paronomasia). Comparison figures constitute more than a third of the total number of the figures found, which shows their high popularity on social advertising posters. They are represented in social advertising by identity (periphrasis), contrast (antithesis), alogism (amphiboly), and gradation. This group includes antithesis, which is considered the most frequent and important figure for social advertising since basic alternatives of groups, clusters, rubrics are based on antithesis. The special argumentative value of this figure is that antithesis makes it possible to double the declared attribute, by not only approving the correct behavior model but also simultaneously condemning the wrong one. That is why almost all forms of the antithesis construction are presented in social advertising: alloyosis, acrothesis, paradiastole, etc.