Comparative Analysis of Persuasive Strategies in English Social and Commercial Advertisements

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the difference between 35 social and 35 commercial ads that gathered through the internet. Socio-pragmatic strategies that used in ads including Grice (1975) cooperative principle (CP), Leech (1983) politeness principle (PP) and Searle (1970) speech act to persuade persuadees. The findings revealed that cooperative principles are mostly observed in both kinds of advertisement. And there was significant difference in social and commercial ads. This paper indicates that cooperative principles appear to be the more powerful constraints in advertising discourse than politeness principles. As well politeness principles are to be applied in commercial ads significantly more than in social ads. Speech acts are similarly observed in social and commercial ads and they are almost never violated.


INTRODUCTION
said that advertising is all around us. People are exposed to them from a variety of sources and in a variety of forms. They receive them from different channels as radio, TV, newspapers, internet, etc. Many people, including the advertisers themselves, claim "advertising has become one of the most important influences in our lives" (Dyer, 1982, p. 1).
Advertisements are messages that designed to promote products, services, or ideas (Tahririan, 1995). The main function of advertising is to persuade people to buy the product, but also it includes entertain, amuse, inform, misinform, worry or warn (Cook, 2001). Advertising discourse is based on persuasion. According to Schmidt and Kress (1986, as cited in Peterkova, 2008) persuasion is a voluntary change in someone's attitudes, beliefs or behavior through the transmission of a message. Cook (1992) identifies advertisements as a kind of discourse.
Following Lakoff (1982), a discourse is considered persuasive when "the intent to persuade is recognized explicitly as such by at least one party to the discourse" (p. 28). In the case of advertising, both parties recognize this intention.
Pragmatic focuses on the aspects of language structures and language principles. It studies the relationship between language and context that are encoded in the structure of language (Levinson, 1983). From the point of view of pragmatics, advertising discourse is based on implicature (Cook, 1992). The implicature enables the advertiser to hide his or her persuasive intention with which he or she enters advertising communication. This study has mainly used a pragmatic framework to describe and analyze the data. This framework is theoretically supported by the concepts of speech acts theory, Gricean cooperative maxims and Leech politeness maxims.
Cooperative principles consist of quantity maxim, quality maxim, relation maxim and manner maxim. By flouting one maxim advertiser can attract the consumer's attention. Leech (1995, p. 79) stresses that PP is a necessary complement to CP, which "rescues the CP from serious trouble". Leech (1983, p. 82) maintains that people often break the CP for politeness reasons. In other words, "to maintain the social equilibrium and the friendly relations which enable us to assume that our interlocutors are being cooperative in the first place". Leech proposes a set of politeness maxims, such as the tact maxim, generosity maxim, approbation maxim, modesty maxim, agreement maxim, sympathy maxim.
Speech act means that language users make utterances in order to perform certain actions. The term speech act includes three simultaneous acts: locutionary act that is related to the literal meaning of the utterance. Illocutionary act is produce to communicate a certain intention, and perlocutionary act that is the consequential effect of an utterance what is achieved (Austin, 1962). Following Austin, Searle (1970) distinguishes five types of acts performed via speech: 1. assertives, 2. directives, 3. commissives, 4. expressives, and 5. declarations. Hardin (2001) studied the application of persuasive discourse in Spanish language advertising. This investigation analyzed pragmatic ways in which Spanish try to achieve persuasion in television advertising. The author applies pragmatic principles to commercials for products and services from three countries that including, Chile, Spain, and the United States. The most representative variables included speech acts, implicatures , politeness, violations of Grice's Maxims, and speaker considerations. Research on advertising discourse is limited. Most of the studies on advertising concentrate on one or a few component of advertising and ignore the others. There are also studies which describe the pictures of advertising without paying any attention to language. Describing advertising discourse is more complex. Thus it needs to be analyzed more. Against all challenges, as no research has been found by the researcher on the comparison of persuasive strategies used in social and commercial ads in English language, this study is going to analyze some English social and commercial ads in order to illustrate the persuasive strategies that they share in common. The analysis is based on a sample of 70 display ads, 35 commercial and 35 social ones. Based on the background of the study above, the study focuses on the following problems: 1. What are the persuasive strategies used in English social and commercial ads? 2. How are the persuasive strategies used in English social and commercial ads?

METHODOLOGY
To carry out the comparison between the advertisements, a sample of 35 social and 35 commercial ads, 70 ads in total, were selected from among a large corpus of advertisements through the internet. The data collection was done in June and July of 2013. Majority of collected ads were extracted from Google Search Engine. Then, Grice's (1975) model of cooperative principle (CP), Leech's (1983) model of politeness principle (PP), and Searle's (1970) model of speech act were used as criteria for data analysis. This required an individual and manual analysis of all the maxims and principles present in the selected ads.
The result of this study was confirmed by the second rater in order to ensure the inter-rater reliability (0.89) of the assessment.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
According to bottom table cooperative principles are mostly observed in both kinds of advertisement, whether social or commercial ads. In some cases these principles are violated but they have never been backgrounded in advertisements. However, while social ads are the first in observance of cooperative principles, commercials are first in violation of these D e a c e m b e r 2 5 , 2 0 1 4 principles. That means cooperative principles are never ignored in advertisement, they are represented in ads, either observed or violated. This is in the same line with Coulthard's (1985) idea that there are occasions when speakers decide to unboastfully violate a maxim, he may lie, he may give information that has lack of relevance, or may provide utterances that can be later realized as ambiguous. Moreover, there are much more important occasions when a speaker breaks a maxim for certain reasons such as he faces a clash between two maxims, and that would make it impossible for the persuader to be as specific as he should be and still his speech would lack adequate evidence, perhaps he chose to violate a maxim, that is to say he may blatantly fail to fulfill it. In such cases, these maxims provide a basis for the persuadee to understand what is conversationally being implicated.
In the case of politeness principles, they are mostly, but not always, backgrounded either in social or commercial ads. Moreover, observance or violation of politeness principles occurs in commercial ads more than in social ads. This variation in politeness principle appliance in social and commercial ads lends support to Leech's (1983) idea that not all of the maxims are equally important. Politeness principle is mostly backgrounded in social ads. Also, it is backgrounded in the commercials in order to achieve to their aim. Considering speech acts, most of the time, they are backgrounded in ads. Sometimes, speech acts are observed in social and commercial ads and they are almost never violated.
It can be claimed that the advertisement discourse is an illocutionary act which is associated with the perlocutionary act of persuasion, an act that its aim is to get persuadees to accept an idea (Searle, 1970) or purchase a product. Therefore, it works in both social and commercial ads similarly.
The researcher of the present study claims that taking advantage of both cooperative and politeness principles are necessary devices in advertisement, in general. As well enjoying speech acts of persuasion are of vital devices in advertisement discourse, which lends support to Hardin's (2001) findings who asserted that the most representative variables in language of advertisement included speech acts, implicatures, politeness, violations of Grice's Maxims, and speaker considerations.

Cooperative Principles in Social and Commercial Ads
The maxims of cooperative principles are quantity Maxim (make your contribution as informative as is required, do not make your contribution more informative than is required), quality Maxim (do not say what you believe to be false, do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence), relation maxim (be relevant) and manner maxim (avoid obscurity of expression, avoid ambiguity, be briefly and be orderly).

Quantity and Quality Maxims in Ads
Some of the advertisements tend to violate the maxim of quantity because their "contribution is not as is required" (Grice, 1975, p. 58). In quality maxim, advertisements will state mainly the strong points of the products and services to help persuadees know about them and trust them (Grice, 1975). D e a c e m b e r 2 5 , 2 0 1 4

CA25.
Pour on the power to help your heart and lower cholesterol.
Silk is made from one of Nature's perfect Proteins to help you stay strong, and delivers a smooth vanilla taste that keeps you deliciously satisfied.

Silk strength in every pour.
Observing a maxim is related to the meaning that is literally spoken/written (Mey, 2001). The observance of the quantity and quality maxims, here, is achieved by providing product name and its distinctive qualities. The persuader considers important and adequate amount of fact about the product. It communicates the product name, plus he highlights the fact that the product is perfect for your heart health and lowering cholesterol. It is also shown in the picture by pouring milk with some hearts and an athlete diving in milk that resembles health and strength.
In this ad, assertives contribute towards the observance of the CPs. Therefore, these attend to enhance persuasive potential of the ad. Also, these maxims are violated in the following sample ad:

SA12.
Over 100 million children are living on the streets. And eat from it.

Help us to help them.
Violating a maxim is to flout a maxim intentionally or unintentionally and therefore transform a different meaning than what is literally spoken or written (Mey, 2001).This ad violates the maxims of quantity and quality due to lack of adequate amount of information. The violation of these maxims might also be due to the ambiguity and vagueness: "And eat from it". The referents of the pronominal expressions are derivable from the situational context adopted by the advertising situation.
And they contribute towards the maximization of the persuasive potential of the ad.

Relation Maxim in Ads
This is the most significant advertisement designing, that mostly employs natural association to pass useful information and to touch persuades, for example: D e a c e m b e r 2 5 , 2 0 1 4 SA3.

70,000 t of OIL
Today on the coast of Gallicia.
Tomorrow on your plate.

Help us to stop it at wwf.org
The assertives contribute towards the observance of the CPs.

Manner Maxim in Ads
The observance of the maxim of manner in most of the social ads might be because the persuader tries to affect the persuaders with direct speech. The reason for violation of the manner maxim in commercial ads, on the other hand, might be because its violation enables the advertisement to observe other principles applied in communication. However, Grice (1975) did not believe that all people should constantly follow these maxims. Instead, he found it interesting when they were violated (either purposefully or unintentionally) by speakers, which would imply some other hidden meaning. And the importance was in what was not said. An example for violation of the maxim of manner is represented in the following ad: CA3. AQUITAINE,

You will not want to leave it.
This ad violates the maxim of manner due to the lack of perspicacious information about this place. Also, assertive contributes to the observing of cooperative principle.

Politeness Principles in Social and Commercial Ads
Politeness principle is affected by some maxims such as tact maxim which minimizes cost to other and maximizes benefit to other; generosity maxim which minimizes benefit to self and maximizes cost to self; approbation maxim which minimizes dispraise of other and maximizes praise of other; modesty maxim which minimizes praise of self and maximizes dispraise of self; agreement maxim which minimizes disagreement between self and other, and maximize agreement between self and other; sympathy maxim which minimizes antipathy between self and other and maximizes sympathy between self and other (Leech, 1983). For example;

CA22.
The same as iPhone but cheaper!

Samsung Galaxy SII
In this ad, Samsung Company, first, contributes towards the maximization of its cost by producing a high-tech cellphone as the same as iPhone's last and best model and stating this statement "The same as iPhone". Thus, it observes the generosity maxim. Following observance of generosity maxim, the ad observes tact maxim by "but cheaper" statement. Therefore, it enhances persuasive potential of ad. SA15.

Approbation Maxim in Ads
Each year hundreds of dogs are abandoned because their owners are tired of playing with them A dog is not a toy. Become a member.
In the social ad above, Approbation maxim is violated by dispraising dog owners and criticizing them for their non-sense behavior with their dogs as toys that can be thrown out when they tired of them.
Direct speech used in this ad enhances the persuasive potential of the advertising message.
Another example about the observance of this maxim: D e a c e m b e r 2 5 , 2 0 1 4

SA10.
They may have lost the bite but they can teach us chew.
The elderly have the experience. Use it.
This ad observes the Approbation maxim as far as the maximization of old people praise is concerned.

Modesty Maxim in Ads
CA19.
Real fries in a fake world.
Our fries start each day as whole, premium potatoes. They're fresh cut and cooked in sunflower oil with no preservatives or coatings. What you get is real goodness and great taste. At New York Fries you really can indulge wisely.
As you see in the example above, the violation of Modesty maxim results from maximizing the persuader's costs and praise, e.g., "Our fries start each day as whole, premium potatoes", and "They're fresh cut and cooked in sunflower oil with no preservatives or coatings".
Assertives, expressives, and commissives represent indirect speech acts that enable the persuaders to violate the Modesty Maxim and therefore enhance potential persuasion power of the ad. Loving the snow?

Try sleeping in it
Help get homeless people out of the cold for good Sharing one's problem has an impact on the maximization of agreement between the persuader and the persuadee, hence the observance of the Agreement Maxim in some of the ads like this.
Direct speech used in this ad presents the maxim of agreement and it enhances persuasive potential of ad.

2.5 Sympathy Maxim in Ads
SA2. In this ad, the persuader's worried statements and expressions illustrate her/his high degree of interest in the topic being discussed. Moreover, these statements enable her/his to communicate that she/he sympathizes with the earth's global warming, hence the observance of the sympathy maxim. D e a c e m b e r 2 5 , 2 0 1 4 Sympathy maxim, as another type of persuasion, which appeals to the reader's senses and emotions, is used in this ad for more persuasion.

Speech Acts in Social and Commercial Ads
According to Searle's (1970) approach, speech acts can be classified into five categories: assertives, that represent the speaker's belief about the truth of a proposition; directives, that cause the hearer to take a particular action; commissives, that commit a speaker to some future action; and expressives, that express the speaker's attitudes and emotions towards the proposition; declarations, that change the reality according to the proposition of the declaration.

Assertives in Ads
The prevailing speech act type is represented by assertives. Assertives enable the persuaders to observe as well as violate the CP and PP in order to provide product information and to maximize the product praise. Assertives, usually take the form of claims (Dayag, 2001). And it includes scientific explanation in assertives, it is safe to say that the claims are not verifiable, and therefore do not carry much weight. But this probably is what makes ads persuasive in nature. Example: CA20.
Want to be healthy like Derek Rose? Not only can you feel from exercise and playing sports but eating healthy will take you to the next level. Eating fresh products is a healthier choice than that greasy, fatty, unhealthy fast food. So stop by Growing Power to try some of the locally grown, tasty, healthy, fresh produce.
Assertives contribute towards the observance of the CPs. Therefore, by presenting true (quality maxim), enough (quantity maxim) and related (relative maxim) information the persuader attends to enhance persuasive potential of the ad.

SA32
Be the root Nature in the city begins with all of us. The harder we try, the more it will thrive. We need your help. Visit evergreen.ca They contribute towards the maximization of the benefits to the persuadee, e.g. "Be the root", and "Visit evergreen.ca".
Since the directives appeal for the persuadee to engage in a certain beneficial action, they are interpreted as acts maximizing the benefits to the persuadee. The observance of directives is somewhat pervasive in both social and commercial ads.
Thanks to direct speech used in this ad, it enhances the persuasive potential and credibility of the advertising message invites the persudees to visit their website to get more and incredible information about the campaign.

Millions of germs will die
As you notice, there is a commissive speech act in the ad above. It is found where the persuader promises death of germs. The promise is meant to maximize both the product praise and the benefits to the persuadee.
Commisive is one of the common speech acts which is being observed in social and commercial ads. While in commercial ads, common Commissive speech acts are promises, in social ads, common Commissive speech acts are threats.
Assertives and commissives represent indirect speech acts that enable the persuader to violate the modesty maxim and mostly participate in observing the tact maxim to enhance potential persuasion power of the ad. The sad truth is that 40% of these cases could have been prevented by simply wearing a helmet. When you think about it there are no excuses.

Expressives in Ads
Wear a helmet, not just for your own safety.
In the sample ad above, the expressive is used in the confessions, where the persuaders need to express their concerns in order to make their confessions as authentic as possible, e.g."Every year over 11,000 people die on our roads", "And 30,000 are seriously injured", etc. Consequently, the expressive contributes towards the maximization of the persuadees' cost and dispraise.
Expressive speech acts are common in commercial ads because persuaders often praise and tend to create a sense of agreement with the persuadees in the ads, but they are rare in social ads because they do have an informative nature talking about the society's problem rather than the persuadees' needs, feelings, and desires.
Expressive maxim, which appeals to the reader's senses and emotions, is used in this ad for more persuasion.
Declarative speech act has never been used in advertisement discourse, thus,it is not in the scope of the study.
In the present study, these persuasive devices include a preference for socio-pragmatic structures such as cooperative principles, politeness principles, and speech acts.
In most of commercial ads, (e.g. CA 1), assertives contribute towards the observance of the CPs. Since assertives enable persuader to provide true facts about the product being advertised. In other words, assertive contribute towards the maximization of the product praise. Therefore, by presenting true (quality maxim), enough (quantity maxim) and related (relative maxim) information the persuader attends to create a clear and unambiguous information (manner maxim) to enhance persuasive potential of the ad. CP is an umbrella term that groups all the phenomena of meaning recovery where pragmatic processes intervene. Since they intend to be beneficial for the persuadee, persuaders contribute towards the observance of the tact maxim. Therefore, they contribute towards the maximization of their cost and, thus, they observe the generosity and, accordingly, violate modesty maxim. Srpová (2008: 117-118) says "The violation is determined by the effort to increase the attractivity of an advertised message".
In most of social ads, however, (e.g. SA 4), although the quantity maxim is violated, it successfully passes the related information to the audience in an obvious manner and thus effectiveness of the ad is not on the quantity but quality observation. These two maxims (Qn and Ql) work in competition, i.e. the amount of information the speaker gives is limited by his wish to avoid telling an untruth. In advertising this has to be interpreted as: the strongest claim, there is evidence for will be made. These ads serve as direct speech act that violate the Approbation maxim, because in SA persuader uses direct maxim to give information about society problems and speak about ignorance of people in society problems. Moreover, relative and manner maxims are represented by assertive speech act and they contribute towards the maximization of the persuasive potential of the ad. The reason for this action is that persuader wants to has effective interaction with persuadee. The persuader attends to create more agreement between persuader and persuadee (agreement maxim) and therefore a persuasive environment in order to establish the appropriate solidarity and distance level with the persuadee.
Direct speech used in both of social and commercial ads, since these function as a device for attracting the persuadee's attention by impeding their freedom to act. (e.g. SA 18), presents the maxim of modesty because persuader wants to show dispraise of his action to attract the attention of others. And the presentation of both directive and commissive speech act enhance the persuasive potential and credibility of the advertising message which clearly invites persuadee to help the campaign. According to (Cook, 1992) the advertisements features include assert, accuse, warn, inform, claim, give directions, offer, promise, praise, require and finally buying the product. Finally, the aim of these analyses is based on persuasive people to buy the product or accepting a social idea.

CONCLUSION
The results of the present study may be summarized by pointing out, cooperative principles are mostly observed in both kinds of advertisement and there was significant difference in appliance of these principles in social and commercial ads.
That means cooperative principles are vital in advertisement discourse. In such cases, the conversational maxims provide a basis for the persuadee to understand what is conversationally being implicated. In this, as what Leech (1983) believes that the four maxims have the function of regulating what it is advertised so that it contributes to some assumed illocutionary goals. D e a c e m b e r 2 5 , 2 0 1 4 The researcher indicates that cooperative principles appear to be the more powerful constraints in advertising discourse than politeness principles. As well politeness principles are to be applied in commercial ads significantly more than in social ads. With regard to the Politeness Principle, these maxims are the least frequently used maxims in both social and commercial ads. According to Leech (1983), PP relates to the relationship between two participants that called self and other. So far, he explains that the importance of showing politeness to the persuadee varies.
Speech acts are similarly observed in social and commercial ads and they are almost never violated. Thus, it confirmed Searle's (1970) idea that the advertisement discourse is an illocutionary act which is associated with the perlocutionary act of persuasion, an act that objective is to get persuadees to accept an idea (Searle, 1970) or purchase a product.
Finally, in terms of socio-pragmatic strategies, these strategies are necessary because advertisers know that a persuasive message needs to be under an"informative mask so that the receiver gets a delusive impression of a referential message" (Fuertes-Olivera, et al., 2001, p. 1295).
The findings of the present study have some pedagogical implications for EFL and English for specific purposes (ESP) learners and teachers as well as for researchers who work on English advertisement discourse. Also, it helps people have an objective and careful consideration before buying a product or accepting and following an especial social idea.
In the field of more research firstly, a research is suggested on vocabulary, syntactic features, and lexico-grammatical features in persuasion strategies used in social and commercial ads. Secondly, more research, therefore, is suggested on other types of advertisements such as print advertisement and multimedia advertisement. Thirdly, there is a gap, therefore, on advertisement discourse of other languages, comparing advertisement discourse of two or more countries, and also other aspects of advertisement discourse whether in English or other language such as political aspect, economical aspect, etc. In addition, the researcher strongly suggests further studies on a contrastive analysis of stylistic devices used in persuasive strategies in English social and commercial advertisements and an investigation into culture influences on persuasive strategies in English and other language advertisements. D e a c e m b e r 2 5 , 2 0 1 4 The first signs of global warming are now clearly visible. We urgently need to limit greenhouse gas emissions. Nothing and no one will be spared from climate change. This warning is therefore to all people, all countries, and in particular to the Belgian Council of ministers who, on the weekend if March 20 and 21, will have to decide to what action to take regarding essential measures linked to the Kyoto Protocol.

70,000 t of OIL
Today on the coast of Gallicia. Every breath you take will eventually destroy your future.
The melting arctic is under threat from oil drilling, industrial fishing, and conflict. Please help.
Save the Arctic Donate Now SA 9.
Don't wrap it and tap it.
Tape her and rape her. SA 10.
They may have lost the bite but they can teach us chew.
The elderly have the experience. Use it.
Self-medication is not a game. In town, car accidents don't just happen to cars. Slow down SA 14.
Burning the red light results in 15 victims a day.
In town, car accidents don't just happen to cars. SA 15.
Each year hundreds of dogs are abandoned because their owners are tired of playing with them.
A dog is not a toy. Become a member.
The greatest wonder of the sea is that it's still alive.
What goes into crisps goes into you.
The par: 200,000 trees! Building a single golf course puts thousands of trees at stake. However in southern Turkey, they are planning to build several courses simultaneously. Take action. Help us stop them.

Try sleeping in it
Help get homeless people out of the cold for good.
"I won't wear a helmet It makes me look stupid" Every year over 11,000 people die on our roads. And 30,000 are seriously injured. That means thousands of families left picking up the pieces families tortured by the loss of a loved one. Crippled by reduced income or the sudden need care for an alternative with permanent damage.
The sad truth is that 40% of these cases could have been prevented by simply wearing a helmet. When you think about it there are no excuses.
Wear a helmet, not just for your own safety.
Spare parts for humans are not as original as those for cars. Real fries in a fake world.
Our fries start each day as whole, premium potatoes. They're fresh cut and cooked in sunflower oil with no preservatives or coatings. What you get is real goodness and great taste. At New Yourk Fries you really can indulge wisely.
Want to be healthy like Derek Rose? Not only can you feel from exercise and playing sports but eating healthy will take you to the next level. Eating fresh products is a healthier choice than that greasy, fatty, unhealthy fast food. So stop by Growing Power to try some of the locally grown, tasty, healthy, fresh produce.
Brewed with tropical rainwater from one of the few places on earth that still has tropical rainwater.
CA 22. Pour on the power to help you heart and lower cholesterol.
Silk is made from one of Nature's perfect Proteins to help you stay strong, and delivers a smooth vanilla taste that keeps you deliciously satisfied.
Silk strength in every pour.
Why have a good day when you can have a great day! Don't settle for less than great-we wouldn't. Unibic Cookies. Real cookies from Australia. Made with the finest imported oats, sinfully rich chocolate chips, the choicest and creamiest butter. Not to mention, perhaps the most advanced baking technology in the country. Making them richer and tastier than any other mere biscuit. So bite into some of the finest cookies ever made. Bite into a great day! Unibic Cookies.
You deserve a Great Day! CA 27.
A is for Apple.
It's the first thing you should know about personal computers.
Discover the special thrill of personal computing-with Apple! It's a home computer, a business computer, a classroom computer, your computer. No wonder tens of thousands have already chosen Apple. Join the excitement in your local computer store. Call for the one nearest you.
When everyone depends on you to stay awake. Don't be the weakest link in the information security chain.
Its here. The new iPhone 3G.
Almost everything you want, for more than you want to pay. The barriers to virtualization fall away.
The virtual. The physical.
You can command them both.
How far will you take virtual? D e a c e m b e r 2 5 , 2 0 1 4

Images of Social and Commercial Ads
Social Ads