Aristotelian Rhetorical Theory as a Framework for Analyzing Advertising Texts in the Print Media in Ghana

Abstract

Advertisements are fashioned in diverse forms, but in most of them, language is absolutely essential. Although visual images, graphic and color designs and other techniques constitute aspects of print advertising, it is the language of the advertisement that enables consumers to identify a product and remember it. Indeed, language has a powerful influence on readers and their behavioral patterns. The English Language is employed in the print media in Ghana as a means of communicating information about goods and services with the goal of persuading the consuming public to take purchasing decisions. In the current article, I applied Aristotle’s Rhetorical Theory to the analysis of persuasive elements in the English used in advertisements in Ghanaian newspapers. The qualitative research design was employed in the study as the corpus was solely from written documents. The findings of the study demonstrated that copywriters in the Ghanaian print media employed Aristotle’s three artistic proofs, namely, logos, pathos and ethos in the English of advertisements for persuasive effect.