Speech Strategies Realization in English-Language Public Service Announcements on the Syntactic Level

Abstract

AbstractPurpose: The purpose of the research in this article is to identify the means of implementing speech strategies in the texts of English-language social advertising at the syntactic level.Design/methodology/approach: To do this, the research uses a classification of speech strategies developed by psychologists for commercial advertising, which was not previously used to study social advertising.Findings: As a result of its application to the texts of social advertising, for the first time at the syntax level it was possible to detect the implementation of seven speech strategies of two categories - information-forming and optimizing - which in their composition do not coincide with the strategies used in commercial advertising. So, of the three information-forming strategies in the texts of social advertising, the implementation of only one was discovered - the association strategy, as well as six optimizing strategies: mnemonic strategy, attention management strategy, perception criticality control, decoding and interpretation control, direct influence and discursive positioning.Originality/value: Among the syntax tools we have identified that are involved in the implementation of speech strategies in social advertising are: imperative constructions, rhetorical issues, parcellation, ellipsis, nominative sentences and parallel constructions. The obtained results will comparing social and commercial types of advertising at the studied level allow in the future, and will also give an opportunity to use successful foreign experience in domestic social advertising, which does not have such a long history and stable traditions as Western.KeywordsSocial advertisingSpeech strategiesPerception criticalityAttention managementDecodingInterpretationDiscursive positioningJEL CodeM37Y800Z000