Advertising as Communicative Discourse: An Analysis

The task of modern creativity in advertising is to find fresh, interestprovoking ways of conveying meaningful information realistically and on the reader‟s own terms. As Nilsen says, “in many ways, advertisers are today‟s pop culture poets. They value the power and the flexibility of the English language just as much as do their literary colleagues on college campuses and writing colonies.” 2 Though their purpose is different they employ many of the same literary techniques as do the most skilled literary writers. The various linguistic techniques employed in advertisements help to achieve the first aim of advertising-to catch the attention of the reader. The copywriter widens and deepens the potentialities of the language in several ways. The language in advertising is adapted to/for a well defined social purpose. A number of factors motivate a copywriter to write the advertisements in one way rather than another: the medium for which the advertisement is designed, the type of audience for which it is intended etc. Such predispositions vary according to the type of advertising.