Emotive Language in Spirits Advertising as a Means of Constructing Social Reality

Abstract

This study is aimed to show the role of emotive language in advertising discourse and in society on the basis of the illustrative examples of campaigns created by spirits brands in 2017. My case study has been done on the basis of 30 English spirits campaigns of 2017 which were selected according to top ratings of WARC Media 100, an independent ranking of the most successful campaigns awarded for creativity and innovative approach in media (www.warc.com/rankings/media-100). This research initiative is an endeavor to detect linguistic patterns of emotive language emotive, their functions and how it contributes into structuring or reshaping of social reality. The advertising campaigns often play with and manipulate on existing societal norms, patterns, images and discourses. They contribute to the construction of social reality by means of presenting favorable images to society in the form of advertising, in particular through the emotive language as a key component of advertising. Textual Conceptual Functions Theory (Jeffries 2015) was applied to demonstrate what linguistic means and strategies of emotive language are commonly used in purpose-driven spirits advertising campaigns and what they are aimed at. An Appraisal Approach (Martin and White 2005) was employed to expand the hypothesis further and highlight how emotive language of spirits advertising contributes into constructing social reality. In other words, this research has also been intent on bringing out the manipulative means and relevance of emotional language in construction of strong connection with the customer in order to tell him/her what to believe in and what to do. For this reasons the advertising discourse analysis was accomplished from different perspectives. In a limited empirical manner functions of emotive language as a goal-oriented stimulator and social influencer have been discussed. The main patterns have been demonstrated and the core features have been detected. It gives ground for further research of emotive language concepts in advertising discourse.