Line 41: ‘They’re brand new today’
She uses the adjective ‘new’, which according to Ogilvy is amongst one of the most powerful adjectives to use in order to attract attention. All the modifiers that the presenter uses all create a positive image but without really telling the audience anything about the product. By combining adjectives with nouns, adverbs and verb modifiers, the presenter can convey a sense of a product’s uniqueness.
Comparatives and superlatives
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the presenter also frequently uses comparatives and superlatives in a way of comparing a series of products, and to establish the quality offered by QVC.
Line 8-11: ‘Now you could go into some of the most competitive jewellery stores in the high street and even just looking for perhaps a plain silver chain, you know you could be paying 6, 7, 8, 9 pounds’
Here she uses a superlative and informs the audience that the prices given by QVC are the best and lowest, by deliberately comparing their products with the prosaic ‘plain, silver chains’ available elsewhere. Also the superlative reinforces the idea that this product is superior to others.
Line 47-50: ‘…of course because silver is so much more readily available and thus so much more affordable it means that we can choose styles and designs and be a little bit more generous with that precious metal’
Here the presenter uses the comparative method. She uses intensifiers ‘much’ and ‘a little’ for emphasis and reinforcement, and syntactical parallelism as a form of cohesion and sound patterning to make her utterance more memorable and pleasing to the audience.
Throughout the data she uses very limited qualitative adjectives and comparatives. However she does go into the description of the product in detail. She describes the products by going into detail in the way they are shaped ‘pinched heart’, ‘slightly angular’, ‘(inaudible) veil’, ‘swirl of silver’ etc. This substitutes her limited use of qualitative adjectives and comparatives and makes the product sound just as attractive as it would if she were to use more comparatives and adjectives.
Field Specific Lexis
Throughout the text the presenter uses words related to jewellery and chains. The subject specific lexis provides the technical background, which enables the viewer to know that the presenter is an expert. Some of these examples are ‘diamond-ink-styling silver’. Here she coins a compound noun, which is a neologism, which in actual fact is a nonsense word (Crystal). The word ‘diamond’ will hold more prestige to the product and this will work as a form of persuasion. In his book ‘Confessions of an Advertising Man’, David Ogilvy notes that neologism makes an impact upon the audience and makes them want to buy the product being advertised. Another example is, ‘Prince of Wales chain’. Here she uses reference to royalty again adding importance and worth to the product. The presenter is also trying to convince the audience that buying the product they will be more prestigious. Other examples are ‘pendant’, ‘white gold’, ‘heart cut stone’, and ‘two carats’. This last utterance could suggest that the real connotation is her choice of words. She could be using these words to add to the description and the worth of the product. Because she wants to attract attention she uses innovative language. She coins new words to make the products more memorable. Lexical choice is crucial to the effect an advertisement will have since it helps not only to sell the product but also create a relationship with the audience.
Sales Talk
She uses sales talk as a persuasive technique and fulfils the function of advertising, which is to persuade (connotative function) and also suggest to the audience on how they could use the products. This could be a subordinate function, which is to provide information (referential function).
Line 19-20: ‘accommodate a variety of those types of chains, so you could mix and match this with any of your favourite chains’
Here the presenter uses a more sophisticated language of sales as the word ‘accommodate’ suggests. She also uses fashion collocates ‘mix and match’ which grabs attention and adds interest to the description of the product.
Line 48-49: ‘it means that we can choose styles and designs’
Again in this utterance she use collocates ‘styles and designs’ associated with fashion. She uses the first person plural ‘we’, which adds to the sense of group definition, as the audience will feel included in the programme. The presenter is trying to convince the viewers that by buying the products they will be more stylish. Sales talk is an important part of the discourse as that way she will be convincing to the audience and most importantly she will convey her purpose. Evidently the text is purpose driven and sales talk achieves this explicitly in this context.
The presenter is acting like a professional and plays as someone who knows about jewellery and its worth. She also informs the audience that the prices given by QVC are of the most competitive prices.
Line 46-47: ‘amount of gold that you’re you know you’re getting for these highly competitive prices’
She achieves this role by using quasi-technical words like ‘swirl’, which makes her sound erudite.
Personalised Comments
The presenter refers to her own experience several times in the text. She uses the expressive function using the first person story.
Line 79-80: ‘First time I heard him say that I burst out laughing in the dressing room… some people er visiting QVC… I just think must sound very very strange if you…’
Here she refers to one of her experiences. The reason she might be doing this is to create solidarity with the audience. She attempts at being conversational intimate so that the audience feels like they know the presenter and will trust what she is saying.
Line 62-64: ‘I’ve just realised something (2.0) but all will become clear (2.0) in just a couple of moments. I have changed the ear in which I wear my earpiece… I used to wear the earpiece on my right ear’
She speaks about herself here as an incident has occurred and she feels obliged to explain what has happened in order to include the audience. She adopts a chatty, friendly tone. The presenter uses personalised comments to be deliberately informal.
2) Generic Features of Discourse
The text has a number of generic features that are found in this type of discourse and spoken language in general. The presenter possesses some of these features, although they are kept to the minimum. This could be because she is a professional and experienced in this field. She makes informed comments, which adds authority to her utterances. She does this by using pseudo-scientific talk.
Pseudo-scientific talk and Field Specific Lexis
She uses pseudo-scientific lexis throughout the text as it gives the product prestige and this acts as a persuasive device.
Line 13: ‘Look at the shape of the vial it’s almost as slightly’
Here she uses pseudo-scientific ‘vial’, which is also a quasi-technical word. This adds prestige to the product and it makes her sound professional, and authority and the repetition of this lexeme adds emphasis.
Line 23-24: ‘…turn it to the light here you can see that swirl of silver’
Phonological patenting like sibilance and alliteration make the products more memorable. The use of sibilance in ‘swirl of silver’ adds rhythm and interest in the description of the product in order for the presenter to attract the attention of the audience.
Line 40: ‘Have a look at these the diomodice saltier dangle drop earrings’
Here she guides the audience, using a mitigated imperative form, to look at the product without sounding too authoritative. She uses pseudo scientific field specific lexis related to diamonds, to add weight to her utterances, and uses a neologism. This reference to ‘diomodice’ sounds precious and exclusive. Alliteration is also evident ‘dangle drop’ which works as a cohesive and attention seeking device.
Although the information is al times technical and scientific, more often it is emotive and based on opinion rather than fact as throughout the data she describing the products suing personal endorsement and opinion, often implicitly.
Discourse Markers
She uses discourse markers to indicate the beginning or the end of a segment of the programme.
Line 8-9: ‘Now you could go into some of the most competitive jewellery stores’
Line 23: ‘Now look as I just turn it to’
Here the discourse marker ‘now’ is used as a tool to draw attention to what she wants the audience to look at. In the former utterance the presenter uses the conditional form ‘could’, which is more of a mitigated directive so it has a less authoritative feel. Deictic words like ‘now’ and hyperbolic adjectives ‘amazing’ are as Ogilvy describes them, ‘all shop worn clichés’ that work in the world of advertising. In the latter utterance she uses an imperative ‘look’ as the audience are being urged to buy. This adds a degree of immediacy and authority and puts the presenter in position of power.
Line 36: ‘Now previously over 500 of you have gone for this particular pendant’
Line 89-90: ‘…but never mind. Let’s have a look at what er we are going to be talking about now’
Discourse markers make it clear when there is a subject shift and draws the audience’s attention to what the presenter will be talking about next.
She uses politeness markers when she is asking the audience to buy the product.
Line 32-33: ‘please please do give us call’
Repetition
Repetition is expected in speech and the repetition in this context could be part of the presenter’s non-fluency features or used as a support to her memories in order for her to construct what she is going to say next. Repetition also highlights key messages she wants the audience to remember. She uses repetition to catch the audience’s attention and make her sales attach in the viewer’s memories.
Line 27-29: ‘…as I mentioned previously it’s not only the pendant that you’re looking at but you’re getting the chain as well’
Here she reminds the audience to what she said at the beginning of the programme one last time before she moves on to something else. This is a form of a persuasive technique.
Line 32,34-35: ‘…than please please do give us a call… by all means do feel free to come through on our website qvcuk.com’
She repeats this in the last part of each item guiding the audience on how to purchase the products and also unambiguously tries to accomplish her rationale to persuade the audience to buy the products. She uses this as a form of covert sales talk.
She also repeats words like ‘beautiful’, ‘wonderful’ and ‘pretty’. Arguably these can be regarded as idiolectical and favoured expressions and in this context she could be using them as a form of personal endorsement.
Non-fluency Features
Non-fluency features are part of the spoken discourse so inevitably it will be found in this discourse. However non-fluency features are kept to the minimum. This could be that presenter is an expert at what she does and also that the show is loosely scripted but non-fluency features are still apparent.
Line 30-31: ‘actually does form um a significant’
Line 33: ‘a call, er you can come’
In the first example the presenter distracts herself by looking at the product, which leads to her losing her train of thought, and to fill the gap she uses fillers. The second example she takes the time to remind herself of the phone number.
Self-Correction and false starts are also evident in the data, which is typical in spoken discourse.
Line 52-53: ‘You’ve actually got in each ear or in each earring rather’
Line 91-92: ‘incredible let me just show you what you getting in fact let me put this (2.0) I’m gonna put’
Here an unvoiced filler occurs in a form of a pause, which does not seem awkward as the audience is watching what the presenter is doing and more attention is paid to her actions.
Line 3: ‘Isn’t that beautiful? And really what’
A co-ordinating conjunction is used in the initial position, as this is typical of informal spoken language.
Line 62-64: ‘I’ve just realised something (2.0) but all will become clear (2.0) in just a couple of moments. I have changed the ear in which I wear my ear piece’
In this occurrence the presenter’s non-fluency features are due to this situational constraint. Something unplanned has happened which leads to her unvoiced fillers while she realises what has gone wrong. Than she explains to the audience what has happened make them feel included.
She also uses vague language ‘something’ when she is unsure in her utterances. Ellipsis and contractions are kept to the minimum, which could suggest her professionalism and the fact that the text is scripted. The lexis mirrors the mixture of informal and formal language creating personal relationship between presenter and the audience.
Quoting wise words
At one point the presenter quotes Julian Valentine.
Line 77-78: ‘as Julian Valentine would say a ‘carat in each ear that’s enough to beat a small donkey’
This invokes wisdom and authority because she is making reference to the wise words of Julian Valentine.
Personal pronouns
Most of pronouns used by the presenter consist of personal pronouns ‘I’, ‘you’ and ‘we’.
Line 6: ‘You are getting the chain as well’
Line 52-53: ‘You’ve actually got in each ear’
Line 43-44: ‘I think you know if we’re showing pieces that are competitively priced’
Line 22: ‘We are looking it the terms of a heart cut stone’
When the presenter uses the personal pronoun ‘you’ she is deictically referring to the audience who are not co-present. She directly addresses the potential customer. This draws the customer and it becomes hard for them to resist. When she uses the pronoun ‘I’ she is trying to create a relationship with the audience by occasionally referring to her stories or what she doing at that moment so that the audience is aware. This pronoun is more sentimental and personal. When she uses the pronoun ‘we’ she is trying to create an exclusive relationship with the audience and make the audience feel involved in the show. In other words this personal pronoun has the connotation of a territoriality and group definition.
Exaggerated intonation
Prosodic features help the presenter to mark out the important messages that she is trying to convey to the audience. The pace at which she carries out the programme reflects which messages are significant and which are not. When she is describing the product her pace is slow and quite easy to understand. However when she talks about her experiences the pace is quite rapid and seems almost as she wants to get it over quite quickly. She stresses the word ‘really’ consistently.
Line 75-76: ‘…again makes for a really interesting style and design’
This diphthong could be to intensify what she is trying to convey to the audience. Her voice tends to drop at the unimportant and up at the important, line 42-43: ‘have a look at that beautiful swirl’
Her prosodic features mark out the key meanings on her messages. Therefore she stresses certain words to emphasise her message.
Conclusion
The aim of this investigation was to examine how the presenter uses persuasive techniques in order to influence the audience to purchase the products she is selling. The presenter plays the role of authority, however this is at times mitigated. The audience looks at her as a professional who knows about the products they want to buy. She tries to interact with audience by referring to her personal experiences. Throughout the data I found many linguistic features which have an effect on the main purpose of the show and that is to persuade the audience.
Some of these features were quite apparent that would be found in this type of discourse as a means of persuasiveness as for example qualitative adjectives and sales talk. I found that field specific lexis was very functional to use as a persuasive technique or when the presenter uses quasi-technical lexis in order to add authority and prestige to the product. The linguistic features used above work together to make the show interesting and capture the audience attention but also work as persuasive device. Some are used overtly like sales talk and covertly as for example exaggerated intonation.
The personal pronouns like ‘we’ make the audience feel included and other pronouns like ‘you’ and ‘I’ also work to create an exclusive relationship between the audience and the presenter.
From the analysis I found that qualitative adjectives were not used too often however this was not by any means disadvantaging to the product. It was interesting to find out that the presenter uses the less exaggerated adjectives like ‘pretty’ but she intensifies them by going into detailed description of the product. I also found that neologism has an impact on the audience and it is an effective technique, which works as an attention-seeking device. The mix of formal and informal language is appropriate because although the presenter is seeking to establish a relationship with the audience she still tries to fulfil her purpose and that is to sell her products. She does this by occasionally using imperatives. Other feature that was interesting to find were phonological patterning, which make the products more memorable.
Limitations
In order to make a full analytical description of the way the presenter uses persuasive devices and in order to capture the attention of the audience paralinguistic features could also be taken into account as for example her facial expression and how they are used to convey her meaning. However my aim was examine the presenter’s linguistic features and not paralinguistic features. Therefore to make a full analytical description in the way persuasive techniques are used other features need to be taken into account. Other practical limitations were the length of the project, which does not give the freedom of analysing every aspect of the techniques used by the presenter. During my research I found that there was a lack of supporting linguistic studies so therefore it was hard to find any research that would help towards my data.
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