Speech genres, speech acts and the language of advertising

An advertisement can be described as a specific speech pattern having a certain genre and composition structure. Since an advertisement is much alike primary speech genres (message, announcement, explanation) in terms of their form and communicative goal, the theory of speech acts can be applied to their study. The illocutionary goal of an advertisement as a speech act is communication of information, but the illocutionary force represents more complicated set of means of positive emotional impact on an addressee. However, sometimes the advertising impact (perlocutionary effect) may differ from that anticipated and result in communication failure.

illocutionary force, illocutionary goal, composition, advertisement, speech acts, speech genre, perlocutionary effect