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Keywords: advertising, manipulation, persuasion, the Russian language
Abstract
The purpose of this article is to analyse the phenomenon of linguistic manipulation in the advertising of nutriments and dietary supplements published in Russian body-building magazines. Advertisers use the persuasive capabilities of the language on its various levels in order to create an effective message. Common manipulative methods in slogans include the use of references to the world of sporting values, the recommendation of the product by sports authorities, and the use of evaluative lexis. Also, short expressive syntactic structures loaded with forms of imperatives have the potential for manipulation.
1. Introduction
The constantly growing popularity of bodybuilding, power sports and fitness in Russia and around the world is not surprising, especially since the human pursuit of idealised beauty, desire for a muscular physique, and promoting active lifestyles have become the features of modern times. Tlie publishing market offers more and more periodicals devoted to bodybuilding and related sports, which include, inter alia, valuable advice related to workouts and diet. They also present the profiles of champions, and carry reports from domestic and foreign competitions. Advertisements for nutriments and dietary supplements, which from the linguistic point of view are an interesting object of research, take an important and sometimes even dominant place on the pages of the magazines.
Advertising is a subject of interest for a variety of scientific disciplines. The authors of interesting works in the field of advertising are, among others, Leech (1966), Heath (2001), Pirogova (2001), Kochan (2005), Bralczyk (2004), Fedotova (2005), Lewinski (2008), Zimny (2008), Serdobinceva (2010), Wojtaszek (2011), etc. However, the intensive development of advertising makes this area an endless source of research material and requires additional comment.
The focus of this article is the Russian advertising of nutriments and dietary supplements used by bodybuilders, strongmen and fitness enthusiasts. The empirical material, i.e. advertising slogans, was selected from professional periodicals from the Russian press (">Ke;ie3Hbm MMp", "Mnp cn/ibi"), as well as the Russian editions of renowned foreign magazines ("FLEX", "Muscle and Fitness", "Iron Man Magazine") issued in 2012-2013. The purpose of the article is to define the role of language in creating relevant advertisements, and to indicate the specific mechanisms and strategies of language manipulation used to create a convincing commercial...