Covert Persuasion in English Advertisements and Political Speeches

Persuasion has always been an integral aspect of human interaction that operates in different professional and lingua-cultural settings. The notion of persuasion as a key component of communication was brought into the world by classical rhetoric. Although, the art and science of persuasion has been of interest since the time of the Ancient Greeks, there are fundamental differences between the ways in which persuasion occurs today and how it has occurred in the past. While previous studies have been conducted regarding persuasion in advertisement and political speeches, the current research, however, is a quest for the underlying covert persuasion strategies adopted by advertising agencies and political figures or parties. Moreover, while previous studies have concentrated on how language relates to power and what linguistic elements are used by politicians and advertisers to persuade their voters and costumers, the current paper has meticulously focused on the covert attempts and endeavors by politicians and advertisers who employ various elusive techniques to serve their concealed intentions. The scope of this research primarily focuses on two major fields – Advertisement and Political Speeches. Ten texts have been analyzed where persuasion plays a vital role in the way of getting customers and voters to change attitude, belief and act in certain ways. It has been found that covert persuasion best functions within the trope category (mainly metaphor, allusion, and metonymy) which is primarily realized through the mediation of semantic meaning. Schemes have no function within covert persuasion as they are basically more blatant. Two persuasion strategies, three persuasion techniques, and the use of personal pronouns all serve covert persuasion purposes. And covert persuasion can be more effective than overt persuasion in that they batter serve positive face.