Discourse Analysis: Politeness Strategy in Body and Facial Advertisements

Discourse Analysis: Politeness Strategy in Body and Facial Advertisements
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Discourse Analysis: Politeness Strategy in Body and Facial Advertisements
Body and face advertisements are becoming more popular across all industries. These ads are characterized by attractive, persuasive messages and images that allure consumers towards specific products. Linguistic politeness plays a crucial role in helping these firms achieve the objectives mentioned above. Their strategies are equally more effective in maintaining social equilibrium and fostering rapport with consumers. Individuals who encounter polite linguistic aspects are more likely to be attentive to the polite language. Therefore, maintaining a sustainable emotional and social relationship with customers makes politeness crucial to the development of effective body and facial advertisements. Overall, identifying the most effective politeness strategies in body and facial advertisements and how they are employed to stimulate consumer desires forms the core of this study.
Literature Review
The topic of politeness theories is among the most popular areas of literature focus. Issa (2017) identifies an echo of Brown and Levinson's Politeness Theory and acknowledges that it resonates more with most studies on this field. The model aims at accounting for the politeness phenomenon and its extraordinary parallelism portrayed through linguistic minutiae utterances. The latter helps unearth the underlying communication modes that are standard or universal across all human interactions, reflecting the inferences and assumptions made in speech planning. The primary strength of this study is its focus on the cultural impact of the above theory on consumer's perceptions about specific products. Whereas the literature explores the view from a print media perspective, the above factor applies to the body and facial advertisements.

The researcher uses various popularity statistics to justify why some platforms yield better politeness strategy outcomes than others. For example, the author posits that 3% of people listen to the radio, 11% read magazines, 9% watch TV, while 70% of the world population read newspapers, making the former more popular (Chen, 2008). It, therefore, doubles that there should be more focus on politeness advertisement strategies based on the above statistics. The number of hours spent on these platforms has also been cited among the primary determinants of their effectiveness for politeness strategy application. According to Chen (2008), people spend an average of 3.6 hours watching TV, 0.9 hours reading newspapers, 1.47 hours listening to the radio, and 0.6 hours reading magazines. These statistics can therefore be used in prioritizing the politeness strategy advertisement platform.
The study has also identified a significant number of research gaps which are also among its greatest strengths. In an ideal situation, research should focus on their research questions, identify areas that have failed to address and recommend further future studies. Among the research gaps identified herein is the failure by existing literature to explicitly provide detailed information on politeness advertisement speech linguistic phenomenon (Chen, 2008). Most of the current studies focus on the TV shopping speech, which mainly probes linguistic elements of TV shopping speeches from the program's perspective. However, this study explicitly explains how advertisers have been able to draw consumers' attention and arouse their purchasing or buying desires through verbal messages in TV shopping ads (Chen, 2008). The number of times these ads appear on the screen and the more time people spend watching TV makes it the most appropriate platform for politeness linguistic strategy body and facial advertising. The above finding is also among the greatest strengths of this study, further proving the need for its inclusion in this research.
Cultural attitudes towards body and face advertisements have also been discussed in the literature. There is adequate evidence proving that certain cultures abhor the nudity that characterizes some of the body and facial adverts (Wolf, 2013). The politeness, linguistic, and image strategies primarily aim to address the problem mentioned above by considering the emotional and cultural impact of the words and images used on the target audience (Pishghadam and Navari, 2012). For example, the African and Asian population's approach to nudity or body exposure in advertisements differs from those of their western counterparts. To maintain politeness, companies such as Venus and Nivea have developed adverts unique to these populations (Wolf, 2013). The same problem is faced when advertising products that promote the whiteness of skin color. According to Saraswati (2020), the latter approach has been blamed on the poor attitudes or perceptions about these products among rural and non-white populations, hence the need for polite messaging in advertising or promoting such products. The above studies explore the crucial roles of culture and race in determining the most appropriate politeness strategy for body and facial advertising.
The politeness advertisement selection process is another area that has received significant research attention. Khalik and Supatmiwat (2016) explore why some politeness strategies are more popular than others despite having shared objectives. The approach aims at identifying or revealing the most promising method used in magazine and TV advertisements (Khalik and Supatmiwat, 2016). Understating this phenomenon helps determine the most appropriate politeness strategy measures to adopt body and facial advertising across different platforms. It also allows advertisers to be aware of the needs and feelings of their audiences to effectively and harmoniously communicate their messages. The findings of the above study affirm that politeness is the most potent constraint protecting the feelings of others in any social interaction (Khalik and Supatmiwat, 2016). The research also compares the politeness strategies used by advertisers from different countries with a specific focus on Indonesian and England.
The positive fact politeness is among the strategies that have been cited in the above literature for its cross-cultural effectiveness. Khalik and Supatmiwat (2016) hold that the approach uses images that evoke confidence and alleviate fear, causing a pleasing effect on the audience. The primary characteristics of the approach have also been included in the study, hence its importance of this research to the topic. The author holds that the strategy aims at showing interest, concern, optimism, guarantee, and promise while also offering a reason, fostering commitment, approval, and empathy (Khalik and Supatmiwat, 2016). The other politeness approach discussed in the literature is the "Bald-On Record approach. the widespread use of advice characterizes the strategy, requests, warnings, disagreements and other imperative forms. For example, “get there first and, then take it slow” is among the examples used by the author to explain the point (Khalik and Supatmiwat,2016). Introducing, defining, and using relevant examples while exploring this strategy is among the literature's top strengths, hence its inclusion in this study.
The Research Questions
What are the politeness strategies used in body and facial care ads?
Politeness StrategyNumber of Adverts out of 30Positive Politeness19Don’t do the fta5Off record strategy3Bald on record strategy2Negative politeness strategy1
How are politeness strategies employed in body and facial care ads to stimulate consumers’ desires?
Analytical Framework and Methodology
The research problem addressed in the previous chapter of this study was embedded in the conceptual and theoretical framework. The issues reviewed helped identify the already conducted research on politeness strategies on the body and facial advertisements. The research also explored the existing divergent positions, theories, debates, and trends of the aspects of this discipline. The approach helped establish the extent to which current politeness advertisement practices can be adopted to enhance the purposes of this study. Moreover, it was also discovered that existing literature on politeness strategies used in body and face advertisements can adequately address the issues of concern in this study. The research identified several pieces of literature and data that support the aims and objective of this study. They were then subjected to a comparative test to ascertain their relevance to the research. Those that met the threshold in terms of content and accuracy of findings were included in the study. The primary means of determining the above was comparing information from different sources to discover the shared positions and whether their conclusions are corroborated in other pieces of literature.
The main keywords used for literature search were politeness advertisements, linguistic politeness strategies, and politeness strategies used to promote body and facial promotions. The investigation was open, meaning not limited to any source. The approach ensured that as much information as possible was gathered from all available and relevant databases. Among the databases and journals used were the Journal of politeness Research, Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, and the Meridians. The data gathering and analysis were done through qualitative and quantitative methods as deemed appropriate, based on the research questions. Data from credible media reports and findings of body and facial advertisements also formed a crucial part of this study. Overall, a mixed model of analysis was used to achieve the objectives of this research.
Analysis
The first main of the research was to identify and explain the politeness strategies used in body and facial care ads. A survey on different types of politeness strategies and their popularity across various advertisement or media platforms showed varied results. The following is a table from a survey comparing the number of times multiple strategies are applied in body and facial advertisements.
Politeness StrategyNumber of Adverts out of 30Positive Politeness19Don’t do the fta5Off record str...