Rhetorical Devices in English Automobile Advertisements

Abstract

With the rapid development of China’s economy, automobile industry has become an important part of economic development. Automobile advertisements, aiming at automobile sales, often display the automobile quality, performance and corporate image, etc. by means of certain rhetorical devices. 

Previously, scholars have done studies respectively from the linguistic characteristics, rhetorical devices and their translation of advertisements. However, different from other researches, this thesis only focuses on the specific type of advertisement---the English automobile advertisements. And this paper makes a thorough analysis of the rhetorical devices employed in English automobile advertisements, and exemplifies the employment of various rhetorical devices in English automobile advertisements, and then analyzes the effects of advertisements on automobile sales. Therefore, we can have a better understanding of English automobile advertisements.

Consisting of four chapters, this paper focuses on the analysis of rhetorical devices in English automobile advertisements. The first chapter gives a brief introduction to advertisements in connection with the social background. The second chapter introduces basic information of automobile advertisements, including its development, current situation and functions. The third chapter is given to analyze application of various rhetorical devices in English automobile advertisements with specific examples and functions of these rhetorical devices. The last chapter analyzes the effects of using rhetorical devices in automobile advertisements. Therefore, this thesis will provide readers with some enlightenment and reference of English automobile advertisements.

Key words: rhetorical devices; automobile advertisements; effects