Hybridization in American TV Commercials

Abstract

Since advertising represents one-way, public communication the message of which is to sell the product being advertised, the persuader's task is to background the persuasive intention of the message in order to mitigate the negative impact of the persuasiveness. Simultaneously, the persuader has to support the persuadee's trust in the product's quality and usefulness. From the point of view of linguistics, this means that the persuader combines features related to formality, impersonality and detachment, with those connected with informality, personality and involvement. In other words, the discourse of advertising mingles elements of writtenness with the elements of spokenness to make the advertising message more acceptable but still credible. The elements can be found on every linguistic level. Advertising communication thus becomes a private, colloquial interaction where the persuader treats the persuadee respectfully as a social equal. The objective of the present paper is to analyze the way the three language entities, the secondary participant, the voice-over and the super, participate in the process of hybridization in TV advertising for products of everyday use.