Suggestive Phrases in the German Industrial Advertising Text (Based on the Material of Mining Equipment Advertising)

Abstract

<jats:p>The present research featured German texts of mining equipment advertising, namely phrases with suggestive pragmasemantic potential. The research objective was to reveal the semantic characteristics of these language units. The article classifies and describes various pragmasemantic types of suggestive phrases using methods of componential, morphological, and syntactic analyses. The function of suggestion in mining equipment advertising proved to be of specific nature, as it has to oppose the conscious desire of a technical specialist to purchase effective and profitable equipment. The suggestion function in these texts belonged to words and phrases that created a positive image of the advertising object and suggestively described its usefulness to the consumer. A significant proportion of phrases contained the seme "safety", which could be explained by the following pragmatic presupposition: mining is highly dangerous; therefore, equipment should help to increase production safety. Such ergonomic characteristics of mining equipment as "controllability", "manufacturability", and "masterability" also depended on industrial safety. Most suggestive phrases appeared to have an adjective nuclear component, because German primarily uses adjectives to describe quality.</jats:p>