ANALYSIS OF IMPERATIVITY IN ADVERTISING SPEECH

SOME FUNCTIONAL CONSIDERATIONS

Abstract

This article, based on a functionalist perspective of language, focused on the functional, contextual, argumentative and communicative aspects of language use, aims to analyze, in a broad sense, the phenomenon of imperativity in advertisements. In this sense, those in which the imperative verbal mode is not used (explicitly) will be analyzed. In these cases, we observe that imperativity happens through the use of various pragmatic, semantic, discursive and syntactic aspects, which assist in the composition of the advertising message, in order to lead the consumer to purchase the product, even without being ordered through the explicit imperative verbal mode. We will also present an overview of the functionalist principles, having as theoretical framework the works of (DIK, 1989; 1997), (HALLIDAY, 1973; 1985) and (HENGEVELD; MACKENZIE, 2008). The results show that imperativity is configured through syntactic, semantic, rhetorical, pragmatic and illocutionary strategies. In other words, it is a strategy that constitutes the relationship between users of the language, more specifically, the interaction between advertiser and potential buyer.