St Thomas University Questionable Language Essay

Questionable language is everywhere, especially in advertisements. Companies want you to buy their products, so they often use questionable language in their advertisements in order to persuade you to think a certain way. Sometimes organizations want you to think a certain way, so they create advertisements that promote their organization but also try to persuade you to think the same way they do.

Advertisements are written by people who want us to understand and be swayed by their points of view. When creating advertisements, the writers will often use certain tricks and tactics in order to get us to buy their products.

For this assignment, you need to find four real advertisements that have TWO types of questionable language in each of them. After you find four advertisements, you will fill out a series of questions about each advertisement. In order to complete this assignment, you will need to complete the Chapter 7 study guide first.

Search “popular advertisements” into Google images. You CANNOT use any of the advertisements that are in the notes or in the example document.

Look at the example in the document in order to help you understand the directions for this assignment. You will also need to use your Chapter 7 study guide. You need to have two types of questionable language PER advertisement, and you cannot use Romancing the Product. because every product is romanced. The most common terms companies use are denotation, connotation, cultural connotation, reification, self-fulfilling prophecy, vagueness, ambiguity, euphemism, jargon, and weasel words, so find advertisements containing examples of these terms. Do not use terms that are not part of that study guide. You can only use a term from the Chapter 7 study guide twice in this assignment so you can practice identifying the various terms. Copy and paste the advertisements you want into the Word document where is says #1, #2, and #3. I need to be able to see which advertisements go with which answers.

Hint: Weasel words and phrases include “may,” “might,” “could,” “can,” “can be,” “virtually,” “up to,” “as much as,” “help,” “like,” “believe,” “possibly,” and others that give the idea of “maybe.”

Use the example document below if you need help with this assignment. Type your answers into the template below. Open the template document and rename it.