Pragmatic Force of Covid-19 Ads as Health Protection Practices in Mass Media Discourse: A Contrastive Analysis Study

Abstract

Moving on speech act theory, this study aims to analyse texts in Covid-19 Ads from different parts of the world in order to explore the pragmatic force of mass media discourse across contexts. Thus, the data source of the study is 450 Covid-19 Ads from countries in Asian context, in European context, and in American context compiled from the websites of countries national web platforms. Following qualitative paradigm, the linguistic functions of Covid-19 Ads were analysed on the basis of descriptive analysis moving on ready-made categories in order to compare and contrast the sort of pragmatic force employed in Ads. The overall findings show that, regarding the frequency of illocutionary acts across contexts, there are no significant differences among the Ads in terms of the pragmatic force. Directives and assertives were found to be the most frequent illocutionary acts in texts. In this respect, Covid-19 Ads seemingly perform the same function in mass media discourse of Asian, European, and American contexts; that is, the public discourse is pragmatically manipulated by the Ads for the sake of health protection practices.

Keywords

• Pragmatic Force
• Speech Act Theory
• Covid-19 Ads
• Mass Media Discourse
• Contrastive Analysis
• Pragmatics

Medya Söyleminde Sağlık Koruma Faaliyeti Olarak Covid-19 Reklamlarının Edimsel Eylemi: Bir Karşıtsal Çözümleme Çalışması

Abstract

Moving on speech act theory, this study aims to analyse texts in Covid-19 Ads from different parts of the world in order to explore the pragmatic force of mass media discourse across contexts. Thus, the data source of the study is 450 Covid-19 Ads from countries in Asian context, in European context, and in American context compiled from the websites of countries national web platforms. Following qualitative paradigm, the linguistic functions of Covid-19 Ads were analysed on the basis of descriptive analysis moving on ready-made categories in order to compare and contrast the sort of pragmatic force employed in Ads. The overall findings show that, regarding the frequency of illocutionary acts across contexts, there are no significant differences among the Ads in terms of the pragmatic force. Directives and assertives were found to be the most frequent illocutionary acts in texts. In this respect, Covid-19 Ads seemingly perform the same function in mass media discourse of Asian, European, and American contexts; that is, the public discourse is pragmatically manipulated by the Ads for the sake of health protection practices.

Keywords

• Covid-19 Ads
• Pragmatic Force
• Speech Act Theory
• Mass Media Discourse
• Contrastive Analysis
• Pragmatics

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