The data in this research include print ads collected from five magazines: Global Views (天下雜誌), Common Wealth (遠見), Education/ Parenting/ Family Lifestyle (親子天下), My Home (漂亮家居), and Next Magazine (壹週刊). The first two magazines, Global Views and Common Wealth, are monthlies classified as “financial magazines” (財經類) according to Publication Annual published by Information Office of Executive Yuan in 2007, although in fact both of them also cover political issues. As for the third and the fourth periodicals, Education/ Parenting/ Family Lifestyle and My Home, they are grouped together as “magazines of family and leisure” (生活休閒類) in Publication Annual. The last one, Next magazine, is identified as “news magazines” (新聞類).
There are two reasons for selecting these five magazines. First, they are all very popular magazines with a large number of loyal readers, and most of them are usually the best-sellers in comparison with other magazines of the same category. Second, selection from three categories will increase the variety of the ad types; and the reason why there are two financial magazines and magazines of family and leisure but only one news magazine is because the ads in Next Magazine outnumber those from the others.
In order to investigate the linguistic strategies employed in current print ads, we
chose the issues published in 2011. More information of the magazines chosen is collected and analyzed from a linguistic perspective. In addition, the print ads in these magazines were further divided into 15 types on the basis of the products that are promoted. A preliminary classification of the products is as follows: real estate, domestic appliance, daily necessities, food, vehicles, cosmetics, luxuries, medicine, entertainment, 3C (i.e. computer, communication, and consumer electronic), financial service, educational service, government policy, tourism, and service business.
One dilemma in collecting our data lies in the feature of advertising language to be strange, novel, unique, and bizarre in some cases but simple, crystal-clear, and straightforward on other cases. To avoid subjective judgment of whether a slogan deserves further analysis, it is suggested that only novel or attractive texts which are linguistically significant were selected and analyzed.
Several criteria were set to determine whether a unit of ad language should be included in our databank. First, slogans which have rhythmic cadence can facilitate memorability of ads and are included. In this way, tactfully repetitive use of any
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linguistic units is counted. An example is in jiankang shi jiao gei bailanshi (健康事，
交給白蘭氏 ‘for things about health, turn to Brand’s’, a brand of chicken soup). The
repetitive ending adds rhythmic flavor to the slogan and increases its memorability, thus should be seen as an attractive unit.
Second, interesting slogans which require people to figure out their meaning are successful in arousing consumers’ curiosity. Thus, they are undoubtedly novel messages that deserve our analysis. This category includes any manipulations of language, as shown in zhexia, bing ku le (這夏，冰酷了 ‘this summer/time, it is very cool!’), in which the sound xia is manipulated to acquire two meanings.
Third, new terms and deliberate change of the original meanings of a linguistic unit are arguably a kind of novelty and attractiveness. For instance, baoganqian (爆肝 錢 ‘exhaustive-liver-money’) is a new term whose meaning should be figured out by
inferring from the segments of this term. Besides, in cases such as chuanshang ta, binfen shang shen (穿上它，繽紛上身 ‘Put it on, and colorfulness will get on you’), the term binfen has been changed from a property to something which can be put on one’s body. A unit with such deviation from conventional use is also viewed as a novel expression.
Fourth, to transmit more information within limit space, successful ads are expected to convey more than their literal meanings. Therefore, messages that have hints, puns, or information which implies presupposition or presumptions taken by the ad maker are treated as attractive texts. For example, rutiedanbai you duo zhongyao ( 乳 鐵 蛋 白 有 多 重 要 ‘how important is Lactoferrin?’) expresses the idea that Lactoferrin is an indispensable element for human body even without asking if consumers really agree on it. Texts expressing information beyond the original claims are also worth discussion in the present work.
Fifth, the significance of the credibility of an ad has been widely attested as an
important feature of an ad (see section 2.2). Thus, if an ad successfully appeals to a person’s image or influence on the public, we also regard it as an attractive message.
In shumake buzhi daiyan qinshen tiyan shinian (舒馬克 不只代言 親身體驗十年
‘Schumacher not only recommends it but also has used it for ten years’), the advertised mineral water is successfully promoted by the influential image of a very famous racing driver. Ad language with celebrities’ influence is treated as a type of attractive use in this study.
Sixth, texts which manipulate the sentence pattern in avoidance of plain description of the promoted product are also unusual and special. In sentences like xiangwan,haizai deng sheme (想玩，還在等什麼 ‘Want to play? What are you still waiting for’), the ad maker uses a more provocative and alluring mood instead of directly suggesting how good the product is. These messages are counted and analyzed as well.
Seventh, some comparison of events or concepts may yield interesting or funny descriptions, which are also regarded as attractive messages. An example is shown in fumu ye xuyao cong haiz de baoquan biancheng jiaolian (父母也需要從孩子的保全 變成教練 ‘parents also should be their children’s coaches but not their guards’).
Instead of just asking parents what to do, the comparison of parents to an occupation is creative and deserves readers’ attention as well. In other words, interesting comparisons should also be collected in our data for analysis.
Eighth, sentence mood in ad slogans should also be considered. Intended circumlocution in ads is a strange phenomenon, thus worth for discussion. The example rangni wandejinxing (讓你玩得盡興 ‘it allows you to have a lot of fun’) is actually used to sell sex toys, and thus is a circumlocution for having sex. Excessively straightforward and direct suggestions are in accordance of the ultimate goal of an ad,
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as shown in 3 zhong lidun naicha,yige dou bie fangguo (3 種立頓奶茶，一個都別放 過 ‘three kinds of Lipton milk tea, do not miss one of them!’) Since these slogans
have the function to summarize what the whole ad actually intends to convey, these suggestive sentences are included.
Last, messages which use a different language code are salient and thus are usually more attractive to readers. Thus, sudden switching to another language is treated as a type of novelty. However, we only consider code-switching where the switched code is a newly used one rather than a well-established use. A new code-switching is illustrated inzhaocai nafu smile meiyitian (招財納福, smile 每一天
‘become rich and fortunate, smile every day’), in which switching to the English word smile adds energetic vigor to the claim. A cliché code switching is in han pengyou skype lianluo ganqing (和朋友 skype 聯絡感情 ‘to keep in touch with friends by skype’) since the communicational software SKYPE has always been talked about in English by people in Taiwan.
Contrary to the criteria for attractive persuasive messages, plain descriptions without any innovative use of language will be excluded. Plain language with no novelty includes utterances like pinzhi anxin you baozhang ( 品 質 安 心 有 保 障
‘guaranteed quality makes you relieved’), in which there is no innovative effect since the default feature displayed by all advertisements is to claim their product is good, not bad. Other cases which will be filtered out are like positively-evaluative terms such as dingji gaoxia (頂級高效 ‘top level and highly efficient’) because almost every ad contains these kinds of selling strategies, and whether a positively-evaluative term is attractive enough or not is too subjective and thus depends on personal judgment. Still other cases are comparative or superlative constructions such as chuangzao geng meihaode weilai (創造更美好的未來 ‘to have a better future’) because it is always not surprising for advertisers to emphasize the improvement
brought by the promoted products.
The selection of novel or attractive persuasive texts was made by the author and another rater, who is a 31-year-old high-school teacher. Only the novel or attractive units that are agreed by both of the raters will be included in our databank. After the process of filtering, 713 units, which are coded by both raters as being novel and attractive, are retained. The inter-rater reliability is .94. Linguistic classification of strategies is conducted by the author according to the literature, and then each linguistic unit was coded according to the classification scheme. Then the linguistic persuasive strategies adopted are further counted and analyzed.