A Socio-pragmatic Study of Persuasion in the Cosmetic Advertisements on Social Media

Abstract

To persuade someone, that means performing an act of using some form of communication. But this form of communication needs some factors to be quite effective because persuasion alone is not enough to affect anyone especially those clients in the field of cosmetics on social media , because we actually deal with different moods.  Thus, the speakers have such useful factors as Joos's explanation of formality, speech act , alpha strategies of persuasion and politeness as a mixture of sociolinguistics and pragmatics so as to send the messages of the advertisements successfully and confidently. This study has examined and analyzed fourteen selected advertisements of cosmetics to prove that the advertisements have achieved a great amount of sales through the use of the above factors. The data analysis has revealed that the advertisements have a high persuasiveness. Such results have proved the significant role of persuasive speech acts that resulted from not only speech acts , but also alpha strategies of persuasion and politeness showing a strong impact on customers of cosmetics on social media.