Rhetorical structures in the language of Vietnamese advertisements

Abstract

Understanding the structure and function of rhetorical figures in advertising requires a text- and reader-aware approach. In the absence of appropriate text-centered terminology (e.g., scheme, trope), and without access to the necessary conceptual tools (e.g., deviation), the longstanding and widespread use of rhetorical figures in advertising has simply been overlooked in consumer research. This article builds a framework for categorizing rhetorical figures that distinguishes between figurative and non-figurative text, between two types of figures (schemes and tropes), and among three rhetorical operations that underlie individual figures (repetition, reversal, and substitution) in Vietnamese advertisements.