Author name: هاني كامل نعيمة العبادي

Supervisor name: فريد حميد حمزة الهنداوي

General topic: Foreign Languages

Specific topic: English - Language

Degree: Doctorate

University: University of Babylon - College Of Education For Human Sciences - Department Of English Language

Language: English

University location: Babylon

First pages:

Abstract: This work is concerned with manipulation as used in commercial advertisements. It is believed that the topic in question has not received sufficient attention by researchers, precisely pragmatically. As such, this study attempts to fill in this gap in the arena of pragmatic research of manipulation, particularly in the genre of commercial advertisements.Hence, it aims at the following : finding out the types of manipulative commercial advertisements, pinpointing the manipulative stages of the pragmatic argument advertisers make use of in their advertising texts, pursuing the manipulative tactics aiming at misleading consumers through stages of manipulative pragmatic argument, identifying the pragmatic strategies subdued by advertisers to actualize the manipulative tactics in each stage, showing whether or not the stages of the manipulative pragmatic argument in commercial advertisements employ the same tactics and strategies through manipulating consumers, finding out the most frequently used types, stages, tactics and strategies in the different stages of the manipulative commercial advertisements, figuring out the differences and similarities between the different commercial advertisements in the four sectors of products at the levels of types, stages, tactics and strategies, and, developing a pragmatic model for analyzing manipulation in commercial advertisements.The study hypothesizes that advertisers utilize variable types of manipulative advertisements to mislead consumers to buy the advertised product, they manipulate their consumers mostly with the manipulative pattern of three stages in their commercial advertisements, manipulation in commercial advertisements calls for a diversity of manipulative tactics for each stage of the advertisement to mislead consumers, the manipulative tactics of Misrepresentationviiiand Commission are the most frequently used ones in the topical potential of the advancing stage whereas Human Error is the best candidate in the justifying stage, the manipulative tactic of Face Demand is the most effective one to fulfill audience adaptation in the aforementioned stages, manipulative speech acts of asserting, recommending, suggesting are the most frequent pragmatic strategies of topical potential in the advancing stage to manipulate consumers in commercial advertisements, all manipulative conversational maxims can be used effectively to fulfill the manipulative tactic of Commission in the advancing stage, namely those of quantity and manner, manipulative fallacious relevant arguments stand as the most frequently used types of fallacious arguments to satisfy the manipulative tactic of Human Error in the topical potential in the justifying stage, particularly those of Self - interest and Manipulation of Emotions in addition to the fallacious acceptable argument of Misleading Accent, on - record positive politeness strategies, specifically those of claiming common ground, are the most frequently invested pragmatic strategies to achieve the manipulative tactic of Face Demand in both advancing and justifying stages, and, advertisers of different sectors of commercial advertisements follow the same manipulative types, stages, tactics and strategies to manipulate consumers with variable percentages of frequencies.To achieve the aims of the study and test the validity of its hypotheses, the study follows certain producers. It reviews the literature about manipulation in general and its use in commercial advertisements in particular, examines the relation between manipulation and other pragmatic issues, collects and describes the data in relation to the genre under study and uses the model developed by the study in addition to some statistical means to qualitatively and quantitatively analyze the data under scrutiny.All the hypotheses of the study are vindicated except the fifth and the seventh ones which are rejected partly. The study arrives at various findings themost important of which is that advertisers use the same manipulative types of commercial advertisements, stages, tactics and strategies, but with different percentages to manipulate their consumers.