Suggestion realization strategies in political advertisement slogans

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Suggestion realization strategies in political advertisement slogans

Anastasia Kovalevska

ORIPA NAPA under the President of Ukraine

International Relations Sector Leading Specialist

PhD in Philology

The modern information society most of the European countries find themselves in as of now is currently «reviving the natural audio-visual, multidimensional world perception and collectivity, but on a brand new e-basis - via replacing the written and printed communication languages with the radio, TV and network means of mass communication» [15, p. 14], thus, producing the new models of mass communication as the interaction of «the social subjects via mass information exchange with the help of the special means (press, radio, TV), which results in the message's being received by the large groups of people at once» [2, p. 118]. Ch. Wright also emphasizes that «the mass communication is directed towards the large and heterogeneous audiences, which are anonymous concerning the communicator oneself» [quoted via 7], and in its network, the messages are transmitted extremely quickly, in order to reach as large an audience as possible, and usually at once. And the peculiarity of the mass communications, according to S. Kvit, is «above all things, their utilizing the mass media» [6, p. 11], where «the medialinguistic background of the modern communication creates the multisound and polyphony, as well as the polytonality of the communicative discourse» [ibid, p. 38]. When mentioning the activity of the modern mass media, M. McLuhan divides then into «hot» and «cold» ones [9], where the «hot» ones fully activate one body sensation (i.e. radio), while the «hot» ones make all the body sensation activate (i.e. TV). J.G. Shaheen supported this classification, and noted that, say, radio «doesn't cause such a high level of the audience's empathy as the TV does in its programs. Its role lies within creating a audio background or leveling the lack of silence. And the TV charms you» [18, p. 169-170] with its universality, polyfunctionality, «live picture» magic, idyllic world of advertisement etc. Though, in spite of all the pros of the modern information technologies as a whole, and mass media in particular, one cannot leave aside the equally obvious cons of these communication development results, which, from the philosophical, technical and technological angle, are viewed «not only as the good for humanity, but also as a problem that could have dramatic consequences» [4, p. 86]. In this aspect, the scientists are worried by the wide spread of so-called pathogenic texts which are «either prohibited by the law, or do not fit into the dominant social morals domain» [11, p. 32]. B. Potyatynyk and M. Lozynskiy state that such texts are aimed at «undermining faith in God, ignoring the state's interests, posing a threat to the global safety and social morals, neglecting the person's basic rights and freedoms, and harmful psychological influence (excessive display of violence)» [ibid, p. 157]. The researchers J. Bryant and S. Thompson define the latter trait as a harmful «ability of particular media production types to carry out an exciting influence towards the audience; influence of the new communication technologies, influence of sexually overt media production» [3, p. 22], which is nowadays widely represented within the advertisement products diversity, first of all - the political advertisement, its language being the integral part of politics and authoritative decisions, as well as the society's functioning as a whole.

As it is stated by most of the scientists researching the advertisement phenomenon (T. Kovalevska, R. Ivanchenko, R. Mokshantsev, G. Pocheptsov and others), suggestive function is its basic one, scilicet advertisement is directed towards persuading the consumer that one needs to purchase the advertised product, to «change one's habits and preferences, and maybe even needs» [13, p. 83], reaching, in such a way, the in-depth psychomental guidelines of the personality and society. While realizing this function, the advertisement basically relies on «the human's unconscious desire to compensate the lost symbolism of one's correlation with the world of things» [12, p. 113], and attempts «with the help of signs, to fill the void the psyche protests against» [ibid]. It is the activation of the subconscious mechanisms and collective subconscious archetypes (see C. Jung's works) that make «the perception and decision-making processes externally illogical (irrational)» [5, p. 29], and turn the objective information perception process into a non-dominant one, whereas «implementation of such messages is carried out with the help of the psychological complex influential means, which tend to override the cognitive sphere which is prone to criticism» [8, p. 73], and to exercise manipulative influence onto the individual's consciousness and subconscious.

Thus, utilizing the suggestion techniques in the sphere of politics and public management is extremely crucial not only in order to analyze the political texts, but to optimize the very construction of these texts considering the according brand new scientific technologies, as well, what defines the relevance of this work.

Our article is aimed at highlighting the peculiarities of the very speech immanent suggestogeneousness realization strategies in the political slogan as one of the basic advertisement campaign components. In order to achieve this aim, it is necessary to find solutions to the following specific tasks: outline the peculiarities of the political slogan as a potentially suggestogeneous text, characterize the suggestion realization mechanisms in the political advertisement texts, isolate the according suggestogeneous items, and classify them basing on the functional semantic characteristics identity. Political advertisement slogans having been presented in the political advertisement campaigns 2015-2016 (over 100 items) became the factual data of the research, the fundamental provisions of R. Bandler and J. Grinder's Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), L. Murzin and I. Cherepanova's Suggestive Linguistics and P Ekman's Theory of Lies (Psychology of Lies) being its methodological grounds. The political slogan as the structural component of the political advertisement campaign is the object of our research, while its immanent suggestogeneousness' linguistic peculiarities are the subject.

It has to be noted that in Ukraine, the aspect of the language influence techniques utilizing in the social communications isn't formally regulated, but is indirectly mentioned in a row of laws, including «Law of Ukraine on Print Media (Press) in Ukraine», «Law of Ukraine on Information», «Law of Ukraine on Advertisement» and others, but these legislative acts do not always take the specificity of advertisement as an immanently suggestogeneous text into account (see works by T. Kovalevska, I. Cherepanova, L. Murzin, I. Morozova, R. Bandler, J. Grinder, R. Dilts and others), what greatly complicates diagnosing the level of its pathogenicity. For example, in Subparagraph 4 of Paragraph 1 of Article 8 of the «Law of Ukraine on Advertisement», it is stated that, in advertisement, in is prohibited «to utilize the means and technologies that affect the advertisement consumers' subconscious» [1], although, as it has been proved in the researches by the leading Ukrainian and foreign scientists, suggestive function is the basic one of any advertisement, and is realized in influencing the recipient's subconscious, activating the non-dominant perception, and carrying the corrective processes in the individual's psychostructure out. Consequently, it is almost impossible to avoid utilizing the according suggestive technologies in the advertisement text.

In Paragraph 1 of the Article 10 of the «Law of Ukraine on Advertisement», it is prohibited to utilize «unscrupulous» advertisement [ibid], which is defined as one that «does or might mislead the advertisement consumers, harm an individual, state or society as a result of inaccuracy, untrustworthiness, ambiguity, exaggeration, suppression, violation of conditions concerning the time, venue or mean of dissemination» [ibid]. Howsoever, precisely such elements as ambiguity (polysemy), exaggeration and suppression are the components of the Metamodel of Language (see 7, 17), which help realize the suggestive function o advertisement. Besides, in Paragraph 3 of Article 7 of the «Law of Ukraine on Advertisement», it is stated that advertisement «cannot consist of information or data that violates the ethical, humanistic, moral norms, neglects the rules of decency» [ibid], but the very concepts of ethics, humanism and moral norms haven't been interpreted in the Law, thus, defining them is left at the discretion of the public, which, in our opinion, is unacceptable, whereas such concepts are way too layered, diffused for precise conventional interpretation, and this makes it fully impossible to observe the aforementioned legislative norm. The same thing could be said about one more principle of advertisement having been defined as «utilizing the forms and means that do not harm the advertisement consumer» in the Law [ibid], since the issue of dividing the advertisement forms and means into harmful and non-harmful hasn't been solved yet.

Ergo, it's not always possible both to decidedly determine the text's pathogenicity or adequacy, and take appropriate preventive measures, since unfortunately, the legislative acts don't always meet the demands of the brand new IT and scientific achievements' rapid development in the modern society. Therefore, it is crucially important to pay due attention to the researches directed at the complex identification of the media space pathogenic elements, as well as at its maximal empathification (see the works by T. Kovalevska, H. Kaftanjiyev, Z. Partyka. V. Rizun and others).

Usually, the core idea of any advertisement campaign is expressed in a slogan - «an advertisement phrase, which briefly, in a concise form, lays out the basic advertisement proposal, and is included into all the messages in the network of the advertisement campaign» [10, p. 5], the quintessence of the firm's or goods distributor's philosophy, and it's only natural that the success or failure of the campaign depends on it: on its form and filling. Alongside with the commercial and social slogans, the researchers isolate the political slogans, which contain the basic message of the political campaigns, are the «verbal portrait of the political figure» [ibid], «statement that reflects the candidate's precise position» [17, p. 307].

The main objective of a slogan is to «sell» goods or services it is a part of the advertisement campaign of, since the slogan is «an essence of the advertisement campaign compressed to a formula, rememberable thought brought to linguistic perfection» [16, p. 225]. The political slogan does meet this definition, but also has its own specific properties, which are connected with the specificity of the political campaign comparing to a commercial one.

The political slogan has particular differences from a commercial one according to the following characteristics:

continuity and frequency of operation. The political advertisement's validity is regulated legislatively, with the help of the «Law of Ukraine on Elections», and such advertisement ends after the political leader has been elected. On the contrary, the commercial advertisement is active constantly, with a certain frequency, besides, the goods and services market for the buyers is constant, as well;

specificity. The political advertisement operates with the concepts which mostly do not have referents in reality, it urges to «choose» the abstract nonmaterial essences, such as «democratic choice», «national pride», «social justice» etc.» [14, p. 175], while the commercial advertisement is directed towards a specific, obvious and achievable aim, i.e. purchasing the goods by a certain company or a visit to a certain shop;

differentiation. The political advertisement «popularizes just one idea - public order change» [ibid], while the commercial one is very diverse in this aspect, since it is designed to satisfy different needs of buyers, and represent a vast variety of goods, which is much wider than the one offered in the political ads;

audience coverage. Despite its «mass effect», the political advertisement is «aimed at a limited contingent - 25-30% of the voters who do vote» [ibid, p. 176], while the commercial one covers a much larger part of the population, since «almost everyone has to solve the task of choosing and purchasing the goods and services» [ibid], scilicet, «there are much more real buyers than real voters» [ibid].

It is worth mentioning that the certain temporal limitation of the political advertisement slogan motivates its far more concentrated suggestivity (comparing to the commercial one), since it has to affect the recipient during a shorter period of time, and thus, has to contain more potentially suggestive elements in order to influence the audience.

The modern information space requires the mass media to be maximally effective, and advertisement is one of this paradigm's most powerful elements. In its turn, the advertisement slogan in the concentrator of the ad message, immanent suggesogeneousness being its functional characteristic, which is demanded to be maximally active by the political discourse, considering its target strategies and tactics. Though, until now, the political advertisement slogans' elements and models still remain underdeveloped, which could be accounted for both by the modern reality media interpretation process' complexity, and the heterogeneous nature of the influence phenomenon as a whole. In this aspect, the scientific approach presented in this article would make it possible to significantly widen the existing classification of the political slogans, since we consider their in-depth, natural components, (untruthful, destructive information usage, and a mandatory suggestive effect being the crucial ones), which could only be identified with the synthesis of the brand new research methods and methodologies, including Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) (Metamodel and Milton-model), Suggestive Linguistics and Lies Theory (P. Ekman), and also the NAP-structure of linguistic suggestiveness, and metamodel of the political advertisement slogans' linguistic suggestiveness having been presented in our previous scientific works. These are sciences that study the suggestive, scilicet the influential side of any information, where speech could be considered as a totally suggestive phenomenon with potentially suggestive components, and the language's embodiment form - as a text in broad sense (verbal and non-verbal). Besides, the political campaign's main goal, which is to support or change the addressee's preferences, implies the objective reality's interpretation's non-identity and distortion, as its fundamental attribute (see works by T. Kovalevska, G. Pocheptsov, I. Cherepanova and others). Suchwise, these science's essential provisions would allow to identify the basic segments of the basic segments of the political advertisement as the modern communicative space's immanent component.

Thus, having compared the R. Bandler and J. Grinder's Metamodel of Language elements, P Ekman's lies types, concepts of the NAP-structure of linguistic suggestiveness, and metamodel of the political advertisement slogans' linguistic suggestiveness with the elements present in the political advertisement discourses having been analyzed, we suggest identifying the following types of the suggestivity realization strategies in the political slogans paradigm:

positivization strategy, in the network of which the linguistic suggestiveness NAP-structure's P-element is maximally active (it verbalizes the certain «positively connotation» of the suggestant's state, in which one would find oneself after having performed a certain action), whereas the message sender provides only subjective information about one's own advantages and pros, aiming to create one's positive image (i.e. «Only he is worthy of being a President», «Only to him we can trust our destiny»);

negativization strategy, in the network of which the linguistic suggestiveness NAP-structure's N-element is maximally active, since the recipient receives only subjective information about the other candidates' mistakes and cons, which is provided in order to create their negative image (i.e. «They mess everything up», «She works: she rapes the country»);

invectivization strategy, in the paradigm of which so- called low, non-codified vocabulary is utilized, that formally executes the function of «approximating» the candidate to the «ordinary people», and certain «democratization» of one's image (i.e. the advertisement slogans by O. Lyashko). It has to be noted that this strategy is relatively new for the Ukrainian political advertisement sphere, the usage of political campaign elements marked by it has only been registered in 2014, but it became maximally popular among the Ukrainians despite its containing non-codified vocabulary what is not characteristic for the advertisement campaigns. This phenomenon could be explained by the fact that, in conditions of the state's political and social instability, the potential voters usually gravitate towards choosing the maximally aggressive rhetoric which provides (often imaginary) feeling of the candidate's «power» and confidence (see the US Presidential elections 2016);

imperativization strategy, in the network of which the linguistic suggestiveness NAP-structure's A-element is maximally active with the help of utilizing the verbs in imperative (i.e. «Make your choice!», «Vote!»);

zero reference strategy, which is characterized by the usage of comparatively neutral vocabulary, and the lack of suggestogeneous components and reference towards a certain candidate (i.e. «Your vote», «Ukraine's choice»);

precedentization strategy, which is characterized by exploitation of precedent, scilicet well-known in the network of a certain culture and social group, texts that have to predictably influence a certain target group (i.e. «The revolution you've all been waiting for», «Factories for the workers!»);

constantivization strategy, in the network of which, a nominalized noun is the key stimulus word (see the NLP «process - result» metaprogram, where the resultative nature of the substantive is actualized in this case) (i.e. «I will give development to Ukraine!»). It has to be noted that such a noun could have either positive or negative connotation, depending on the effect the sender has planned;

resultativization strategy, in the network of which, a resultative verb is the key stimulus word (see the NLP «process - result» metaprogram, where the processual nature of the verb is actualized in this case) (i.e. «I will let Ukraine develop!»). It has to be noted that such a verb could have either positive or negative connotation, depending on the effect the sender has planned;

semantic sequence strategy, which is characterized by activation of the linguistic suggestiveness NAP- structure's N- and P-elements, and uniting them by the «semantic sequence» connections (i.e. «There was ruin - now there's country», «From default - into development»);

semantic parallelism strategy, in the network of which the linguistic suggestiveness NAP-structure's N- and P-elements are activated, but are united with the antiperistasis, «semantic parallelism» connections (i.e. «For development, against stagnation», «For Ukraine, against war»). It has to be noted that this strategy is inversely correlative with the complex equivalence marker of NLP Metamodel's distortion process, since the opposed elements aren't always logically opposable;

semantic variation strategy, while utilizing which, the political party or candidate's name is «played out» with the help of the certain language means (grapheme delivery, polysemy etc.) (i.e. «Vitaliy Klitchko's UDAR» («STRIKE»));

rhetorization strategy, which is characterized by the exploitation of rhetoric questions, which are meaningful in the network of a certain culture and social group (i.e. «Do you want 5 more years of such life?», «You do want development, don't you?»).

Thus, the classification of the strategies utilized in the political slogans we suggest here has a complex nature, since it integrates the achievements of such modern sciences as Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Suggestive Linguistics, Lies Theory, and the NAP-structure of linguistic suggestiveness, and metamodel of the political advertisement slogans' linguistic suggestiveness having been presented in our previous scientific works. Introducing this classification into the scientific circulation would allow not only to carry out the systematization of the available diversity of the political slogans in particular and political advertisement as a whole as the modern informational space's extremely powerful phenomena, but also to isolate their dominant construction strategies, and in-depth construction mechanisms, and ergo, to offer the countermeasures strategies and tactics for neutralizing the destructive effects of each type. And this, in its turn, will not only serve as a mean to construct the theoretic grounds of NLP and Suggestive Linguistics, Strategic Communications Theory, Discoursology, Psycholinguistics, and Public Administration studies, but will also provide the necessary assistance in forming the according program decisions in the sphere of Ukraine's state informational policy and safety, what emphasizes the perspective of developing this aspect further on.

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