An Analysis Of Persuasive Effect In Chinese Public Service Advertisements In Terms Of Identification Theory

Public service advertisements concentrate mainly on social and public issues,and they are used to arouse the public’s awareness and call on the public to regulatetheir behaviors in order to benefit both the public and the society. People show moreand more concern on public service advertisements, and many studies on publicservice advertisements have been done from different perspectives, such as linguistics,art, communication, culture, psychology, rhetoric.This research takes80Chinese public service advertisements as research objects,and analyzes them qualitatively based on identification theory. The research mainlyfocuses on:1) Of identification by sympathy, identification by antithesis and identificationby inaccuracy, which one is used most to better realize the persuasive effectin Chinese public service advertisements?2) What kinds of wording characteristics are adopted in Chinese public serviceadvertisements to achieve identification?After careful analysis of80Chinese public service advertisements incombination with identification theory in details, the results show that:1) Identification by sympathy is mostly used in Chinese public serviceadvertisements to realize persuasive effect.2) Three wording characteristics are found in the collected Chinese publicservice advertisements to achieve identification: First, the newly-created,modish, and witty words are widely adopted in Chinese public serviceadvertisements. Second, words which can stand for Chinese virtues orvalues are preferred. Third, authoritative and alarming words are applied inChinese public service advertisements instead of emotionless preachingwords.