1. Dr. AISHA BHATTI - Language Academy, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Universiti Teknologi, Kuala Lumpur
Malaysia.
2. SABAH SHAFIQUE - Department of English Language Teaching, National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad, Pakistan.
3. Dr. ANSA HAMEED - Department of English, Prince Sattam Bin Abzulaziz University, Alkharj, Saudi Arabia.
Language promotes or discourages certain behaviors and actions. Advertising discourse usually incorporates popular trends to persuade its target audience to buy products. Climatic crises and ecological sustainability are prominent concerns of the world now- a- days. Following the global trend, many advertising companies have endorsed natural elements and ecology in their advertisements. The adverts by fuel supplying companies tend to promote fuel consumption, so the existence of ecological values in such adverts is crucial .As they are selling a natural resource and its consumption leads to its natural reserves ’being depleted. It also adds harmful emissions to the environment. The current study aims to examine the use of language in these adverts. It has sought metaphors, metonymies, image schemas and colors, and the use of these cognitive devices in encoding ecological values. The inductive approach of content analysis method (Marring, 2004) has been used to analyze ecology endorsing 10 print adverts by fuel supplying companies. The theoretical foundation of the study lays in the Metaphor Theory by Layoff and Johnson (1980) and its axiological extension by Krzeszowski (1993). The findings highlight the presence of both positive ecological values of environmental protection, reduction, plantation and ecofriendly; as well as negative ecological value of consumption encoded via cognitive devices. The simultaneous presence of both positive and negative ecological values highlights manipulation in the adverts. Moreover, the positive ecological values are used to disguise negative ecological values of consumption. Hence, the linguistic elements are seen exploited by the content writers for manipulative and promotional purposes. Therefore, it is suggested we revise the discourse of fuel supplying companies and save natural resources.
Advertising discourse, Axiological-linguistics, cognitive semantics, ecology, green washing.