Persuasiveness in Tourism Brochures

This paper aims at examining the linguistic persuasiveness techniques based on Grice Maxims (1975) which are employed in Iraqi and Malaysian brochures, beside comparing the violations of Grice Maxims (1975) in Iraqi and Malaysian brochures. Beside that to verify a key hypothesis in this study that the violation of Grice Maxims is a basic pragmatic strategy in advertising to achieve persuasion. Qualitative method has been adopted while analyzing the data. The frequency of every violation has been counted and given a percentage. The results have shown a new dimension added to the previous literature, quantity maxim is frequently violated in Iraqi brochures. Quality maxim is the most violated maxim in Malaysian brochures. Furthermore ellipsis is highly used in Iraqi brochures while hyperbole is frequently used in Malaysian brochures to persuade the tourist. Furthermore the recent results confirm the key hypothesis through the instances of frequent violations of the maxims in both Iraqi and Malaysian brochures which persuade and tempt the reader to head to these destinations. The present study supports Leech’s (1966) goals of advertising. Memorability, Force and Participation exist in all the data in both contexts. Violations of Grice Maxims contribute to these goals. Simply because these violations strengthen the message of the brochures and give additional non-literal interpretation. The study suggests to carry out a further research on persuasion linguistic techniques used in tourism brochures about different cities and towns around the world adopting different theories.


Introduction
Tourism has been steadily increasing in popularity for two decades (Craik, 1997;Weiler, 1992).Studies about tourism have gained a lot of attention universally.According to Fluck (1885) domination of specialized professional vocabulary is one of the features of the language used in tourism.Comparing with other languages, the language of tourism is one of the most riches languages with the communication component.Previous studies tackled persuasion from different perspectives like Robert (2013) which concludes that the language of advertisement is persuasive and informative, his study is based on critical criticism.However it does not state clearly the persuasive techniques that are employed in such a language and its effects.Another study by Noriega (2006) which considers whether the choice of language in advertising to bilinguals may influence the types of thoughts they have in response to an advertisement.It concludes that the engagement of a native language consumption context may be stronger for products that are directly used within home, or weaker for products that are only used in second language contexts such as work or school.However it does not state any theory.Se-Hoon Jeong (2008) his study aims to test the persuasive effects of visual metaphors in advertising.Advertisements containing visual metaphore increases persuasive arguments.The study results suggest that visual metaphors may be more persuasive due to both visual argumentation and metaphorical rhetoric.However this study has not focus on verbal persuasion.Beside it does not mention any theory, and Hardin (1999) based on many theories like politeness (Levinson, 1983), speech acts (Searle, 1975), deixis (Fillmore, 1971), implicature and violations of Grice Maxims (1975).Hardin (1999) considered violations of Gricean Maxims and indirectness as ways to achieve persuasion in advertising.In this study repetition as a violation of quantity is the most frequent.This paper is following the violation of Grice Maxims (1975).The problem of this paper addresses persuasive techniques implied in Iraqi and Malaysian tourism brochures beside comparing the similarities and differences in persuasive techniques between these brochures.Furthermore it aims to verify a key hypothesis that violating Grice Maxims (1975) is a basic strategy to achieve persuasion.Worth mentioning that studying linguistic persuasion techniques in Malaysian and Iraqi brochures has not yet been given much attention.The present study is limited to Iraqi e.s.p.Erbil and Malaysian e.s.p.Penang tourist brochures.Erbil and Penang are so important in tourism that's why they are selected.Penang is awarded the prestigious title of UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2008.Erbil is believed to be one of the oldest inhabited cities in the world and is one of the largest cities in north Iraq beside being an attractive tourism destination.A promotional discourse of any tourism destination aims to convince the consumer to head to this specific place.Coulson (1984) mentions that the language of advertisement is persuasive, informative, selective linguistically.Broom (1978) mentions that the language of advertising is audience oriented.Tourism plays a vital role in Malaysian (cited in Bin Che Mat, Bin Zakaria & Jusoff, 2009) and Iraqi economical development.Hence it is important to explore linguistically how Iraqi and Malaysian brochures are designed to persuade the reader which is not tackled before in previous studies.The recent paper adds a new dimension to the previous literature by discovering that quantity maxim is frequently violated in Iraqi brochures.Quality maxim is the most violated maxim in Malaysian brochures which leads to Participation and Force.While Hardin (1999) finds out that violating quantity maxim is the mostly used in Spanish advertisement.It is a qualitative study based on discoursal analysis of Iraqi and Malaysian tourist's brochures based on the frequency of the violations of Grice Maxims (1975).

What is Persuasion?
Language, written or verbal, is a substantial contributor to the creation of effective persuasion materials.The manipulation in of language in persuasive communication can have a strong influence on the effectiveness of persuasive communication (Marlin, 2002) (cited in French, 2008).Persuasion has always been an important feature of growing large scale societies.The ability to influence people to follow the initiatives of others is a key component in the creation of organized social systems (Marlin, 2002) (cited in French, 2008).Perloff (1993) defines persuasion as trying to convince others to think, feel or do what we want.Further Anderson (1971) defines persuasion as "a communication process in which the communicator seeks to elicit a desired response from his receiver".Persuasion has a strong impact on attitude and behaviours (Perloff, 1993) and is considered as an "art" and a "science" (Gass & Seiter, 1999) (cited in Durham, 2003).Persuasion is a complex interactive process in which the persuader attempts to influence the reader or the hearer to adopt a change in a given attitude or behavior (Jowett & O'Donnell, 1986) (cited in French, 2008).Persuasive discourse has its own features.It employs the Aristotelian concepts of "ethos", "logos" and "pathos".Unlike other kinds of discourse, audience has a vital role.Manipulation of language is highly used in style, grammar and word selection to affect the audience (Suci, Osgood, &Tannenbaum, 1957) (cited in French, 2008).Clarity is the most important in this discourse based on simplicity in language (Marlin, 2002) (cited in French, 2008).Leech (1966) details the linguistic devices found in standard advertising English in Great Britain.An advertisement must: draw attention to itself, sustain the interest, be remembered as familiar and prompt the right kind of action (cited in Hardin, 1999).In other words, the goals of persuasion are mainly three Memory, Force, & Participation.Leech (1966) mentions the goals of persuasion drawing attention, readability and enjoyment.Memorability and selling power leads to Participation.The three goals of persuasion are Memorability (M), Force (F) and Participation (P).Force refers to emotional and logical appeals to viewers and the degree of impact or strength of a particular message.Participation refers to the desire for a response or viewer involvement in the message and to the purchasing of the advertised product or service.

Grice Maxims
The philosopher H. P. Grice (1931-88) is well known of his conversational maxims.It is widely cited now in pragmatics research.Four basic maxims form a general co-operative principle (henceforth CP).The maxim of quality states that speakers' contributions ought to be true-specifically, that they should not say what they believe to be false, nor should they say anything for which they lack adequate evidence.The maxim of quantity states that the contribution should be as informative as is required for the current purposes of the exchange, and should not be unnecessarily informative.The maxim of relevance states that contributions should be relevant to the purpose of the exchange.The maxim of manner states that the contribution should be perspicuous-in particular, that it should be orderly and brief, avoiding obscurity and ambiguity (cited In Crystal, 2003).Lakoff (1982) studies the violations of Grice Maxims (1975) in persuasion discourse.She finds out that flout of maxim of manner is highly frequent to attract the attention and to make the audience remember.Violations of maxims in persuasion discourse is covert and that audience are tricked into assuming that an act of information is occurring.These seem appropriate for studying advertising language because of the appeal to the CP.She maintained that persuasive discourse, particularly advertising, superficially adheres to the CP in order to conceal appeals to the audience's emotions (cited in Hardin, 1999).They therefore contain an appeal to our knowledge of how the CP works.This happens through lexical, morphological, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic novelty .She aims to differentiate between normal and persuasive discourse.Grice (1975) mentions examples of violating the maxims to create a conversational implicature.
C-Relation / non relevance, avoidance (implied relations or comparisons added by Hardin, 1999).D-Manner / ambiguity (e.g., I sought to tell my love, love that never told can be), redundancy, obscurity, failure to be brief (e.g., Miss X produced a series of sounds that corresponded closely with the score of "Home sweet home".Implicature that Miss X can't sing well) (rhetorical questions and vagueness added by Hardin, 1999).Crystal (2003) defines implicature as a term derived from the work of H. P. Grice (1913-88) and now frequently used in linguistics as part of the study of conversational structure.Conversational implicatures refer to the implications which can be deduced from the form of an utterance, on the basis of certain cooperative principles which govern the efficiency and normal acceptability of conversations.Lakoff (1982) mentions that manner is the most frequently violated group, most specifically repetition (cited in Hardin, 1999).Violations of the maxims lead to convince the customer indirectly, hence it strength the message through metaphor, repetition and vagueness.

Aristotle Classic Theory
The Greek philosopher, Aristotle, made the most significant and lasting contribution to persuasion research.Aristotle outlined three means of persuasion: ethos (which is the nature of communication, it is based on the credibility of message source), pathos (which is based on feelings as well as information) and logos (which is based on facts and proofs) (cited in Durham, 2003).

Social Judgment Theory
Presents by MuzaferSherif, Carolyn Sherif, Carl Hovland andRoger Nebergall (1961, 1965).It focuses on that receivers do not depend on arguments to evaluate messages rather they depend on their "internal" attitude towards the issue.Studies like Eagly & Teelak (1972) confirms this theory (cited in Durham, 2003).

Cognitive Dissonance
Leon Festinger (1957) presents this theory which focuses on people's uncomfortable state and struggle to make and justify decisions.Anderson (1968) comments on this theory by saying that "dissonance does not assume man is rational but rather a rationalizing animal who attempts to be rational -both to others and to himself."(cited in Durham, 2003) .

Theory of Reasoned Action
Ajzen & Fisbein (1980) emphasizes that attitudes influence behavior via behavioral intentions.Furthermore, people rationally calculate the costs and benefits of a particular action.(cited in Durham, 2003).

Expectancy-Value Model
It is a theory of reasoned action.The first step in message processing is the expectation that the product or service being promoted is associated with the attributes mentioned in the promotional message.This expectation is reflected in belief strength and belief confidence (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975;Smith, 1993;Smith & Swinyard, 1982).(cited in Durham, 2003).

Information Integration
Anderson's (1971) theory describes how people integrate or combine different pieces of information when they make evaluations.The sequence of the received information plays an important role, i.e., positive initial information is given more weight over later negative information.(cited in Durham, 2003).

The Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM)
Petty & Cacioppo (1986) presents the present theory.They focus on that receivers will vary in the degree to which they are likely to engage in "elaboration" of information relevant to the message.In this context "elaboration" means issue-relevant thinking.According to ELM people pay attention to both the content of the message and the source of the message (cited in Durham, 2003).
2.2.9 Magic Bullet or Hypodermic Needle Theory Lasswell (1971) suggests that people responded to stimuli in a constant manner across groups, and thus respond to propaganda was immediate and direct.According to this theory people were seen as passive empty "vessels" that had no input into how they interacted with messages seen or heard within the media.However this theory is limited in that it holds a very pessimistic concerning the view of human nature.People should not be considered as empty vessels but rather as individuals who will have their own experience, knowledge, abilities and opinions.(cited in French, 2008).

The Limited Effects Model
After the Second World War Severin & Tankard (1997) suggest that the success of media influence is a function of the social environment in which people operate (cited in French, 2008).

Two
Step Flow Model Katz & Lazarsfeld (1955) mention that media texts were read by viewers and were given meaning in accordance with viewers' background, personality and cultural context.The process occurred in two steps.First the information flows from the mass media to certain opinion leaders in the community who then, Secondly, facilitate communication effects through discussion with their peers and the public (Jowett & O'Donnell, 1986) (cited in French, 2008).

Previous Studies
A study titled "Language of Advertising: A study of Nigeria's Nation Newspaper and Newswatch Magazine" by Robert (2013).This study uses the framework of stylistics.He finds that the language of advertisement is persuasive and informative.The study reveals that both linguistic and nonlinguistic features are employed to drive consumers to purchase goods whether good or bad.The language of tourism does not follow the grammar of everyday language.It is a kind of language that functions and familiarizes itself with the context in which it is used.It has the capacity to influence people and their behaviours.It is very positive and emphasizes why one product stands out in comparison with another.It aims to evaluate the manner in which language is used graphologically and lexically to achieve certain objectives in journalism particularly in advertising.The theoretical framework for this study is stylistic criticism.This theory enhances the analysis of language use at defined levels of phonology, grammar, graphology, lexis…etc.It concludes that language of advertising in newspapers and magazines exhibit unique characteristics at the levels of lexis and graphology.It also mentions that there is an intricate relationship between the function and the features of the language.The study reveals that advertisers often times use figurative expressions, simple diction, proper names and emotive expressions.It also proves that the language used in advertising in newspapers is a unique variety of English due to the peculiarity of the language features.However, it does not state clearly the persuasive techniques that are employed in such a language and its effects.
Another thesis entitled "Advertising to Bilinguals: Does The Language of Advertising Influence the nature of thoughts?"by Jaime Noriega (2006).This research considers whether the choice of language in advertising to bilinguals may influence the types of thoughts they have in response to an advertisement.It hypothesizes that native language leads to more positive attitude in advertisement in USA.It suggests that it will be more effective to advertise to an ethnic minority population in their native language.It argues that the use of native language can serve as a super attribute under which certain memories and knowledge structures can be more easily accessed.It concludes that the engagement of a native language consumption context may be stronger for products that are directly used within home, or weaker for products that are only used in second language contexts such as work or school.However it does not state any theory.
A third research entitled "Visual Metaphore in Advertising: Is the Persuasive Effect Attributable to Visual Argumentation or Metaphorical Rhetoric?" by Se-HoonJeong (2008).It aims to test the persuasive effects of visual metaphor in advertising.He finds out that advertisements containing visual metaphore increase persuasive arguments.The study results suggest that visual metaphors may be more persuasive due to both visual argumentation and metaphorical rhetoric.A meta-analytic review of the metaphore literature (Sopory & Dillard, 2002cited in Se-HoonJeong, 2008) suggests that metaphorical arguments can be more persuasive than literal arguments and this study confirms that.However this study has not focus on verbal persuasion.Beside it does not mention any theory.
An important study by Hardin (1999) entitled "Pragmatics in Persuasive Discourse of Spanish Advertising" based on many theories like politeness (Levinson, 1983), speech acts (Searle, 1975), deixis (Fillmore, 1971), implicature and violations of Grice Maxims (1975).As far as Grice Maxims are concerned, Lakoff (1982), Geis (1982) and Shmidt & Kess (1985) considered violations of Gricean Maxims and indirectness as ways to achieve persuasion in advertising.In this study repetition as a violation of quantity is the most frequent.Then metaphor as a violation of quality.Implied relevance as a violation of relation.Lastly vagueness as a violation of manner is the least frequent.The study concludes that violations of Grice maxims lead to convince the customer indirectlty.Hence they strength the message through metaphor and vagueness (cited in Hardin, 1999).Conversational implicatures are achieved in a variety of ways and require the audience to "work out" the meaning in a Gricean sense.

Research Questions
The research aims to investigate the persuasive linguistic forms implied in Iraqi and Malaysian tourism brochures based on Grice's Maxims (1975).Beside comparing the differences and similarities in persuasive techniques used in Malaysian and Iraqi tourism brochures based on violations of Grice Maxims.Furthermore to verify a key hypothesis that the violation of Grice Maxims is a basic pragmatic strategy in advertising to achieve persuasion.Therefore the present paper seeks to answer the following questions: 1) What are the persuasive linguistic techniques that are used in Iraqi and Malaysian tourism brochures based on Grice Maxims (1975)?
2) Are the persuasive techniques that are used in both contexts the same or different?

Model
The selected model is the violation of Grice Maxims (1975) in Iraqi and Malaysian tourism brochures.Simply because the CP and Grice Maxims are relevant to persuasion in advertising because they allow the advertiser or speaker in an advertisement to communicate more than what is actually said.Conversational implicature are difficult to refute and in comparison to direct statements or even a conventional implicatures, hearers are often unaware that a conversational implicature has been made.Grice's maxims therefore lie at the heart of persuasion in advertising (cited in Hardin, 1999).

Methodology
Quantitative study based on discoursal analysis of Iraqi and Malaysian tourist's brochures based on the frequency of the violations of Grice Maxims (1975).The data collection of this study are Malaysian and Iraqi brochures.The selection of the brochures is purposeful.Both are officially represent Erbil and Penang and describe their varied tourism locations in an attractive language.Beside that they contain many violations of Grice Maxims (1975).As long as it is hypothesized that the violations of Grice Maxims is a basic pragmatic strategy to achieve persuasion.Consequently all violations of all the maxims are examined in both brochures to determine if they contribute to persuasion.Violations of Grice Maxims are classified according to the type of violation; Quantity's violations contain (tautology, ellipsis and repetition ), quality's violations contain (irony, metaphore, understatement, hyperbole and false assertations), relation's violations are (non relevance, avoidance, implied relations and comparisons), manner's violations are (ambiguity, redundancy, obscurity, failure to be brief, rhetorical questions and vagueness ) as mentioned by Grice (1975) and Hardin (1999).Each extract in both brochures will be examined carefully to find linguistic violations of the four maxims.Then the total of each maxim's violations in all the data (Iraqi alone and Malaysian alone) in each brochure will be given in a table.Followed by the percentage of each violation to assess its frequency.Some extracts may violate more than one maxim.Then comparison will be held between Iraqi and Malaysian brochures to detect similarities and differences in violating every maxim and to detect the preferred linguistic strategy in violating one or more maxims in each country to persuade the tourist to head to this destination.

Results and Conclusions
In this section, the results will be presented in three subsections.The first subsection concerns the results of analysis in Iraqi and Malaysian brochures.The second one concerns comparing the results between Iraqi and Malaysian brochures.The third one is about conclusions

Data Analysis
This part answers the first question, What are the persuasive linguistic techniques that are used in Iraqi and Malaysian tourism brochures based on Grice Maxims (1975) Iraqi brochures which contain 27 extracts, because some extracts are so short so 27 extracts will cover the wanted data.While analyzing, no instances of violations of relation maxim have been found.However quantity is the most frequently violated maxim especially ellipsis (38 times) which reinforces the Memorability and to draw the attention by omitting a part of speech like the subject to leave the reader to figure out the meaning.Hardin (1999) states that repetition, ellipsis and giving too much information are strategies to district viewers from considering how little information they are receiving.Manner maxim is the next most frequently violated maxim especially ambiguity (14 times) then redundancy (6 times) which leads to Memorability.Quality is the least violated maxim through understatement (7 times) which leads to Participation and Force.(See Appendix A).In Malaysian brochures, quality maxim is the most frequently violated especially hyperbole (54 times) this leads to Participation and Force.Then manner maxim especially redundancy (14 times) which leads to Memorability.
Quantity maxim is the least violated maxim (9 times) such violations do not lead to persuasion but they attract the attention through ellipsis (7 times), lead to Memorability and emphasizes the importance of the repeated information through tautology (2 times).No instances of violating relation maxim have shown through analysis.(See Appendix B)

Comparison
In Iraqi brochures, quantity maxim is the most frequently violated through ellipsis (38 times).Hence, Iraqi tourism advertisers tend more to attract the reader through ellipsis.Manner is the next violated maxim through ambiguity (14 times) then redundancy (6 times).Quality is the least frequent maxim through understatement (7 times).
While in Malaysian brochures, quality maxim is the most frequently violated through hyperbole (54 times).This linguistic technique is highly used by Malaysian advertisers to attempt the reader to visit this destination.Then redundancy as a violation of manner maxim (14 times).And the least violated maxim is quantity maxim through ellipsis (7 times).There are not any examples of violating relation maxim in both Iraqi and Malaysian brochures.
This provides an answer to the second question Are the persuasive techniques that are used in both contexts the same or different?

Conclusions
The present study supports the previous literature with a new dimension.Unlike Lakoff's (1982) study.She finds out that flout of maxim of manner is highly frequent to attract the attention and to make the audience remember.
The recent study concludes that quantity maxim is frequently violated in Iraqi brochures.Quality maxim is the most violated maxim in Malaysian brochures which leads to Participation and Force which answers the first question.Ellipsis is highly used in Iraqi brochures while hyperbole is frequently used in Malaysian brochures to persuade the tourist which answers the second question.A key hypothesis in this study is that the violation of Grice Maxims is a basic pragmatic strategy in advertising to achieve persuasion.The recent results confirm this hypothesis through the instances of frequent violations of the maxims in both Iraqi and Malaysian brochures which persuade and tempt the reader to head to these destinations.All the selected data contain more than one violation of Grice Maxims in both Iraqi and Malaysian brochures and that answers the third question Does violating Grice Maxims achieve persuasion?The principal components of persuasion in this study are Memorability, Force and Participation.They exist in all the data in both contexts.Violations of Grice Maxims are frequently used to achieve an indirect message.The recent data highly employ ellipsis and hyperbole to create a conversational implicature which contribute to both Force and Participation.Simply because these violations strengthen the message of the brochures and give additional non-literal interpretation.The present study supports Leech's (1966) goals of advertising.Hopefully this study will contribute to the cross-cultural linguistic awareness of the pragmatics of persuasion.This study may also add to the understanding of the pragmatics of tourism brochures, more specifically, the advertisers' linguistic choices which are employed in tourism brochures.It provides a detailed analysis of specific genre in Malaysian and Iraqi tourism discourse.To give a further insight into ways of persuading in these contexts.
It would be very interesting to carry out a further research on persuasion linguistic techniques used in tourism brochures about different cities and towns around the world adopting different theories.

Table 1 .
? Violation of Grice Maxims in Iraqi brochure

Table 2 .
Violations of Grice Maxims in Malaysian brochures