Language and power - repressive discourse strategies

The online advert Tea Time, created by Christian Aid, uses many repressive discourse strategies to persuade the audience. One of these includes its use of colloquialisms. Through using the nouns ‘cuppa’ and ‘do,’ which are familiar to the audience, they are perhaps releasing the pressure (to donate money to the charity) that they are placing on the audience. Additionally, the charity uses a lot of positive lexis to motivate the audience. Examples of these include the verbs “helping” and “tackle” which optimistic connotations and empower the audience. They also use positive base-form adjectives such as “refreshing,” “tasty,” “colourful” and “delicious” to attract the audience to the refreshments that the charity provides in return of a donation. The advert also includes mitigated language such as “you can also download some of the resources right now.” The modal verb in this phrase makes the sentence seem like a suggestion but it has a more forceful underlying tone. Synthetic personalisation is also utilised by Christian Aid. A relationship between the charity and the audience is virtually non-existent therefore Christian Aid uses synthetic personalisation to create a personal connection with the audience in order to persuade them to donate more effectively. This is evident with their use of the second person pronouns, “you” and “yours.” Finally, the charity also creates a friendlier tone with its use of adjacency pairs. This is rarely seen in written discourse as it is a spoken language feature. However, Christian Aid uses it to create a chattier feel to the advert. An example of this includes, “What is Tea Time? It’s a unique fundraising event…”