Understanding Scientific, Legal, and Advertising Texts
Scientific and Technical Texts
Scientific and technical texts are intended to convey universal knowledge or objectives that can be verified and processed. Sometimes, scientific texts are informative, i.e., for the general public, but the audience must have some scientific knowledge. The purpose of informative scientific and technical texts determines the prevalence of the referential function and denotative use of language to express the message clearly and precisely. It is common to use monosemy and repetition to clarify concepts.
Theoretical texts often use non-linguistic codes: formulas, symbols, or graphic resources (pictures, drawings, photographs, etc.) and resort to various forms of discourse. Exposition (definitions, enumerations) and argumentation (theory development, hypothesis defense) are common. These modalities are often combined. The presence of description and narration is also common.
Legal and Administrative Texts
Messages of legal and administrative texts are clearly dominated by the prescriptive and appellative functions of language. They are characterized by the use of terminology and intertextuality. They follow established structures and use phraseological formulas. Legislation is organized starting with the name of the law, which generates a statement. This is then developed through various titles. Each title consists of items that may have sections and subsections marked with numbers and letters.
In the case of judicial or administrative texts, the organization will depend on the specific character of that legal-administrative discourse. It combines several text modalities: exposition, narration, description, and argumentation.
Advertising Texts
Advertising is the set of techniques that attempt to influence human behavior, prompting individuals to consume certain products. The key vehicle used in advertising is language, but not exclusively. Language is influenced by advertising, manifested in the inclusion of new words, vocabulary enrichment, the capacity of expression of the receiver, and the dissemination of terminology and scientific concepts.
In advertising texts, the transmitter function is performed by a multiple subject, which is the advertising agency. Regarding the distribution channel, advertising attempts to reach the largest possible number of recipients, using mass media (“mass media”) such as radio, TV, cinema, press, labels, valuable advertising, etc.
The advertising message itself, the notice, must satisfy certain basic characteristics to achieve the desired end. There are three basic rules, though, as often happens, we find many ads that violate these standards:
- The notice must be simple.
- The notice must be clear.
- The notice must be uniform.
With respect to the receiver, in advertising, we talk about a potential consumer of the advertised product. This fact explains why the target audience is fully taken into account. Depending on the potential consumer, the advertising strategy will adopt one approach or another.
On the one hand, we are informed of the object to be sold, showing its qualities, and we are invited to an act of buying (denotation). On the other hand, patterns of behavior are reflected; the product is associated with certain behaviors, trends, and concepts of beauty or success (connotation). To achieve the basic purpose, the advertisement is reinforced with different mechanisms of seduction: the more desirable the message, the more the potential consumer will pay attention. The purpose of seduction is usually sought through images.
We must take into account a number of elements that contribute to “seduce” potential buyers of the product:
- Advertisements usually feature desirable bodies and objects.
- Actors try to express the full enjoyment that is assumed to be derived from the possession of the advertised item.