The Institute for Japanese Studies presents
"Rhetorical Devices in Japanese Advertising"
Patricia J. Wetzel, Professor
Emerita Professor of Japanese
Portland State University
Flyer: 
Patricia Wetzel Flyer.pdf
Abstract: The fields of marketing and consumer research have long paid a good deal of attention to language use in advertising. A meeting of the minds between business and marketing on the one hand and linguistics on the other is taking place through their mutual interest in semiotics and classical rhetoric. This recent work relies on rhetoric’s elaborate and time-honored taxonomy for talking about how language is used for effect. Although there is considerable research available on the rhetoric of western advertising, research to date has yet to focus attention on the advertising of a non-western tradition such as Japan. The questions I wish to address here are: What are the common rhetorical devices of Japanese advertising? And how do they compare with their western counterparts? The umbrella of rhetoric has a broad scope which may have to be expanded even further to accommodate tropes and schemes that may not be present in western texts.
Bio: Patricia Wetzel, Emerita Professor of Japanese at Portland State University, received her Ph.D. in Japanese linguistics from Cornell University. At Portland State she teaches courses in Japanese language, linguistics and pedagogy. Her longstanding focus has been keigo, or "polite language," which she sees as a microcosm of Japanese society.
Free and open to the public.
