Every individual is a consumer at some point in his life. It is not a surprise that in a competitive market, advertising techniques are often fundamental to the success of a product. Advertising makes the most effective use of language to persuade the consumer. This paper explores the language of commercial consumer advertising in the written and visual media. The main focus is on the language of advertisements and representation within the discourse of advertising. It also assesses the effectiveness of using different language styles in a given advertisement or commercial, and looks at the deployment of rhetorical devices to reinforce the advertising message—particularly, in the Tamil media.

Advertising has come a long way from the cries of the pedlars in the market square, extolling the qualities of their goods, to the modern-day version—glossy and enticing— making extensive use of verbal and nonverbal devices to attract consumers. In India, the copywriter makes extensive use of English words and phrases in advertisements in a variety of ways. This paper examines the use of English in television and print advertising. A cursory examination of Tamil advertising shows that the language of advertising does not follow any rigid rules. It makes optimal use of its possible resources from a wide variety of styles.

"The great art in writing advertisements is the finding out a proper method to catch the reader's eye; without which a good thing may pass over unobserved, or be lost among commissions of bankrupt (Addison, 1710)". "Words used in their proper order and in a pleasing manner would readily be accepted and obliged by the world," says Thiruvalluvar (Circa 100 B.C., KuRaL: 648), an ancient Tamil poet, highlighting the importance of language used in making human communication highly effective. Semiotics is vital in mass media, as it analyzes and effectively decodes verbal and nonverbal communication at every level. It pierces beneath the superficial gloss of an advertisement to reveal that every advertising copy evolves out of a conscious manipulation of language and a deliberate selection of sign.