Abstract:

The ways of improving foreign language instruction in the system of higher education at the linguistic departments are still urgent today to meet the needs of university students who are interested in profound knowledge of a foreign language (FL) and a target culture to be competent language users and career makers crossing the countries’ borders. Mutual understanding on both professional and personal levels can be gained by university students only if FL classes incorporate authentic materials which bring real language means and cultural images into the classroom. The best sample of such materials for studies is an advertisement as a pragmatic text type.

This paper is aimed at showing the linguistic and educational potential of advertisements in the process of FL instruction to promote cultural awareness and language skills development. The research described deals with the problems of pragmatic and illocutionary impact of advertising on the recipient using the data of such methods as literary and context analysis, comparative analysis. The authors’ research into structural and linguistic features of advertising texts is explained in detail as its results should be used in teaching to help university students as future linguists get the most of this pragmatic text type and develop reading strategies having advertisements as good authentic materials.

The results of the research demonstrate that the guided classroom analysis of English advertising discourse contributes to a better understanding of implicit meanings in a pragmatic text and helps FL learners resist any forms of verbal manipulation. Thus, understanding the ways and language means of creating a persuasive effect in advertising develops students’ life skills. Moreover, teaching students concrete strategies of reading and decoding implicit meanings of advertising texts, which are usually endowed with words with cultural connotations, modals, etc., makes them more competent language learners and future professionals.

Keywords:

Foreign language instruction in higher education, discourse analysis, advertisements as pragmatic texts, authentic materials, teaching text structure.