Weasol Words That Effect Consumers' Preferences

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Recommended: Negative effects of advertising on body image

In the past, while consumers were contented with soft soap and olive soap for personal care and house works, thanks to the marketers and advertisements, today we are believed to their ineffectiveness and we are obsessed with hygiene. In the course of time, consumption of these items has become a common culture, an understanding and an obsession as well. We have started to purchase these products only because of their tempting package designs regardless of their harmful effects on our health and environment. Moreover, in order to achieve their primary purpose, advertisers and companies have trained consumers and especially the women, to search for the key words such as “new”, “improved”, “enriched” and “advanced” that deliver equivocal messages. We, women are being convinced by the implicit messages given by the advertisements that we are not beautiful and clean enough, in other words, advertisements promote lack of self-confidence by using weasel words and persistently prompt us to buy these items that threaten our health and environment. In this essay, I will examine how weasel words specifically used in cosmetics and cleaning supplies marketing convince us and threaten our health and environment.

Weasel words are discourses, whose meanings are semantically modified by the advertisers in order to avoid making a direct statement or promise. Advertisers use weasel words to give an impression of what is being said and written extremely sententious, yet they only serve for unclear allegations, which we do not notice. However, linguist William Lutz has raised the awareness of weasel words with analyzing the how doublespeak, equivocal words and false claims are used in advertisements. He states “Advertisers use weasel words to appe...

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...are not allowed to take advantage from consumers’ lack of knowledge or lack of experience.

In conclusion, we examined the misleading words related to personal care cosmetics and household cleaning products, which insidiously threaten our health and environment. We encounter many ambiguous carefully selected words in advertisements that we do not notice the meaning they convey, leading us to purchase these products. Through the awareness of cleverly associated weasel words, we can notice that how the advertisers can easily exploit women’s consumerist behavior related to beauty and hygiene, which is one of their obsession.

Works Cited

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2359596/How-wrinkle-cream-destroy-skin-Chemicals-cosmetics-trigger-severe-allergies.html

http://www.webmd.com/beauty/cellulite/cellulite-causes-and-treatments

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