The addressee as a cognitive and pragmatic rationale of argumentation in English advertising discourse

The article considers the addressee as the cognitive and pragmatic basis for meaning construction in argumentation strategies. The analysis of language means in argumentation strategies with the addressee as the cognitive basis of the advertising text revealed that since the early 20th century and up to date the use of the regulative strategy oriented on decision-making that employs tactics of recommendation, advice and imperative increases considerably. In the middle of the 20th century the epistemic strategy of argumentation employs tactics of "part-whole", and at the end of the 20th century the tactics of empathy appealing to values and needs of the addressee and motivating him to act is employed. The dynamics of linguistic profile of the addressee is observed in the transition from nominations of neutral referentially-limited social, demographic and gender characteristics of the target audience in early advertising discourse to the employment of elaborated evaluating nominations and personal pronounces with indefinite number of referents. Changes in the means of the addressee nominations indicate changes in the cognitive mechanism of text perception and understanding which results in the two opposing processes: the reduction of text perception and decoding stages, and increaseas in the interpretative volume of an advertising message due to wide employment of enthymemes in argumentation.