Persuasive Strategies in Mission Statements

  1. Negro Alousque, Isabel 1
  1. 1 Universidad Complutense de Madrid
    info

    Universidad Complutense de Madrid

    Madrid, España

    ROR 02p0gd045

Journal:
Círculo de lingüística aplicada a la comunicación
  1. Fernández Ulloa, Teresa (coord.)

ISSN: 1576-4737

Year of publication: 2019

Issue Title: The Rhetoric of Persuasion

Issue: 80

Pages: 37-50

Type: Article

DOI: 10.5209/CLAC.66599 DIALNET GOOGLE SCHOLAR lock_openOpen access editor

More publications in: Círculo de lingüística aplicada a la comunicación

Abstract

A mission statement is a brief description of a company’s core purpose that conveys the corporate identity and values. Mission statements constitute a genre within the category of promotional literature (Bhatia, 2005) which has been the subject of much research in the last decades (e.g. Swales & Rogers, 1995; Leuthesswer & Kohli, 1997; Stallworth, 2008; Mason & Mason, 2012). Drawing on Swales’ (1990) and Bhatia’s (2014) genre theories and Aristotle’s rhetoric model (included in Rapp, 2011), the present paper examines a corpus of mission statements with a view to showing how they are constructed to influence the targeted audience’s opinions. We analyze their move structure and the elements of logos, ethos and pathos – the three Aristotelian modes of argumentation – which play a vital role in building or maintaining customer loyalty.

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