LINGUISTIC FEATURES OF ENGLISH PUBLIC SERVICE ADVERTISEMENTS AND THEIR DIDACTIC POTENTIAL IN LANGUAGE TEACHING
Keywords:
public service advertising, social advertising, PSA discourse, linguistic features, stylistic devices, English language teaching, didactic material, media literacy.Abstract
This article investigates the linguistic features of English-language public
service advertisements (PSAs), also known as social advertising, and examines
their potential as didactic material in English language teaching. Structured
according to the IMRAD model, the study analyzes the phonetic, lexical,
syntactic, and stylistic characteristics that distinguish PSA discourse from
commercial advertising, drawing on recent linguistic research into English,
Lithuanian, and Indonesian public service texts. The results show that PSAs are
characterized by a dense concentration of expressive and persuasive linguistic
devices, including alliteration and assonance, emotionally coloured
vocabulary, imperative and elliptical syntax, rhetorical questions, and tropes
such as metaphor, antithesis, and personification, all of which serve the genre's
central communicative functions of informing, warning, and persuading. The
article further argues that, precisely because of their brevity, authenticity, and
linguistic density, PSAs constitute a valuable and underused resource for
