You, we, they and everyone. Person deixis in the advertising strategy of Spanish Ministry of Defence

Abstract

The identity that a speaker attributes to both him or herself and the listener in speech is crucial to achieve his or her communication goals. Unlike scientific discourse, which tends to depersonalize to improve objectivity, language in advertising is highly modalized, and tries to involve its audience by imprinting a subjectivity to the language mostly recognized through the use of deictic markers. Using the Theory of Enunciation as a frame of reference, this study analyzes how at each moment in history, the Spanish Ministry of Defence has used person deixis to build the most effective image of the speaker and listener for its persuasive purpose in graphic advertising. The results obtained indicate that the preeminent "you", aimed at recruiting in the nineties, has shared prominence with the exclusive plural in the creative advertising of the early years of the 21st century to project a new corporate identity for the Armed Forces. On the other hand, to encourage the Culture of Security and Defense in the latest campaigns, the singular second person has been replace by the inclusive plural, the plural third-person and the indefinite quantifier "everyone".