Pragmatic Traps in Arabic Misleading Advertisements

الفخاخ العملية في الإعلانات العربية المضللة

فاطمة فاروق النعمة                     و كامل حازم  علي

جامعة الموصل، الموصل، العراق

المستخلص :

 يتناول هذا البحث اللغة العربية المخادعة التي يستخدمها المعلنون في إطار عملي.  يلقي الضوء على المشكلة المتعلقة بالحيل التي يستخدمها المعلنون لتحريف إعلاناتهم في محاولة للتأثير على تصورات المستهلكين.  وبالتالي ، يهدف إلى التعرف على الخدع التداولية في الإعلانات العربية المضللة.  يفترض أن المعلنين يستخدمون ادعاءات مضللة في إعلاناتهم ويمكن التعرف على خدع تداولية مختلفة في الإعلانات المضللة على مستوى جميع النظريات التداولية.  كما يفترض أنه يمكن استخدام جميع النظريات التداولية في تحديد الخدع الموجودة في هذه الإعلانات المضللة.  لتحقيق هدف الدراسة والتحقق من فرضياتها تم اعتماد نموذجين مستقلين لتحليل البيانات.  الأول هو نموذج "الخداع الضمني" لHastak and Mazis (2011) ؛  يهتم بتحديد الادعاءات المضللة.  تم تطبيق هذا النموذج على 400 إعلان يعود لأنواع مختلفة من المنتجات .تم جمع هذه الأعلانات من خلال طريقة المراقبة من مصادر مختلفة.  النموذج الثاني انتقائي و  يهتم بتحديد الخدع التداولية في الإعلانات الخادعة في إطار نظرية سيرل لأفعال الكلام (1979) ، ونظرية المبدأ التعاوني لجرايس (1975) ، ونظرية التهذب اللغوي (1983) ، والافتراض المسبق (1996) ، والاشارة المحورية.  بعد تحليل البيانات نوعياً, خلصت الدراسة إلى أن الإعلانات العربية تحتوي على نوع معين من الإعلانات الخادعة وهي الإعلانات المضللة ، ويتم تقديم هذه الإعلانات المضللة بشكل مختلف من خلال استراتيجيات مختلفة من قبل المعلنين.  ويخلص أيضًا إلى أنه يمكن لكل النظريات والجوانب التداولية تفسير وتحديد الخدع التداولية في الإعلانات المضللة.

الكلمات المفتاحية: الأفخاخ التداولية، المضللة، الإعلانات.

1. Introduction

Communication around the world can be of various techniques, forms, means, and possibilities. An advertisement (henceforth ad) is an act of communication, more precisely it can be considered as one-way mediated communication (5) which is “directed to a non-answer hearer or reader” (6). The main aim for advertisers is to promote their products, ideas, and services in a way that convinces and attracts a large number of targeted consumers and they compete with each other in presenting as an attractive ad as possible. Recently, with the era of modernity, a lot of means of communication are spread widely around the world, especially with the emergence of the internet which is of great help for advertisers to do their job easier than before. Advertisers nowadays can use websites and exploit the different applications of social media like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, etc. in promoting their claims and exposing their products. It can be said that such means of communication have the advantage of simplifying the promotional act for advertisers, and through which ads can be overflowed to anyone in every single place (7). However, there are many different techniques can be used by advertisers with the purpose of getting the targeted consumers to either reinforce or change their attitude or behavior towards some products and brands. In this respect, advertisers can manipulate, control, convince, persuade, influence, inform and even deduce and deceive; thus, there is a variety in the level of what advertisers do (8. In particular, the deceptive language that is used in advertising communication is the concern of the current study.

2. Aim of the study

The present study aims at identifying the pragmatic traps in Arabic misleading ads.

3. Hypotheses

     The present study hypothesizes the following:

1.advertisers use misleading claims in their advertisements.

2.All pragmatic theories can be used in identifying the traps that exist in deceptive ads.

3.Different pragmatic traps can be identified in deceptive ads at the level of all pragmatic theories.

4.In marketing context, particularly in the process of promotion, advertisers tend to manipulate the persuasive strategy and misrepresent certain ad claims. Consequently, this misrepresentation can affect consumers' perception, processing, and comprehending of an ad. As a result, such as claims may be problematic; ordinary consumers may face problems in figuring out the appropriate interpretation of a given ad claim and this is what advertisers aim to achieve when presenting their ad claims.

4. Deceptive Advertising

In modern life, a variety of ads has been widely spread. Individuals are exposed daily to various types of ads intentionally and unintentionally. Ads in the modern era occupy a large space in each community. That's why ads have become an important tool and means of communication that is indispensable in transmitting the information from advertisers to the target party. For advertisers, marketers, and sellers, the main goal is to win consumers' satisfaction and capture their attention by using special kinds of tactics, tools, and techniques through which they can convince and persuade them to buy the product. In this regard, advertisers often put great effort to make an ad as effective as possible.

People usually are influenced by ads that are highly designed and well presented. They can be convinced easily by certain information, claims, or ideas whenever they are presented in a highly stylistic way, especially if they serve their needs and interests. However, in certain cases, in an attempt to raise their sales profits, advertisers present certain claims with an intention to deceive the targeted consumers (9). By doing so, they give rise to a specific type of ads to exist which are "deceptive ads".

5. Pragmatics in Advertisements

The main core of the present study is concerned with deceptive ads. It deals with the deceptive concept from a linguistic and pragmatic point of view, particularly with the linguistic input that is asserted by many adverts to fulfill their intention to deceive consumers and concerned with the constituents of the deceptive advertising discourse that is designed in a highly stylistic way to be effective. The pragmatic approach is concerned with those elements which depend on extra-linguistic contextual information and the hearer's inference abilities. That's why “ads are rarely identified in isolation but rather identified in a context” (10). Understanding the linguistic representation of a specific advertised message is not merely a matter of decoding, thus a good interpretation of ads is best approached from pragmatic perspectives. In this respect, the deceptive language used in ads can be investigated within the aspects and theories of pragmatics like speech act theory, Cooperative principle theory (henceforth CP), Politeness theory, Presuppositions, and deixis.    

5.1 Speech Act

People usually perform different types of acts in their daily life, either physical or mental acts like walking, playing, writing, thinking, imagining, etc. In addition, another type of act can be performed by the use of language which is called a speech act (11) which can be considered as a basic unit of linguistic interaction (12).

Speech act theory is one of the theories that is included within the framework of pragmatics since it requires an intention on the part of the speaker and inference on the part of the hearer respected to contextual factors; thus, it is inherently a pragmatic theory (13).

5.1.1 Searle's Taxonomy of Speech Acts

Searle (1979) (2) presents a special taxonomy of illocutionary acts which consists of five basic categories or types of illocutionary acts one can perform. The following are the categories of speech acts as suggested by Searle (2):

1.Assertives

The aim of assertive speech acts is to commit the speaker to the truth of the expressed proposition. Speech acts that have the sense of assertion include: complaining, boasting, concluding, deducing, explaining, describing, claiming, etc.

2.Directives

Directive speech acts are performed when the speaker attempts to get the addressee to do a specific action, as in requesting, asking, ordering, praying, commanding, permitting, questioning, challenging, begging, advising, etc.

3.Commissives

Commissive speech acts commit the speaker to do a specific action in the future, as with promising, offering, threatening, etc.

4.Expressives

Through expressive speech acts, people can express their feelings, as thanking, apologizing, welcoming, congratulating, deploring, etc.

5.Declarations

Performing declarative speech acts result in an immediate change in the status of the addressee. To successfully perform a specific declarative act, the speaker must have the authority and power to do so, as in declaring war, marrying, christening, and nominating.

To perform a specific speech act successfully, speakers should fulfill certain conditions suggested by Searle (Searle 1979(2) suggests a classification of four kinds of conditions:

 1.The propositional content condition: The content of the utterance should count as a given speech act.

2.The preparatory condition: It requires that the speaker should have beliefs in doing certain acts as well as to have the power and authority over the hearer.

3. Sincerity condition: It is concerned with the intention of the speaker or his psychological state.

4.Essential condition: It is what makes the hearer performs the act which is motivated by the speaker's intention.

5.2 The Cooperative Principle

Grice (1975) (3) demonstrates what people typically do when they use language to communicate with each other. He suggests that there is a principle of human interaction in general and this principle is an impulse towards cooperative behavior, he puts this with relation to language use in what he labeled "Cooperative principle". Grice's CP entails “make your contribution such as is required at which it occurs by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged” (ibid). Grice then identifies four maxims through which people can follow to be cooperative in their communication behavior. These maxims are presented in his famous study "Logic and Conversation"  as follows:

1.Maxim of Quantity

• Make your contribution as informative as is required for the current purposes of the exchange.
• Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.

2.Maxim of Quality

• Do not say what you believe to be false.
• Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.

3.Maxim of Relation

• Be relevant.

4.Maxim of Manner

• Avoid obscurity of expression.
• Avoid ambiguity.
• Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity).
• Be orderly.

People can behave differently concerning these suggested maxims (Levinson ,1983:102). Accordingly, people either observe, float, violate or opt-out these maxims in their conversation (Grice ,1975(3). The matter of behaving according to these maxims is determined by the speaker himself. Whether observing, floating, violating, or even opting out these maxims, this is the speaker's choice, and there might be a specific goal that is wanted to achieve behind this choice. All four cases can be explained below:

1. Observing the maxims: By observing the maxims of quantity, quality, relation, or manner, interlocutors are likely to be cooperative with each other.
2. Floating of the maxims: It is so intentional on the part of the speaker and that the hearer is expected to be aware of this floating and the hidden.
3. Violating the maxims: To violate the maxim is to fail to observe it. One might violate the maxim deliberately to serve specific needs and has the intention to mislead the hearer so as the hearer cannot realize that the maxim is being violated meaning of an utterance.
4. Opting out the maxims: Opting out is the last way in which the speakers go against the requirements of the maxims. Speakers may refuse to be cooperative in their discussion by proposing statements like No comment, nothing to say, or being silent.

5.3 Politeness

The concept of politeness, socially, refers to participants' behavior as how to be nice and shows respect and consideration for each other. (15). Linguistically, politeness is concerned with speakers' choices for certain forms or expressions through interaction with each other in a certain social context (ibid). Those expressions help to make the conversation as effective as possible. Leech (1983) (4)presents a pragmatic account of politeness by proposing the PP which is concerned with seeking concord and avoiding discord to maintain the social relationship. On the other hand, Leech bases his principle on two aspects which are:

1. Maximizing politeness expressions.
2. Minimizing impoliteness expressions.

In this regard, Leech postulates six maxims that people need to follow as far as they can to apply this principle. The following are the suggested maxims that can be considered as a complement to Grice's maxims of his CP theory (Leech, 1983) (4):

1.Tact maxim: It is based on the cost-benefit scale which is concerned with: a. Minimize the cost to the hearer. b. Maximize the benefit to the hearer.

2. The Generosity maxim: This maxim is concerned with:
3. Minimizing benefit to self. b. Maximizing cost to self.
4. The Approbation maxim: It is concerned with:
5. Minimizing dispraise of others. b. Maximizing praise of others.
6. The Modesty maxim: It is concerned with:
7. Minimizing praise of self. b. Maximizing dispraise of self.
8. The Agreement maxim: This maxim can be observed through:
9. Minimizing disagreement between self and other.
10. Maximizing agreement between self and other.
11. The maxim of sympathy: This maxim involves:
12. Minimizing antipathy between self and other
13. Maximizing sympathy between self and other

5.4 Presupposition

A presupposition is a kind of pragmatic inference that relies on the actual linguistic structure of a given sentence (14). Yule (1996)  (16) states that presupposition is “What is assumed to be the case prior to making any utterance”. According to Yule (1996) (16), many types of linguistic forms are represented by words, phrases, or specific structures through which potential types of presuppositions can be identified. In this concern, Yule (1996)(16) distinguishes five types of presupposition, namely existential presupposition, factive presupposition, lexical presupposition, structural presuppositions, non-factive presupposition, and counterfactual presupposition.

5.5 Deixis

Deixis is a phenomenon of "pointing out via language" which means using certain linguistic expressions to point or to indicate some entities outside language (13). Birner (2013) (13) four major types of deixis, namely personal deixis, spatial deixis, temporal deixis, and discourse deixis.

6. Model of Analysis

To achieve the aim of the present study, two independent models have been adopted for the purpose of data analysis. The first model is called "deception by implication" by Hastak and Mazis (2011) (1); it is concerned with identifying misleading claims. This model consists of five categories, namely the omission of facts, misleadingness due to semantic confusion; this category has been modified by the researchers by adding another category which is concerned with pragmatic confusion so as to be misleadingness due to pragmatic and semantic confusion, intra-attribute misleadingness, Inter-attribute misleadingness, and source-based misleadingness.

The second model consists of all theories and aspects of pragmatics like Searle’s speech act theory (1979)(2), Grice’s cooperative principle theory (1975) (3), Leech's politeness principle theory (1983) (4), presupposition (1996), and deixis; this eclectic model is concerned with identifying the pragmatic traps in misleading ads.

7. Data collection

The data corpus of the present study consists of 400 ad claims that have been collected randomly from two main different sources namely social media and outdoor media. Few of these ads contain claims written on certain products.  The collected data is related to different types of products like cosmetics, fashion, food, and diet products, but it is mainly concerned with cosmetic products. Two means have been used to collect this amount of data. The researchers' phone cameras have been used to collect data from outdoor media. In addition, screenshots have been taken to collect different types of data posted on social media.

8. Procedure of Analysis

Based on the adopted model of identifying misleading claims, the misleading ads will be identified. Then, according to the adopted model of identifying pragmatic traps, all the potential pragmatic traps will be identified in misleading claims. By doing so, qualitative analysis will be achieved.

9. Data Analysis and Findings

The present section deals with analyzing the collected data qualitatively according to the five categories of misleading claims with identifying the potential pragmatic traps they have:

9.1 The omission of facts: This type of deception is concerned with presenting incomplete information or claims throughout the advertiser's promotion activity, as it is seen in the following claim:

(1). يحتوي على تركيبة قوية من المواد

It contains a powerful combination of ingredients

This claim has been written in one of the promotional posts on Facebook that are associated with cosmetic ads through which the advertiser tries to inform consumers about the constituents of a specific skincare product. The advertised product looks like a scrub by which human skin can be bleached and cleaned. This claim is categorized as being misleading due to the incomplete information that has been presented. The advertiser's claim is just that this product consists of a powerful combination of ingredients without even mentioning what these ingredients are. By doing so, the pure omission of facts has been committed by the advertiser. Accordingly, consumers will lack the adequate understanding that has an apparent role in evaluating the ad claim appropriately.

According to speech act theory, the ad claim mentioned above performs an assertive speech act through which the advertiser performs an informing action. However, regarding the felicity conditions, the mentioned claim has been identified as insincere assertive speech act due to the deceptive intention that is held by the advertiser through his attempt to present a misleading claim which has been embodied in providing consumers deliberately with incomplete facts Therefore, the pragmatic trap that is included in the above-mentioned claim is represented by the  fact  that  the  sincerity condition  has not been met. Due to the deliberate omission that has been committed by advertisers in the above-mentioned claim, the advertisers violate the maxim of quantity for being less informative than required, accordingly, an implicature is created. In this respect, it is to be said that according to the CP theory, the second pragmatic trap of the above-mentioned claims is represented by the violation of the quantity maxim.

9.2 Misleadingness Due to Pragmatic and Semantic Confusion

Misleadingness due to Pragmatic confusion can be represented by claims containing certain ambiguous expressions that have more than one interpretation (17). In Arabic written ads, those ambiguous claims are widely adopted by the advertisers, particularly when they tend to make a specific offer to their consumers. let us consider the following example:

(2). عرض لفترة محدودة   Limited time offer

Throughout gathering the data of the present study, it has been observed that this claim has been widely adopted and used by advertisers when they want to make a special offer about their products. Moreover, it has been noticed also that such a claim has been written more than one time in one single ad, especially in social media ads.  However, this claim is identified as a misleading claim due to its ambiguity, by saying that this offer is valid for just a limited period of time without determining the exact time for this offer, the ad will have more than one potential inference. By doing so, advertisers tend to make consumers believe that this offer will end at any time; thus, consumers may buy the product because they are afraid that this offer may be ended soon due to the unspecified period of time that hasn't been determined at the beginning and the end of their offering.

The presented ambiguous claim results in three pragmatic traps which can be identified with regard to speech act theory, CP theory, and deixis phenomenon.

Starting with speech act theory, through presenting such a claim the advertiser performs a declarative speech act which holds an informative illocutionary force by which the advertiser tends to inform his targeted consumers that this offer is valid for a limited period of time. Yet, the informative force of this declarative speech act has been identified as insincere; the sincerity condition which is concerned with the intention of the speaker has not been fulfilled. The advertiser hasn’t been sincere in performing such an ad claim because the starting and finishing period of time of the offer have not been mentioned by the advertiser. By claiming that this offer is valid just for a limited period of time, the advertiser ignores mentioning certain facts about this offer; thus, erroneous inferences can be generated from this non-informative ad claim, that's to say, the intention behind presenting such a mysterious claim is to deceive the consumer. Being insincere through performing such a speech act result in a pragmatic trap through which consumers can be misled.

The second pragmatic trap that this claim has can be identified through the CP theory. The advertiser can be described as being uncooperative due to presenting such an ambiguous claim through which he violates the maxim of manner. Without pointing out the exact period of time such an offer continues to be valid or even mentioning the time through which this offer starts, it will be an ambiguous claim. The advertiser fails to disclose his claim and fails to present his offer in a way that allows consumers to infer this claim appropriately. Accordingly, the second identified pragmatic trap of this claim is represented by a violation of the manner maxim.

The last trap of this claim is related to the deixis phenomenon. By performing such an insincere speech act, one of deixis types is misused by the advertiser which is the temporal deixis. However, temporal deixis is concerned with using specific referring expressions through which a specific period of time can be identified in a certain context. But as it is explained earlier that since consumers are left with an unknown period of time , they will not be able to identify and infer exactly the intended point of time that is implied behind the presented claim .This gives rise  to the existence of a pragmatic trap  that is represented by the misuse of the temporal deixis.

Semantically confused claims in Arabic ads are represented by the use of emotional expressions. Those expressions can be considered as effective tools in shaping consumers' choices and influencing their purchasing behavior (18). For example:

(3). لأنكِ جميلة لوريال تريد لكِ الافضل

Because you are beautiful, L'Oreal wants the best for you

This claim has been observed in social media ads by which the advertiser wants to promote a shampoo product that has a certain role in reducing hair problems that consumers usually suffer from. The advertiser here chooses to promote the advertised product by starting the claim with an expressed positive statement that involves praising the ad receivers to make them have the impression that they should buy the advertised product because it is the best choice for preserving their beauty and having a healthy hair as long as possible.  As it is observed, this claim is oriented directly to the women, they are the targeted ones that the advertiser wants to present such claim to. Advertisers tend to use such emotional expressions because the psychological state of women, in general, might be affected easily through being exposed to such a kind of compliments and emotional expressions, particularly, if the advertised product is close to their needs in a sense that everything associated with this product is taken seriously.

By applying the second model that is concerned with identifying the pragmatic traps, three pragmatic traps can be recognized in this ad claim. In terms of speech act theory, the presented claim can be considered as an assertive speech act through which the advertiser asserts to his targeted consumer that she is beautiful. The compliment that has been asserted through this act has a significant effect in increasing consumers' happiness and raising their self-confidence. Whatever the sense consumers can get by being exposed to such an emotional expression, their behavior can be influenced positively towards the advertised product. Behind the compliment that has been presented in this claim, the advertiser implicitly performs a directive act in that he indirectly asks consumers to buy this product. However, whatever force the ad claim may have, it does not fulfill the sincerity condition; thus, it has been characterized as deceptive. The deceptive intention is clear as the advertiser makes a specific reference by using the personal pronoun two times. The advertiser begins his claim by stating the personal pronoun " لأنكِ" and the second personal pronoun at the end of the claim which is represented by the word ", لكِ for you". By using these personal pronouns, the advertiser addresses his claim to just one specific consumer while this claim has been written and shared on Facebook account in that hundreds of consumers perceive it. Therefore, this assertive speech act has not been performed sincerely, so it can be misleading.

The compliment that has been presented in this claim can be identified as a politeness expression. The advertiser seems to be polite by following the approbation maxim of Leech's PP which entails maximizing the praising of others. Observing such a maxim is considered as a pragmatic trap that may affect consumers' emotions and choices as well.

The use of the personal pronouns deceptively results in another pragmatic trap which is identified with regard to deixis phenomenon. Those personal pronouns are considered as personal deictic through which the advertiser points out a specific consumer in his marketing context. This specific reference can be considered as a trap by which the advertiser tends to deceive his consumers.

9.3 Intra-attribute misleadingness is another parameter through which misleading ads can be identified. It entails certain cases when consumers misperceive specific attributes which result in misleading inferences about the same attribute. For example:

(4).  كل ماهو حصري وغريب تجدونه لدينا فقط

You can find everything exclusive and strange only with us      

This ad claim has been observed written at the beginning of every promotional post on Facebook and Instagram accounts that are related to a specific mall concerned with selling things related to different types of products. When he tries to expose his products , the owner of this mall starts his promotion with this statement in order to maintain the attention of  his targeted consumers whether on Facebook or Instagram since both these accounts are considered as effective tools through which advertisers can show their products to hundreds of people and they represent the best choice for the majority of advertisers to exercise their promotional activity.

However, this statement is identified as a misleading claim because the advertiser gives his products such a unique description by informing his consumers that they can find everything strange and exclusive only with what he sells in a sense that he associates those attributes only to his products. By giving his products such a uniqueness, consumers may be misled by assuming that no other malls have such attributes; this assumption has been generated by the deliberate use of the word "فقط, only" by the advertiser. The sense of uniqueness that is revealed from this claim is given by the use of "فقط, only" to imply that everything strange and exclusive is uniquely related to the products being offered in this mall.

Four pragmatic traps can be identified in this claim under the framework of speech act theory, PP theory, presupposition triggers, and deictic expressions.

Starting with speech act theory, this claim can be considered as an assertive speech act. By performing an assertive act, the advertiser asserts to his consumers that they will find every new, different, unique, and strange thing with products that he presents in his mall. Despite the sense of assertion that this claim has, it is still hard for consumers to check its truth value, that's why the advertiser exploits this difficulty and presents such a misleading claim. Accordingly, the assertive act has been performed insincerely by the advertiser due to his deceptive intention and implication that hasn’t been stated explicitly in the claim. Accordingly, the first pragmatic trap that can be identified in this claim is represented by the advertiser's intention not to fulfill the sincerity condition.

In terms of PP theory, the praising statement that has been asserted through this claim is problematic, because it has been performed by the advertiser himself in that he tries to maximize praising to himself. By doing so, the advertiser violates the maxim of modesty and this is the second pragmatic trap of this claim.

The third pragmatic trap that can be identified is the presuppositional trap. By the use of the word "فقط, only" in this ad claim, the advertiser presupposes that his targeted consumer may believe this restriction sense that has been conveyed in this lexical word; it can be said that this claim has a presuppositional trap that is triggered by the word " فقط, only". In Arabic language, more precisely when the word ", فقطonly" is used in a formal context, it has the function of limitation and restriction. But in the Arabic marketing context, this word is often used by advertisers in order to mislead consumers. Therefore, it will be problematic on the part of consumers in that they may face difficulty in figuring out the correct assumption.

The final pragmatic trap that can be identified in the presented ad claim is represented by the use of person deictic " نحن, we ". This referring expression hasn’t been mentioned or stated explicitly in the claim but it is expressed implicitly to indicate that these two attributes "exclusive,"حصري and "strange, غريب" are restricted only to things being offered in his mall. That's to say in the deceptive context, advertisers usually use certain deictic expressions implicitly to mislead consumers.

9.4 Inter attribute misleadingness: This strategy indicates cases through which consumers make a correlation between two different attributes when drawing their inferences. As it is seen in the following example:

(5). قليل الدسم  Low fat

This labeling claim has been observed written on one of the specific cheese products to make them more appealing to consumers who are concerned about losing weight.  As a result of being exposed to such claims and based on the logical consistency inference, consumers may have the belief that since this product is "low in fat" so it is "low in calories" while the two attributes differ from each other. By holding such false beliefs by consumers, invalid inferences can be generated so as such true claims can be ruled as misleading

It is worth mentioning that such a false belief is commonly held by those illiterate consumers who are never concerned with any other provided information that has been labeled on the product. That's why, even with making a successful disclosure to correct such a false belief, it is non-effective for acquiring the correct belief because consumers tend to combine new information with previous assumptions that they hold.  However, this claim has been identified as misleading but not at the pragmatic level in that no pragmatic implication is included behind this claim. Accordingly, no pragmatic traps can be revealed or identified.

9.5 Source-based misleadingness is the strategy by which advertisers choose to provide consumers with specific endorsements and testimonials concerning the displayed products. For example:

(6) موصى به من قبل أطباء الجلدية  

It has been recommended by dermatologists

It has been observed that this claim has been frequently used by promoters in an attempt to enhance the value of the product being offered and to encourage product purchasing. It is widely stated through the promotional posts that are concerned with promoting cosmetic products on both Facebook and Instagram accounts. Perceiving such a claim may result in an assumption that the displayed products are checked and inspected by those experts who have permission to recommend such products. Consequently, consumers can be misled; their perception may be influenced by being exposed to such endorsements and they may assume that this product is safe to use without resulting in any problems. Accordingly, their purchase behavior can be affected and the act of buying the displayed product may be motivated.

Two pragmatic traps can be identified from the above-mentioned claim under the framework of speech act theory and CP theory.  In terms of Searle's speech act theory, the above-mentioned claim expresses an assertive act in a sense that the advertiser asserts to their consumers that this product has such recommendation in order to affect their ad processing. However, when advertisers perform such assertive speech acts, they don’t fulfill the sincerity condition due to their deceptive intention behind providing consumers with such recommendations. That is to say, they tend to support their ad content by such recommendations and to mislead consumers as well. The non-sincerity through performing this assertive act represents the first pragmatic trap that is identified from the above-mentioned claim.

The second pragmatic trap can be identified by CP theory. According to Grice (1975) (3), to observe the quality maxim, one should have adequate evidence of what he says. However, the above-mentioned claim is presented without any evidence that proves its truth conditions. In this case, the advertiser violates the maxim of quality; he is uncooperative in exchanging his ad content with his targeted consumers. Violation of the quality maxim is the second pragmatic trap of the above-mentioned claim.

The data that have been analyzed result in many findings. To deceive consumers, advertisers tend to present misleading by following certain strategies in designing their claims. According to the pragmatic traps that have been identified in misleading claims, it has been found that when advertisers tend to deceive consumers by performing a specific type of speech act, their sincerity condition is not considered; this condition almost has not been fulfilled by advertisers in the deceptive context. Accordingly, this may result in many insincere speech acts; the insincerity in performing a specific speech act leads to a pragmatic trap as it is noticed throughout the qualitative data analysis. a trap has been identified in deceptive claims more than other traps.

Concerning CP theory, it has been observed that advertisers are not cooperative with their consumers when making misleading promotions. In most of their misleading claims, they violate the different maxims of CP. By doing so, their claims may result in many implications which can be of a great chance to be exploited by advertisers to make a pragmatic trap to deceive consumers.  

As far as Leech's PP theory is concerned, it has been observed that in a certain context, advertisers may observe the PP while in other contexts this principle has been violated particularly with those ads that have a sense of praising. Thus, it can be said that behaving differently towards this principle may achieve deception but the observation or the violation of this principle may differ in the level of deception they achieve.

According to presuppositional traps, it has been found that when advertisers design their claims linguistically, they don't too much consider such a type of traps; such traps may not be as effective as other types of traps.

It has been observed also that there are certain claims contain certain personal pronouns which are used by advertisers in an attempt to make a specific reference either to their consumers or to themselves. In terms of deixis, these personal pronouns are called person deictic expressions which are concerned with referring to a specific individual in a certain context. These person deictic expressions have been identified in misleading ads as traps adopted by advertisers to mislead consumers. Another type of deictic expression that has been observed and identified in misleading ads is called temporal deictic expressions which are represented by using specific time expressions to make a reference to a specific period of time in a certain context. However, it has been found that in an advertising context, those expressions have been usually misrepresented by advertisers in that they tend to provide consumers with non-informative and vague periods of time in order to confuse consumers

10. Conclusion

According to the data being analyzed, it can be concluded that:

1. Arabic ads contain a specific type of deceptive ads which is misleading ads, and these misleading ads are presented differently through different strategies by advertisers.
2. Since different types of pragmatic traps have been identified at the level of all pragmatic aspects and theories, it can be concluded that all these theories can account for and identify the pragmatic traps in misleading ads.

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