A Pragmatic Analysis of Persuasion of Receiving COVID-19 Vaccine

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to investigate the speech acts which convey persuasion of receiving COVID-19 vaccine, and to examine the utilization of the strategies of persuasion. Documents or written texts have been collected as a data source in the current qualitative study. The data of this study includes ten extracts drawn from public health reports that has been obtained through purposive sampling from the official site of the World health organization (WHO), medical journals and websites. Content qualitative analysis was employed depending on Bach and Harnish’s (1979) Model of Speech Acts, and Breuer and Napthine’s (2008) and Huggard, Leonie &, Iris's (2006) strategies of persuasion The findings indicated that the argument presented in reports on COVID-19 vaccine was developed persuasively using various persuasive strategies. The findings revealed that doctors, writers, medical organizations and journals had shown extraordinary abilities in using persuasive strategies. They tended to employ speech acts as persuasive strategies in their efforts to make their arguments more convincing to their audience. Notably, the application of speech acts and persuasive strategies was connected to the social interaction and contexts, and a reflective of the situation of pandemic and the hesitation about vaccine.