The purpose of the master thesis is to analyse and compare Slovenian and Italian advertisements for different products. It is focused primarily on the use of selected linguistic tools that appear in parallel texts concerning the same product. Taking as a starting point the definition of advertisement as a (linguistic and non-linguistic) continuum it presents different views of the terminology related to advertising. It touches upon the development of advertising in Slovenia and Italy and briefly outlines the development of today's advertisements from their predecessors. The first Slovenian (1794) and Italian advertisements (1690) are also presented. Then the structure of the advertisement and its main components are outlined, whereby different functions of language relevant to the textual genre in question are discussed. Finally, the theory developed by Umberto Eco in his Struttura assente (1983) is introduced, which deals with verbal and non-verbal elements of the advertisement and the relationship between them, while it also takes into account their effects on the addressee. The thesis analyzes in detail the linguistic properties of the bilingual Italian-Slovene textual corpus, including their vocabulary (neologisms and borrowed words, technical expressions, rhetorical tools) and syntax. After presenting a definition of the text and the standards of textuality, it focuses on appellative texts, in which advertisements are also comprised. At this point, the notion of argumentation is introduced, which is divided into rational and objective persuasion on the one hand or and manipulative persuasion on the other hand. The model of the argumentative theme development after K. Brinker (Linguistische Textanalyse, 1985) is also taken into account. The empirical part analyzes 16 Slovenian and 15 Italian advertisements derived from printed media (newspapers, magazines, catalogues, etc.). The thesis tries to identify the most important differences and similarities between the two languages at the lexical and the syntactic levels. The analysis also takes into account the relationship between verbal and non-verbal elements in the examined texts. Every piece of analysis includes a brief comparative overview of the texts in question that aims at providing some contrastive observations.
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