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Dutch Journal of Applied Linguistics
Vol. 4:1 (2015) ► pp.21–38

English words and phrases in Dutch job advertisements

Do they function as peripheral persuasion cues?

 | Radboud University
It has been suggested that differences in mental processing affect the persuasiveness of language use. Within the Elaboration Likelihood Model framework, we examined if there were differences in the persuasiveness of English versus Dutch words in job ads depending on the way the job ads were processed, either by the central or the peripheral route. In an experiment, 144 participants evaluated ads for lower level jobs. Persuasiveness was measured in terms of text, job, and company evaluation, and application intention. There were no differences in persuasiveness for job ads containing English words depending on whether they were processed via the peripheral or the central route. However, under peripheral processing the jobs in the ads with English words were seen as being more attractive and as having a lower salary than the jobs in the all-Dutch ads, providing some limited evidence that English words may function as peripheral cues.
Keywords: English, Elaboration Likelihood Model, job advertisements, persuasion, language processing, peripheral cue
Published online: 17 August 2015
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https://doi.org/10.1075/dujal.4.1.03meu
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