Multimodalioji argumentacija socialinėje reklamoje

Acta Linguistica Lituanica 2025, t. 93, p. 1–17 Contents link / Turinio nuoroda ISSN 2669-218X (online / elektroninis) MULTIMODALIOJI ARGUMENTACIJA SOCIALINĖJE REKLAMOJE Multimodal Argumentation in Social Advertising EGLĖ GABRĖNAITĖ Vilnius University Email: [email protected] ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4904-0148 Research interests: rhetoric, persuasive communication, rhetorical and stylistic discourse analysis. VILTĖ NAUSĖDAITĖ Vilnius University Email: [email protected] ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-7042-3349 Research interests: interdiscursivity, multimodality, studies of persuasive discourse, rhetorical and stylistic discourse analysis. https://doi.org/10.35521/all93-04 ABSTRACT The study presented in this article investigates the rhetorical force of multimodal argumentation. Instances of multimodal argumentation are sought in examples of Lithuanian public service advertising. The aim is to identify characteristic models of multimodal argumentation, analyze certain aspects of their verbal and visual expression, and summarize the rhetorical functions and value of these models. The study combines methods of critical and rhetorical discourse analysis. Multimodal strategies in advertising are fundamental means of creating and conveying meaning and establishing contact with the audience; they construct an argumentation model aimed at rhetorical persuasion. The foundation of multimodal arguments operating in public service advertising discourse consists of classical models of argumentative reasoning—enthymeme and analogy. KEYWORDS: multimodal argumentation, persuasive discourse, pragmatic rhetoric, rhetorical enthymeme, rhetorical analogy, public service advertising. Copyright © 2025 Eglė Gabrenaitė, Viltė Nausėdaitė. Published by the Institute of the Lithuanian Language. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. // Išleido Lietuvių kalbos institutas. Šis straipsnis yra atviros prieigos, platinamas pagal „Creative Commons“ priskyrimo licencijos sąlygas, leidžiančias neribotai naudoti, platinti ir atkurti turinį bet kokioje laikmenoje, nurodant autorių ir šaltinį. Received: / Gauta: 2025-11-03. Accepted: / Priimta: 2025-12-04. 1 ABSTRACT The article addresses the problem of multimodal argumentation and its rhetorical potential. The targeted realisation of multimodal argumentation is investigated through examples of Lithuanian social advertising. The study aims to identify characteristic models of multimodal argumentation, analyse their specific verbal and visual manifestations, and summarise the rhetorical functions and value of these models. The research was conducted by combining methods of critical discourse analysis and rhetorical discourse analysis. In advertising, multimodal strategies serve as fundamental means of meaning-making, transmission, and establishing contact with the audience, thereby shaping argumentation models oriented toward rhetorical persuasion. The multimodal arguments found in social advertising discourse rely primarily on classical structures of reasoning, the enthymeme and analogy. KEYWORDS: multimodal argumentation, persuasive discourse, pragmatic rhetoric, rhetorical analogy, rhetorical enthymeme, social advertising. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS Public service advertising is a means of prevention that helps avoid various social problems (for example, road safety risks, discrimination, polluting lifestyles, intentional cruelty to animals, and others) or reduce their scale and impact on the community (Sarmah, Sing 2022: 2). Advertising not only highlights actual and potential problems but also proposes ways to address and prevent them. The value of public service advertising as a specific rhetorical practice is defined by its orientation toward change: it raises public awareness and encourages critical perspectives, conveying positive moral attitudes that promote social progress and maturity. In other words, by creating normative discourse, public service advertising balances informing, moral obligation, and the symbolic representation of values. It is worthwhile to consider how rhetorical strategies operating in advertising both reveal and shape public consciousness, bring a desired standard of values to the fore, and invite the addressee to reflect on and evaluate the present context and act within it. The aim of the study presented in this article is to examine multimodal argumentation in Lithuanian public service advertising. To achieve this aim, the following objectives were set: a) to identify dominant models of argumentative reasoning by analyzing a representative sample of advertisements and identifying the most frequently recurring structures; b) to investigate how multimodal arguments are expressed—the interaction between verbal and visual components of an argument; c) to summarize the functions and rhetorical value of the identified argumentation models in public service advertising discourse. More than 300 examples of Lithuanian public service advertising were selected for the study. The analysis focused on static Lithuanian advertisements published between 2020 and 2025 that meet the criteria for public service advertising: they raise an issue of local or global significance, are oriented toward change rather than profit, and shape positive stereotypes of social behavior. Examples were collected from a wide variety of publicly accessible online sources, social media, and outdoor billboards. The discourse of public service advertising was examined from the perspective of pragmatic rhetoric. Pragmatic rhetoric is a combination of pragmatics, which foregrounds communicative intention, and rhetoric, which implies an intention to act. From this perspective, multimodality in advertising is understood- 2 understood as one of the forms of pragmatic rhetoric, that is, an instrument for creating persuasive discourse that ensures more effective communication and makes it possible to achieve intended goals. The means of expression that constitute discourse acquire meaning in a specific social context (Kress, van Leeuwen 2006: 178; Pauwels 2012: 2 50); therefore, to interpret and evaluate appropriately the message encoded through discourse and understand how it works, it is important not only to consider contextual factors but also to analyze the interaction of the means of expression and identify the reasons for their selection, their functionality, and their likely influence on the addressee. To accomplish this task, rhetorical discourse analysis was employed—a method offering flexible interpretive possibilities whose power derives from the immediacy of rhetorical analysis: “the researcher can identify both what is clear, explicit, and well known and what is merely inferable, probable, or implicit” (PHSR 2000: 211). Thus, the perspective of pragmatic rhetoric and the methodological tools of rhetorical and critical discourse analysis provide an optimal approach to analyzing multimodal arguments, enabling the decoding of discourse creators’ intentions and the disclosure of ideological assumptions and the influences of power relations and social, political, and cultural contexts (Andrus 2012: 135; Li et al. 2024: 12–13). Rhetorical discourse analysis is particularly useful for analyzing multimodal artifacts (Bloomfield, Tillery 2022: 361); it makes it possible to reconstruct how discourse creators “make sense” of a problem, which visual and verbal narratives they prioritize, and which emotional and cognitive appeals they employ to attract the attention of addressees and change their behavior. Following the discourse-analysis methodology discussed above, each element of the multimodal discourse was examined—the visual and verbal components, as well as the cultural, social, and political context—and the interrelations among these elements were investigated. The result is a description of the multimodal argument, comprising a synthesis of all the elements (Žagar 2021: 15). 1. MULTIMODALITY AS A CATEGORY OF PRAGMATIC RHETORIC Pragmatinės retorikos siekinys – nuosekli pastanga įtikinti (Jordan 2020: 4). Į argumentavimą žvelgiama kaip į tikslinį „diskursyvių priemonių, kuriomis siekiama įgyti adresato prielankumą“, pasirinkimą (Olbrechts–Tyteca, Perelman 1969: 8). Daroma prielaida, kad argumentas yra ne verbalinė ar vizualinė, bet kognityvinė kategorija (Forceville, Tseronis 2017: 4–5). Kitaip sakant, argumentas – tai mąstymo ir pažinimo priemonė, atspindinti žmogiškosios patirties, individualios arba kolektyvinės pasaulėjautos ir sociokultūrinės aplinkos ypatumus. A tradition of rhetorical research on multimodal argumentation is developing in Anglophone academic discourse. The most significant contribution has been made by Assimakis Tseronis, who, together with co-authors (Tseronis 2015; 2018; 2020; 2021; 2024; Forceville, Tseronis 2017; Pollaro­li, Tseronis 2018), investigates the possibilities for realizing multimodal arguments, as well as the logical and rhetorical structure and purpose of multimodal and traditional (verbal) rhetorical figures in various modern discourses. According to the scholar, verbal, visual, and multimodal arguments are different, but not opposed (there is no opposition between them), ways of presenting evidence, performing different functions in particular discourses. A. Tseronis treats multimodal 3 arguments as arguments with dual expression that, first and foremost, perform an appellate function, seeking to win the audience’s favor and convince it. He also emphasizes the dependence of multimodal argumentation (and communication) on a multifaceted context: not only a rhetorical or linguistic one, but also a cultural, social, and political one, and, more rarely, a historical one. According to A. Tseronis, the multimodal arguments prevalent in a particular discourse should be evaluated from three perspectives: logically—how true and consistent they are; dialectically—how valid and reliable they are; and rhetorically—how persuasive they are and how well they enable the discourse creator to achieve their stated goals. Charles Forceville’s works also consider the directions of change in the perception and expression of multimodal communication and argumentation (Forceville 2017; 2020; 2021; 2022; Forceville, Kjeldsen 2018). The scholar theorizes categories such as visual and multimodal arguments, establishes the scholarly significance of visual and multimodal communication and argumentation, and discusses their overlaps and distinctions in terms of form, expression, and other aspects. Ch. Forceville proposes evaluating argumentation (visual, verbal, multimodal) in two ways: a) argumentation as a purposeful process, that is, an intense emotional-intellectual interaction between the person making a claim and the person receiving information; and b) argumentation as a product, created by a person who declares and at the same time reinforces their positions. In the researcher’s view, monomodal communication and argumentation can no longer meet the needs of modern people, since views, opinions, and ideas are rarely conveyed through only one—verbal—code. In other words, as communicants share information intensively, meaning is constructed by integrating several semiotic resources, such as verbal, visual, and acoustic modes. This view is also supported by the diversity of contemporary research into rhetoric and multimodality, which focuses on multimodal artifacts of contemporary culture (advertisements, photographs, caricatures, films, music videos, etc.). In Lithuanian scholarly discourse, rhetorical analysis of multimodal argumentation is a new field of research. Studies most closely related to this topic were published in the scholarly volume Approaches to Multimodality: Rhetoric and Stylistics in Public Discourse (2024), in which the contributions address the expression and functions of commercial, social, and political advertising, as well as audiovisual discourse (animated films). In their research, Eglė Gabrėnaitė, Jurgita Kerevičienė, Rita Baranauskienė, Saulutė Juzelėnienė, Skirmantė Biržietienė, and Skirmantė Šarkauskienė combine methodological approaches from classical and pragmatic rhetoric, stylistics, and multimodality (RSPD 2024). Multimodality as an argumentative category should be understood as a combination of more than one mode of expressing meaning, representing a specific historical, social, (geo)political, and cultural context (Tseronis 2018: 12). Multimodal arguments often function as key factors that contribute to the rhetorical persuasiveness of discourse. It should be noted that the components of multimodal elements, such as image and word, cannot be evaluated separately (Pekūnas 2019: 101–102): they are equivalent and equally important, and therefore should not be divided hierarchically. The visual component of such an argument is not merely decorative or an aesthetic supplement to the word. Images can provide motivation, shape the evaluation of the subject under discussion, and express criticism, 4 appeal to the audience’s feelings of solidarity and civic awareness (Forceville, Kjeldsen 2018: 162). Thus, the multimodal expression of social advertising should be examined as an indivisible whole: the prevailing view is that visual and verbal components of an argument communicate the same thing in different ways, each enriching the overall meaning in its own way and helping the addressee better understand and assess the issues presented in the advertisement (Macagno, Souza-Pinto 2020: 146; Azevedo et al. 2021: 723). 2. RHETORICAL ENTHYMEME The study of social advertisements revealed that rhetorical enthymemes and analogies form the basis of most multimodal arguments. These models of argumentative reasoning are realized through images that reflect the verbal components. In other words, the visual elements of an argument not only supplement or explicate verbal content, but also give form to—and materialize—the attitudes, incentives, and views that the advertisement seeks to instill. Owing to its concision, the enthymeme has long been regarded as a useful instrument of persuasion: Aristotle defined the enthymeme as a “syllogism from probabilities or signs,” and as the principal mode of proof, a cornerstone of persuasion (Aristotle 1926: Rh. 2.22). A rhetorical enthymeme is most often an argument based on probability, with either its conclusion or its asserting premise left unstated. The omitted part of an enthymeme is self-evident, grounded in what a particular audience considers probable and acceptable, and the omission acts as an incentive for engagement. In other words, the enthymeme redistributes the work of argumentation: it leaves part of the inferential path to the addressee, connecting general assumptions with premises already made salient in the context. Of course, the rhetorical premises from which a conclusion follows need not be logically true; they are often subjective and sometimes contentious. The enthymeme differs from other types of argumentative reasoning in more than its concision: it draws attention to what is essential, stages an emotional trajectory, and draws the audience into normative evaluation. In advertising, the elimination of one of the enthymeme’s premises or its conclusion is a deliberate and carefully considered choice by the discourse creator, intended to encourage audience participation in formulating what appears to be an independent conclusion. From a pragmatic perspective, the enthymeme relies on the economy of omission: the more concise the expression, the stronger the addressee’s cognitive engagement and, correspondingly, the more personalized the conclusion. Thus, the enthymeme not only shortens the process of inference but also subtly adjusts the balance of responsibility: the addressee reaches the conclusion independently, and therefore accepts it as their own. It is precisely this “effect of awareness” that nudges people toward a change in attitudes or behaviour. Pragmatic rhetoric makes it possible to examine the enthymeme as a means of strategic maneuvering: by calibrating the persuasiveness and plausibility of premises, the discourse creator deliberately leaves unspoken what the audience already knows or regards as sensitive, and foregrounds what brings it closest to the desired conclusion. This is especially evident in social advertising: to mobilize the audience, secondary conditions and contentious nuances are set aside, while the central argument that resonates with the addressees’ values is brought to the fore. The appeals are imperative—they call not for discussion or deliberation, but for people to unite and act (cf. While you consider what to do, bullets are tearing Ukraine apart; Send money to fight; Not only branches are breaking... 5 Learn to provide psychological first aid; Be not only visible, but important—give the gift of life; Do a good deed—exchange your recyclables for cash). The imperative in these expressions functions not merely as a linguistic tone, but as a deontic license—the appeal is grounded in the logic of moral duty: it “legitimizes” the transition from fact (a description of the situation) to obligation (a demand for action). Christopher W. Tindale emphasizes the audience’s perspective: the enthymeme works when the addressee reaches the conclusion together with the speaker, rather than having it imposed upon them; in other words, the path toward the conclusion is shown (Tindale 2004: 250). A characteristic example is an advertisement by the support organization “Blue / Yellow for Ukraine” (see Figure 1). It features a striking combination of appeals to engagement, solidarity, and resistance, expressed through the enthymeme: Move a finger for Ukraine. By addressing the viewer imperatively (cf. Move), the discourse creator emphasizes that aid to Ukraine must be grounded in the principle of collective responsibility and appeals to the viewer’s sense of duty, initiative, and conscience. Everyone who cares about a country suffering through war and the fate of its people is called upon to “move a finger”—to donate 1.2 percent of their personal income tax to an organization that plays a meaningful intermediary role and ensures a smooth process of collecting and delivering aid. The advertisement’s verbal and visual elements interact harmoniously. Figure 1. Advertisement by the support organization “Blue / Yellow for Ukraine” The appeal (cf. Move a finger for Ukraine) is expressed not only in words but also visually: a finger with features of metonymy and hyperbole, implying the power of an individual to act; the outlines of the map of Ukraine; and a grotesque caricature of the aggressor. The emotionally charged colours of the Ukrainian flag, which have become symbols of struggle and hope, also play an important role. Visual 6 The combination of elements suggests a new meaning for the utterance: moving a finger means not only donating 1.2 percent to an organization supporting Ukraine, but also acting together against a common enemy. Figures 2, 3. Advertisements for an educational initiative about meningococcus B In the advertisement for the educational initiative about meningococcus B (see Figures 2, 3), the premises of the enthymeme are verbalized (cf. It is only a doll and Imagine if the infection affected a child), while the audience must draw the conclusion for itself, drawing on background knowledge and the context of the advertisement. Social advertisements are targeted at a clearly defined audience. This makes it possible to use multimodal arguments that catch the target recipient’s eye and prompt the desired cognitive response. In this particular case, the appeal is directed at parents raising young children. The discourse producer seeks to demonstrate that the fundamental problem is not the prevalence of the disease, but gaps in knowledge and an unrecognized awareness of the disease’s consequences, which give rise to a negligent and unjustifiably hostile attitude toward vaccination. In other words, a flawed attitude is subtly criticized and a solution is proposed (cf. Vaccinate your child against meningococcus B). The advertisement is based on the principle of contrast: fundamental categories of life and death, light and darkness, are set against each other. Contrast is one of the most powerful tools of psychological persuasion: when two phenomena are presented as contradictory, the audience is inclined to exaggerate their differences further (Reyes-Rincón, Baquero-Velásquez 2019: 339–340). The contrast is reinforced by the advertisement’s dark background and the dummy at its centre, which precisely reproduces the child’s facial features and body structure. The central figure in the advertisement—the doll—serves to attract attention; it is the main element upon which the negative emotional charge is focused. Negative appeals, i.e. stern warnings, prohibitions, intimidation, and frightening images, are a common mode of expression in social advertisements (Biržietienė 2012: 153), since they rely on the assumption that these prompt change. In the advertisements of the educational organization “Gamtos ateitis” (see Figures 4, 5, 6), the premises of the enthymeme are made salient verbally (cf. Nature has a future and By sorting waste and consuming less, you protect not only nature. You protect yourself!), while the conclusion is encoded by the advertisement’s visual elements, namely an amorphous human silhouette. Figures 4, 5, 6. Advertisements of the educational organization “Gamtos ateitis” The recipient’s attention is sought by amplifying the significance of personal influence: the importance of the close coexistence of humans and nature is emphasized, and a fundamental condition is put forward—nature has a future if people are willing to nurture it and act responsibly. Responsible conduct is associated with the development of sustainable habits: properly sorting and managing waste, conserving natural resources, reducing pollution, and so on. The discourse producer pursues several goals: to persuade people to assume due responsibility, to change societal attitudes, and, in the long term, to adopt new standards of behaviour directed toward the development of a sustainable ecosystem, of which humans are an integral part (cf. By sorting waste and consuming less, you protect not only nature. You protect yourself!). The persuasive force of the segmented utterance is strengthened by a rhetorical exclamation that highlights the pragmatic motive for action—You protect yourself! The conclusion of the enthymeme is expressed visually. The advertisement’s main subject—a human-animal (mammal, bird, fish) hybrid—points to the peaceful coexistence of humans and nature; a reciprocal correlation between humans and nature is visualized. The advertisement makes a strong appeal to awareness, supported by an impetus to act together: to engage in solving environmental problems, which are at the same time social problems. The discourse of social advertising reveals its creators’ ambition to seek new modes of expression—multimodal arguments that would help draw attention to entrenched or recurring social problems and increase intolerance toward them. The aim is to unite weight of thought with concision: the enthymeme is often the advertisement’s most important and only argument. The guiding principle is that the more precise the content and the more concise the form of an argument, the greater its rhetorical value—its persuasive impact. 3. RHETORICAL ANALOGY One of the most important functions of rhetorical analogy is to simplify complex or abstract questions: on the basis of a similarity, real or apparent—that is, symbolic—in one respect, it is concluded that the things being compared are similar in other respects as well. This is a heuristic function: analogy acts as a cognitive support, helping us understand an unfamiliar phenomenon by drawing on existing experience. However, from the perspective of pragmatic rhetoric, rhetorical analogy is not merely a form of cognition 8 priemonė, tai ir paskatos veikti forma. Claudia Schwarz-Plaschg (2016: 160) teigia, esą viešajame diskurse analogijos veikia kaip retoriniai agentai, t. y. kalbiniai veiksmai, nukreipti į socialinį ir politinį įveiklinimą. Argumentai, kurių pagrindas yra analogija, paveikūs, nes apelioja į bendrą patyrimo lauką, kuriame auditorija suvokia arba manosi suvokianti lyginamų reikšmių bendrumą. Rhetorical analogy also performs the function of framing discourse: it allows the discourse creator to strategize the angles from which the addressee will perceive the problem under consideration. This function is particularly useful in social advertising, since analogy not only explains but also indicates how to resolve (and evaluate) a moral or social dilemma. Thus, analogy acquires normative force: it shapes the audience’s criteria for evaluation and action. In other words, it not only conveys meaning but also proposes certain solutions: what should be regarded as appropriate conduct and habits, which actions should be considered responsible and civic-minded, and which should be understood as manifestations of indifference. Analogy highlights connections and similarities not only between phenomena or objects, but also between thoughts, concepts, and ideas. As the social advertisements examined here demonstrate, analogies actively shape perceptions of reality and outline guidelines for conduct and its evaluation. By means of ingenious analogies, compelling representations of socially relevant (geo)political and (socio)cultural problems are created (cf. Waste does not age. Let us sort it so that its youth does not last forever; Recruits for cancer. Around 100 children are called up in Lithuania every year; Your games are your children’s nightmares). Induction is the foundation of analogy. It is one of the principal principles of reasoning, whereby one proceeds from particular facts, phenomena, and events to a general idea, and from isolated details to a generalized rhetorical conclusion. Reasoning of an inductive nature fosters a dialectical outlook, develops conceptual and visual thinking, and enables the addressee to participate in the process of evidence-building and to solve problems (Koženiauskienė 2001: 134; Hyra, Walton 2018: 217–219). Rhetorical analogy operates according to the same principles as all inductive argumentation: the audience not only accepts the conclusion but also participates in deriving it. Thus, analogy-based argumentation arises not (only) from authority, but also from personal experience. For this reason, in social advertising, analogies, like enthymemes, function as structures that draw people into discourse: they engage the addressee in the logical and emotional process of meaning-making. Analogies in advertising help create desirable narratives and become a central element of discourse. Creators’ efforts to depart from standard forms of expression, avoid clichés, surprise, and even shock are evident. Like metaphors, analogies are characterized by a dynamic effect: they create an impression of novelty—attracting attention, eliciting cognitive surprise, and prompting interpretation and, consequently, consideration of the dilemmas raised in the advertisements (Lightbulb heads, you’ve burned out. This time you won’t get away with it. It’s time to change the bulb; You’re a candidate for life; Žilvinas would not have arrived on a wave of blood had his bleeding been stopped in time; Better smoked bacon than a smoked you; Trash cans are pampered too much. Even though every fifth person is left without food; Help dance the dance of life; Slow down the glaciers melting inside you). As noted earlier, multimodal arguments convey the discourse creator’s expectations and attitudes, seek to educate the public, change harmful behavior or habits, and initiate positive changes that reflect a vision of societal progress. Analogies are well suited to this purpose; they not only 9 serve to convey meaning but also to shape opinion: “rhetorical, action-oriented instruments used to perform various performative and argumentative functions” (Schwarz–Plaschg 2016: 158). One characteristic example is an advertisement for the emotional support service “Silver Line,” which draws attention to the problem of loneliness among older people (see Figure 7). The analogy, which has features of hyperbole (loneliness is an illness), implies an essential condition: Old age is not frightening when loneliness can be cured. Not with medicine, but with conversation. The advertisement asserts that there are no insoluble problems—or, in the words of its creators, no incurable illnesses—and that everyday expressions of humanity—care, the effort to listen attentively, and responding to another’s pain—help to overcome loneliness. Figure 7. Advertisement for the emotional support service “Silver Line” At first glance, it may seem that the advertisement is directed only at older people burdened by loneliness (cf. Call the toll-free number), but closer inspection reveals an effort to ensure that the advertisement reaches a broad audience: it seeks to change the still-prevalent view in society that the final stage of life—old age—is characterized exclusively by negative experiences, such as loneliness, neglect, and isolation. It also seeks to reduce both the external stigma of old age (shaped by the attitudes of others) and its internalized stigma (associated with a person’s self-esteem). The advertisement’s central axis is the opposition between two categories (life and death, youth and old age, togetherness and loneliness), with a pronounced sense of ambivalence. It is interesting to note that in advertisements whose argumentation is based on rhetorical analogies, visual elements are chosen according to the associations evoked by one of the objects being compared—in this case, illness. The most salient association is usually selected; for example, overcoming illness requires more than personal willpower alone: external assistance, that is, medical treatment, is also needed. Analogy acts as a rhetorical stimulus to the imagination, while one element of the multimodal analogy—a blister pack of medicine, with features of metonymy—performs an aesthetic-impressionistic function. The argument is that loneliness is not a physical but a spiritual illness, and must be treated by methods other than the usual ones: conversation dispels feelings of neglect and emotional insecurity, improves quality of life, and helps people accept the inevitable processes of aging. In the discourse examined, analogy becomes a way of seeing that shapes a particular way of perceiving and evaluating the world; through it, social reality is constructed and consolidated. The multimodal analogy created according to the principle of antithesis (see Figure 8) is reinforced by hyperbole and anaphora, 10 the graphically realized resonance of grammatical components (cf. Your games – your children’s nightmares) and a visual component (a gaming roulette wheel) that indicates the nature of the games. Figure 8. Advertisement by the Gambling Supervision Authority The advertisement addresses parents who are addicted to gambling and encourages them to resist the addiction, which harms not only gamblers but also traumatizes their loved ones, especially their children. The advertisement highlights the risks: irresponsible gambling can lead to financial, social, and psychological problems; parents’ negative example shapes a child’s distorted worldview, disrupts their psycho-emotional development, teaches harmful ways of coping with stress, and creates conditions for addiction to develop (cf. Children of gamblers are at greater risk of becoming addicted to gambling or psychoactive substances). The visual elements of the analogy establish parallels of meaning, expanding its rhetorical impact: the analogy becomes an affective argument. The advertisement’s dark color palette and emotional appeals create a persuasive atmosphere and indicate a hierarchy of values. In the advertisement under discussion, the analogy is rhetorically powerful: it not only explains but also evaluates, condemning a particular behavior and attitude. It appeals to the conscience, shame, guilt, and fear of the advertisement’s addressee—the gambler. The influence of negative emotions on changes in behavior is recalled by the logic of emotional persuasion described by Aristotle: fear, anger, pity, and their opposites have the greatest effect on people’s decisions (Aristotle 1926: Rh. 2.1). The creators of persuasive discourse have 11 understood how emotional stimuli affect the audience’s moods and behavior; threat rhetoric based on negative appeals is one of the most effective communication strategies and provokes the greatest response (Ofurum et al. 2016: 6). There are advertisements in which multimodal arguments are constructed according to the principle of mirror reflection: the verbal and visual components of the argument reflect and precisely reproduce one another. Such expressive choices have been explained as an effort to present a particular problem not directly but suggestively, appealing to the advertisement’s addressee’s imagination. One such example is the recruitment advertising campaign for volunteers at the emotional support service Vaikų linija (see Figures 9, 10, and 11). On the one hand, the campaign seeks to remind audiences of the work carried out for more than twenty-five years and to emphasize its significance to society; on the other hand, it stirs feelings of personal and collective responsibility and calls for ensuring the continuation of this work by adding to the ranks of volunteers (cf. Find out how to volunteer with Vaikų linija). Figures 9, 10, and 11. Advertisements for the emotional support service Vaikų linija Analogy helps integrate different domains of experience and create new meanings from this union; it acts as emotional and moral mediation between the sender and recipient of a message, evokes empathic recognition, and makes it possible to understand a social problem through a familiar structure: by providing emotional support, a person gains the opportunity to “become” a member of a particular profession and help children overcome difficulties (see Figures 9, 10, and 11). Operating on an emotional and associative level, analogy determines the starting point for interpretation, highlighting the importance of the volunteer as someone who carries out the organization’s mission: the role of members of certain professions in society is fundamental, and their everyday work ensures the smooth functioning of society. The verbal metaphor (cf. You can become a surgeon who heals a broken heart; You can become a firefighter who extinguishes a child’s anger) points to the importance of the organization’s work. The multimodal argument implies the values promoted by the organization—respect and openness—and emphasizes the value of emotional support, whose fundamental component is attentive conversation. C. Schwarz-Plaschg (2016) pasiūlyta analoginės vaizduotės sąvoka (angl. analogical imagination) leidžia kalbėti apie analogiją kaip apie vaizduotės veikseną, jungiančią kognityvinius, emocinius ir moralinius matmenis. Socialinėje reklamoje ši vaizduotė tampa 12 the main form of audience engagement: through analogy, the addressee not only understands the problematic phenomenon but also “tries on” their relationship to it. CONCLUSIONS Social advertising is created as a reflection of current issues while also shaping public opinion and highlighting the desired standard of values. The argumentative structure of the discourse examined is coherent and uncomplicated, grounded in a deliberate principle of economy: the central idea is usually conveyed through two basic reasoning models—rhetorical enthymeme and rhetorical analogy. This targeted mode of expression is precisely what gives the discourse its rhetorical force, combining clarity, emotional dynamism, and behavioral direction. Both enthymeme and analogy optimally meet the needs of the advertising genre. The purpose of multimodal rhetorical enthymeme is to condense an argument into a concise yet compelling form that encourages the audience to discover the unstated premise of the inference for themselves. Such an enthymeme mobilizes the addressee’s knowledge, values, and emotional engagement, becoming not only a means of persuasion but also of activation—it prompts action. Multimodal analogies in social advertising function as normative structures: they shape and instill desirable patterns of social behavior, strengthen value positions, and establish an understanding of social responsibility. Thus, enthymeme and analogy are closely related, but their functions differ. Analogy focuses on structural similarity between the domains being compared and creates a field of recognition, whereas enthymeme concentrates on the conclusion that follows from the similarity. In other words, analogy forms a cognitive map, while enthymeme guides the addressee along the shortest route to solving the problem. Rhetorical enthymemes and analogies are compellingly realized through verbal and visual figuration: advertisements abound in litotes, hyperboles, metaphors, antitheses, oxymorons, and other rhetorical devices that strengthen the force of discourse. 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