Zahra Sadat Roozafzai - ACECR Institute of Higher EducationIsfahan, Iran

In general, Ecolinguistic studies deal with the socio-ecological contexts, actors and factors involved in producing, perceiving and practicing a language. Being supported by immense scholarship about the power of language on shaping the receivers` mind, culture, and life style including shopping, a shift toward sustainability can start from employing ecological linguistics in marketing communications to attain both profitability which is the end goal of marketing, and sustainability which is the ultimate condition of survival and living. Therefore, the present study addresses the question of what ecolinguistic discourse strategies can be proposed for developing marketing and product development contents in Product Relationship Management (PRM). To answer the question, an experimental and questionnaire survey quantitative research design was employed, to investigate the effectiveness of using a chosen rhetorical device in ads about preserving natural resources and re-commerce for selling selected products in retail businesses. The experiment exploited in the present study was giving an ecological ad containing the rhetorical question to the experimental group and a purely commercial ad about the same customer good to the control group. Results gathered from ۸۰ potential customers (participants) showed that using the rhetorical questions made a significant and distinctive effect in the purchase intention of the participants.

Sustainability; Ecolinguistic Discourse; Product Relationship Management (PRM); Communication Management; Marketing Management