Persuasion in Instructions of COVID-19 by Saudi Arabia Ministry of Health

Abstract

This study analyzes the persuasive strategies of instructions used by the Ministry of Health (MoH) in Saudi Arabia. It is intended to emphasize the given instructions and advice provided by the Saudi ArabiaMoH. Twenty-four short service messages on Coronavirus are randomly selected and analyzed to identify the Aristotle’s threemajor persuasive strategies exploration used as a baseline. To measure the nature and relevance of the persuasive strategies, textual content analysis is used. This hopefully cultivate their interest in learning further about the persuasive context used in different fields of linguistic endeavor. It is concluded that Ministry of Health (MoH) has used a variety of persuasive techniques and tones. It is revealed that the MoH uses the strategies of persuasion separately or combined with each other. These strategies involve the use of logos, pathos, and ethos. It is also found that in every persuasive strategy, there are different techniques that can be specified and pointed out, affirming that multiple techniques may apply in one strategy or another. Moreover, the most recurrent types of persuasive strategies used in text exploration are ethos and logos, while in persuasive techniques; simple and direct language, emergency information language and personal pronoun are predominantly used based on the content analysis. In addition, purposeful and reasonable tones are highly emphasized in the text exploration.