The Power of Language: The Persuasiveness Used in Selected Philippines’ and Thailand’s Tourism Brochures

Linguistic features of tourism brochures can describe the distinctive ways of expressing persuasiveness in advertising which have a significant impact on teaching English as a foreign or second language. This study determined how linguistic features and functions characterize the advertising stance of the Philippines’ and Thailand’s tourism brochures. It sought to explore the fundamental contributions of linguistic forms and structures in these tourism brochures to facilitate persuasiveness. A collection of tourism brochures were randomly acquired online and coded for qualitative and quantitative analyses. However, only the verbal expressions were analyzed, disregarding other components of the brochures such as semiotics. The results show that the Philippines’ and Thailand’s brochures used rhyme in their lines minimally. Most of their lines were simple narratives and descriptive statements. There were instances of neologism but no anagrammatical structure. Structural parallelism in both brochures is evident. Thailand’s brochures used minor sentences more often than the Philippines’ brochures. Both showed a degree of informal styles. These informal styles suggested an easy-going social relationship between the audience and the advertisers. Based on the single verbs used, the Philippines’ tourism brochures capitalized on what the senses can experience and the enjoyment and satisfaction derived from such while Thailand’s tourism advertising brochures focused more on movement, both spatial and temporal. In terms of memorability, Thailand’s samples have very limited use of alliteration and metrical rhythm, while the Philippines’ samples were poetic and were fond of using alliteration.


INTRODUCTION
Language is constructed specifically for an intended purpose. As a familiar notion, language use refers to the process of communicating the meaning of language. Hence, it is important not only to think about what is to be said but how it should be said. Indeed, the primary objective of communication is a mutual relationship between the coder and the decoder; that is sharing a common meaning within the process. Generally, it is thought that in conveying meaning, certain types of structure should be followed. According to Cook (1993), one of the main goals of language acquisition is communicative competence. She further explains that communicative competence involves knowing what to say to whom under what circumstances, and how to say it. Hence, for communication to prosper, the medium, the context, and the structure should be intertwined to arrive at the desired goal of achieving a shared meaning. Making a statement may be a paradigmatic use of language, but there are all sorts of other ways to use words.
In some instances, however, context and purpose may somehow defy the usual structure-meaning correspondence, and use other alternatives to effectively convey meaning. In a discourse, for example, the meaning depends on the functions to identify different terms to formulate appropriate language use. Various studies explored the meaning and use of discourse such as those of van Dijk (1997), Cameron (2001), Woods (2006), and Dayag (2008). Traditionally, discourse is defined as a continuum stretch of language in a specific language context observed socially and culturally such as in advertisement. Language researchers studied the specificity of the structures of the written discourse of advertising. Brown and Yule (1983), as cited in Cook (2001), state that discourse is a social act and therefore is considered a system of thoughts composed of ideas, attitudes, and courses of action. A discourse is regulated by social institutions through codes, conventions, and habits of language which produce culturally located meanings. This is an inherent characteristic of the language in advertising. Taillard (2000) underscores that human communication has two primary goals. That is, to be understood and to be trusted. She further stated that in persuasive communication, both of these are fulfilled; pragmatics for the first goal and how it is carried out, while social psychology focuses on the second goal. Generally, advertising is one field that follows the same framework of persuasive communication. Advertisements exert effort to produce meanings that are understandable and believable to the target audience called consumers to make them do something in favor of the patronized goods or services.
Many studies have discussed the indispensability of specific linguistic features that contribute to the persuasive character of advertisements for products and services. However, the study by Rakić and Chambers (2011) showed that tourism brochures are deemed suitable for the investigation of tourism promotion in the changing political and cultural circumstances. According to them, the need to nurture a national identity and to create a distinct internationally attractive image followed the political change. Indeed, after the lockdowns brought by the pandemic, the need for a globally booming industry facilitates the promotion of a country as a thriving destination. These presuppose the conventions of tourism brochures to be persuasive. Unlike commercial slogans, tourism slogans are institutionalized and very cultural in nature. They do not just need to use conventional linguistics structure known and somewhat accepted throughout the global communities for understanding but also take into consideration the cultural distinction of each country which the slogan primarily represents. The universality and culture are rhetorically combined in one structure. This distinctiveness and generality in one blend of structure seemed to be worth researching on.
In general, both international and local research about advertisement focus on how the message and information in tourism brochures shape the viewer's deciding mind. Many of these studies focus on technical strategies and visual design discourse (Bhatia, 1992). However, very limited studies focus on what linguistic considerations facilitate the persuasive stance of the advertisement, hence, this study. It determined how linguistic features and functions characterize the advertising stance of the Philippines and Thailand, and how this characterization determines the effectiveness of the tourism brochure in persuading the potential audience.
Hence, this research paper aimed at exploring the different linguistic features of the language of advertising that describe persuasiveness in tourism brochures of the Philippines and Thailand. Specifically, the study tried to identify the linguistic features used by the Philippines' and Thailand's brochures in achieving a persuasive stance in terms of (1) attention value, (2) readability and memorability, and (3) selling power.

Advertising and the Linguistic Theory
Language is viewed as one kind of higher-order semiotic systema complex and adaptive system for making meaning (Patpong, 2008;Santos, 2019). Hence, language is explored ecologically and culturally, and it is always investigated in relation to its environment. Language, therefore, is investigated through naturally occurring texts functioning in their context. Linguistic Theory emphasizes that structures are used to analyze observable discourse such as in advertisements. This theory shows the nature of specific communication like that of tourism brochures as a form of advertisements. Here, the advertisement would usually offer a clear presentation and structure or the information it needs to communicate. This is why the advertisement and the advertiser are likely to use linguistic features to achieve the intention of the discourse. Dubovičienė and Skorupa (2014) reiterate that every language is a system with sufficient resources for communicating its speakers' intentions, desires, and beliefs, no matter how complex and unusual they may be. With these, Linguistic Theory is also concerned with perception and production. This is where the advertisement is anchored on.
One form of human communication in this modern times is advertising. Advertising uses language distinctively. Vasiloaia (2009) defines advertising as a means of drawing attention to something or notifying and informing somebody or something. With this, advertising uses specific language features to serve its purpose. Indeed, the language of advertising has to remain recognizable to a wide range of audiences to meet the basic considerations. Though the language features of advertising are technical, it is also expected to be creative to cater to cultural differences and geographical boundaries. Consequently, although language should adhere to inevitable variations and deviations from the norm of structure, language features should find their way toward global understanding and commitment (Anudin, 2019). So aside from being persuasive, advertising language should also promote identification across cultural differences (Taillard, 2000).
All countries of the world consider tourism as an edge to economic thrust. These countries somehow depend on advertising for promotion. One way to do this most economically, both financially and linguistically, is to use tourism slogans and taglines. According to Vasiloaia (2009), language contributes to the descriptive and narrative character of the country. Such language items include the use of figures of speech and other stylistic devices such as puns, metaphors, neologisms, alliteration, assonance, and rhyme. Such use of linguistics items can lead to the major function of advertising, persuasion; and its secondary which is to catch attention. Leech (1966) identified four major functions of a successful advertisement, each has consequences on language use. First is attention value which can be achieved by somehow deviating from the conventions such as neologism, anagrammatical, puns, grammatical solecism, rhymes, and semantic deviations. Next is readability through simple and familiar vocabulary. The third is memorability which usually uses repetitions to enhance high recall in advertising. Memorability is frequently done linguistically through alliteration, metrical rhythm, rhyme, grammatical parallelism as well as semantic and syntactic parallelism and lexical repetition. Semantic repetition such as the repeated use of different words from the same word phrase is also considered a lexical repetition. Last is the selling power. Advertisement indirectly expresses guidance to take action favorable to the object/subject of the advertisement. The commonly used linguistic features are imperatives and positiveness. Positive structures use adjectives, especially those of comparative and superlative degrees. Finally, to establish the appellative character of the advertisement, frequent use of the pronoun 'you' is observed. The pseudo-personal appeal of the pronoun 'you' is because although the 'you' actually refers to an audience of many millions of people, each of them is still inclined to believe they are personally being addressed (Vasiloaia, 2009).

The Language of Advertising in Tourism Brochures
The term advertising is from the Latin verb advertive which means to direct one's attention to the availability, qualities, commodities, or services. Vestergaard and Schroder (1985) as cited in Viskari (2008) classified advertising into commercial and non-commercial types. Non-commercial advertising includes communication from all kinds of associations, societies, and government agencies. Other forms of advertising that concern goodwill, trade, and consumer and industrial are classified to be commercial. National advertising is a unique sub-genre of advertising. To a certain extent, it is characterized both as commercial and non-commercial because of its linguistic character. Advertising somehow requires the specialized function of a language which is to present its intended meaning. This is called a proposition or statement. People do not only produce utterances containing grammatical structures and words; they perform actions through those utterances (Santos, 2021).
Advertisements usually are persuasive. They tend to promote goods and services. To do this they have to use persuasion to make the audience be in the buying stance or at least believe their purpose and the proposition. Persuasion is the process of inducing a voluntary change in someone's attitudes, beliefs, and behavior through the transmission of a statement (Mazid, 2014). The means for transmitting a persuasive message is language. Tourism brochures of different countries provide a welldeveloped example of this use. This is the way of advertising to express a degree of courtesy while trying to persuade. Generally, tourism brochures play an important role in forming the image of a county as a destination (Govers et al., 2007). Similarly, the study of Andereck (2005) suggests that brochures significantly increase respondents' interest in visiting a country. There is a considerable degree of persuasiveness put into every tourism brochure as an advertisement media.
Exploring the variables of persuasion in advertisement media is a significant research work (Tonio et al., 2019). There are several local studies of the discourse of advertising with a linguistic focus including that of Gocheco (2009), Dayag (2008), andFernandez (2013). Other studies examine the generic structures and linguistic properties of ads in the Philippines' magazines from the Corpus of Asian Magazine Advertising: The Philippine Database, wherein the corpus consists of seventy-four ads for consumer nondurables such as medicines, vitamins, and food supplements, and cosmetic/beauty/personal hygiene products. It includes an analysis of speech acts performed by utterances in the ads and felicity conditions involved in the utterances. Gocheco's (2009) study is on the discourse analysis of mediated political advertisement campaigns. Using 60 political campaign ads shown on television for a national senatorial race, her study shows that pronouns are linguistic features that may render uniqueness in a particular type of discourse that is generally persuasive in nature through the analysis of the frequency and usage of personal pronouns in the televised campaign ads. Moreover, she investigates the interplay of language, persuasion, and culture, as reflected in the usage of pronouns in political campaign advertisements on television. Finally, her observation of the linguistic features in a mediated type of discourse reveals the speakers' strategies in their attempts at persuasion.
Moreover, Fernandez (2013) evaluates the nutritional quality of products advertised on television (TV) during children's viewing time in Spain, applying the UK nutrient profile model (UKNPM) using recorded 80 hours of TV broadcasts during children's viewing time in May and June 2008. He identifies all advertisements for foods and beverages and eventually nutritional information was obtained from the product labels or websites and food composition tables. Each product was classified as healthy (e.g. gazpacho, a vegetable juice) or less healthy (e.g. potato crisp snacks) according to the UKNPM criteria. Geis ' (1982) findings conclude that indeed advertisements usually use persuasive languages and claims that are made indirectly while the message is made implicitly to make it more persuasive. Using written advertisements, he statistically coded the persuasive languages common to the corpus.
These include modifiers, pronouns, simple verbs, and compound words. According to Cook (2001), specific language features permit some information to be conveyed through conversational implicatures and interactive frames. This means linguistic features are frequently used to accomplish multiple goals. Indeed, linguistic items are verbal strategies for product presentation.
Also, Zhou (2008) believes that five major variables are important in measuring the effectiveness of brochures in destination marketing. These are readership, on-site consultation of the brochure, influence on decision-making, and instances of prior experience of the destination. For linguistic form, in particular, readability focuses on textual variables.
Specifically, one of the language of advertising in tourism brochures' most important aims is to become appealing and memorable. The manner a language is employed in the world of advertising for tourism is relatively distinct. Advertising, as a realm, depicts a vital function of languages. Convincing people and helping them remember the products or the services offered through a language is the very purpose of advertising. It is for this reason that advertising and language are inseparable because the former is greatly essential to the latter.
With the collection of corpus and the theories cited above, the conceptual framework of the present study is grounded on the inspiration that linguistic items are essential in the characterization of tourism brochures of different countries as a subgenre of advertising. Using the perspectives of Taillard (2000), Patpong (2008), Viskari (2008), Zhou (2008), and Vasiloaia (2009), the present study tried to examine the interplay of linguistic items as requisites of a good advertisement. Because there is a limited study on the comparison of two countries, it is further intended to characterize the two countries not only in their advertising language but as well the language culture embedded in them.

METHODS
A quantitative descriptive design of the research was utilized in this study to meet the aims of exploring the different linguistic features of the language of advertising that describe persuasiveness in tourism brochures of the Philippines and Thailand. It analyzed thirty tourism brochures, 15 from the Philippines and 15 from Thailand. The corpus was randomly gathered from the Internet sources posted from July 17, 2020, to May 12, 2021. The data consisted of the English-language tourist brochures posted online by the country's tourism sites. The verbal components of the brochures such as slogans, taglines, and statements were coded to capture the relevant linguistic features for analysis. The analyses on taglines, slogans, and statements were done to describe each set of tourism brochures in terms of the linguistic features used to impress persuasiveness. This is a technique that is applied to non-statistical material and it allows the analysis of qualitative data through quantitative means (Zhou, 2008). Only the slogans, taglines, and statements were considered, leaving out the rest of the semiotics. Leech's (1966) framework of language of advertising was the basis of analysis for the linguistic features of attention value, readability and memorability, and selling power. To do this, the researchers statistically coded the persuasive language features such as keywords common to the corpus. Number count, mean, and percentages were utilized to assess instances of occurrence of the target linguistic features and prevailing content words, such as the imperatives personal pronoun or deictics, monosyllabic verbs, modifiers as well as those of anagrammaticals, neologisms, and rhyme. Impressions on these structures were done focusing on generic structures and linguistic features in advertising. Implications of the linguistic features of advertisements shed light on the aim of determining the differences in the slogans and taglines in the tourism brochures as attributed to the languages and cultures of the countries.

RESULTS
Generally, this present paper looked into the linguistic features of the language of advertising. Viskari (2008) mentions advertising can be classified by looking at the linguistic items which are typical in it. Accordingly, Viskari's (2008) general observations for tourism advertising are characterized by attention value, readability, and memorability, and selling power. These characteristics are believed to be a major consideration in expressing effectively the objectives of tourism brochures. Table 1 shows the linguistic features that were used to establish attention value in the tourism brochures of the two countries. Following Viskari's (2008) categorization, linguistic features use for attention value in tourism brochures include anagrammatical, neologism, grammatical solecism, and rhyme. The results show that both sample brochures for the two countries commonly used rhyme in their lines for attention value, 50% for the Philippines and 60% for Thailand. Significantly, the Philippines' sample brochures used grammatical solecism, Thailand's brochures as well, 30% and 20% respectively. While Thailand equally recorded instances of use for neologism and grammatical solecism at 20%, for the Philippines' sample brochures, the least employed was neologism at 13.33%. Lastly, sample brochures for both countries did not record the use of anagrammatical. Figure 1 is a sample entry in a Philippines brochure with an instance of neologism. The Philippines sample used the expression 'esplanage'. 'Esplanage' is a blended word from esplanade which means vast land or water, and the word voyage means to travel. Meanwhile, Figure 2 shows one statement considered a linguistic deviation from Thailand's tourism brochure which used the word 'Thainess', in the line 'Experience Thainess'. This is a deviation in spelling and was a coined word that expresses the characteristics inherent to Thai only.  From the total 15 samples for each country, the results also show that the Philippines' samples have more instances of linguistic features for attention value. Ten samples (66.67%) displayed these structures, while only five (33.33%) samples were recorded for its counterpart.

Readability and Memorability
The results in Table 2 show that among the linguistic features for readability and memorability, all the Philippines' tourism brochure samples employed the use of deictics and monosyllabic verbs (100%). They were followed by a repetition of words at 86%. Close to the occurrence was the use of parallelism at 80%. The least employed linguistic feature for the Philippines' samples was the use of single and direct statements. For Thailand's samples, all samples (100%) use monosyllabic verbs similar to the Philippines' samples. Then, two of the linguistic features recorded almost similar instances, the repetition of words and the use of single and direct statements, 60% and 66.67%, respectively. Also following were the equal use of deictics and parallelism (53.33%) on the sample lines to assure readability and memorability. These two were the least features that were used in the samples for Thailand's brochures. Figure 3 shows how Thailand's tourism brochure repeats the word 'Best' in single and direct statements to ensure readability and memorability. The repetition of the word 'Best' also made the statements parallel. These linguistic features were used by the brochure simultaneously to make the material readable and easy to memorize.   Table 3 illustrates common monosyllabic verbs and the frequency of their occurrence in the brochures understudy to ensure readability and memorability. The Philippines 'samples recorded a total of 204 occurrences as against 180 of Thailand's samples of the monosyllabic verbs common to both. Among the verbs used for both the Philippines and Thailand, the Philippines used 'look' and 'see' the most (31%), followed by 'let' and 'watch' at 24% and 21%, respectively. Also evident among the commonly used verbs are 'feel ' and 'hear' at 19% and 17%, respectively. Few instances of the use of 'taste', 'visit' 16% and 15%, respectively, 'go', and 'join', both at 14%, were recorded. The least employed verb for the Philippines' samples was 'dive' (0.98%).

Selling Power
For the third characteristic of the tourism brochure, selling power used linguistic features such as imperatives, modifiers, and pronouns. Data in Table 4 show that the Philippines' samples employed all of the linguistic features for selling power. Pronouns were the most employed features as all of the tourism brochures used pronouns in their slogans and taglines. This is followed by imperatives (86.67%) which also recorded a high occurrence. A little half of the total samples used modifiers which were the least feature used in the Philippines' tourism brochures are the modifiers (53.33). As shown in Figure 4, the tagline of the biggest font size on the cover page of a Philippines tourism brochure used an imperative. The statement 'Visit us' is an expression of both an indirect request and a command. This imperative statement characterized the persuasiveness of the brochure. Also, the use of pronouns 'us' and 'you (yourself)' are prominently used on the page. The use of imperative in this brochure aimed to boost the selling power of the tourism industry of the country.
For Thailand's samples, the results show that the most frequently used linguistic feature was the modifiers (66.67%). A little lower were the imperatives at 60%. The least frequency was recorded by the pronouns at 55.33%. Figure 5 shows how Thailand's tourism brochure was carefully but frequently included in the English translation words that vividly described the advertised places for tourism. Single and direct modifiers were used in the statements such as 'Thailand's island-superstar', 'spectacular scenery', 'stunning tropical sunsets', 'warm blue sea', and 'towering limestone cliffs'. The modifiers used were intensified and to a superlative degree such as 'an unbeatable combination of perfectly soft white palm-lined beaches, superb hospitality and great value accommodation, and world champion-standard forests'.

DISCUSSION
Language has a powerful influence over people and their behavior (Johannessen et al., 2010). A person is said to have power over someone else if they can influence their actions (Yusuf et al., 2019). The choice of language to convey a specific message to influence people is vitally important. This is consistent with the specificity of language use and the functions of advertisement. According to Şimon and Dejica-Cartis (2015), expressions used to attract attention, communicate instantly, arouse desires, and create need, anticipation, and excitement are the language of advertising. Generally, the language of advertising is characterized but not limited to persuasion. It employs emotive language, personal words, catchy phrases, and glamorized or euphemistic language among others.

Attention Value
Generally, tourism brochures need to attract attention and arouse curiosity. In linguistics, this is achieved using rhyme or by breaking language conventions (Vasiloiaia, 2009). Warranted by stylistics, some examples of deviations from the conventions include neologism, anagrammatical, and solecism.
Among the schemes for attention value, both countries employed rhyme in their taglines. However, among the 30 brochures studied, there were only eight brochures that registered the use of rhyme in their slogans, taglines, and statements, five from the Philippines and three from Thailand. In most of their discourse, lines were simple narrative and descriptive statements. For linguistic deviation, one of the fifteen samples from Thailand used the word 'Thainess', in the line 'Experience Thainess'. This is a deviation in spelling or is a coined word that expresses the characteristics inherent to Thai only. It is also seen as an expression of the generalized positive attributes of the country which may also be established worldwide. The expression is cultural in nature for Thai expressions are more noun-adjectives. Though it seems an awkward word based on standard English, this is an indication of the Thai's effort to creatively use their own English. The superficial structure of Thai English is also indicated to a certain extent with the use of over-generalization. This is a common tendency of Asian varieties of English (MacWhinney, 1996). Here, the suffix 'ness' is overgeneralized to attain the character of 'ness' denoting a quality. The 'ness' attached to the word 'Thai' expressed positive regard which is a characteristic of good advertising. For the Philippines' samples, there was an instance of neologism, 'esplanage'. 'Esplanage' is a blended word from esplanade which means vast land or water, and the word voyage means to travel. The Philippines is an archipelago; hence it has a lot of bodies of water surrounding the land. Esplanage is therefore used economically and linguistically to travel different types of bodies of water.
Another example of getting attention is on the front page of a Philippines brochure, 'The center of the center of marine shore fish biodiversity'. The structure makes use of unnecessary repetition or redundancy, hence, an example of linguistic deviation. However, according to Olatunji (2011), creative repetition of the most important aspects of communications, or redundancy, is a strategy employed in the field of advertising to ensure that messages are understood and acted upon by the audience or prospects. Looking at it closely, it serves as a means to emphasize the uniqueness and emphasis of the geographical and ecological importance of the advertised place, as if, it is the nucleus of an atom that is indispensable to the existence of the object. These instances of neologism and deviations aim at emphasizing the distinct character of the place and the adventures.
Next is solecism which is commonly known as a grammatical mistake in speech or writing. However, solecism in linguistics serves as a stylistic device to speak the truth incorrectly. An example is the Thai's 'This can be a lifetime experience of experience, mine, yours, theirs'. Such a line may not warrant acceptance of standard syntax. However, the line is an uncomputed ellipsis to generalize and establish the relationship between the advertisers and the audience. The advertisement expresses the reader's solicited involvement in the 'lifetime experience' of travel.
Finally, both sets of brochures did not register any anagrammatical or intentional misspelling of words. This may probably be due to the great responsibility of the user to use a language with a degree of acceptability. It may be deduced that these advertising materials only consider somehow simple and popular deviations from the conventions. Misspelled words, both in the Philippines' and Thailand's language cultures, see these as serious problems related to meaning. Nevertheless, the Philippines and Thailand use English as a second or foreign language respectively, and their tourism promotions are careful enough to conform to the standards of the language. Also, the brochures are not only for local consumption but an international commodity addressed to both speakers and non-speakers of English.

Readability and Memorability
After the attention value, which aims at attracting the interest of an audience, the next one is that the attraction and interest be maintained. This attribute is considered the readability of the material (Viskari, 2008). Curiosity should be attended to through simple but comprehensible discourse of information about the place and the experience being advertised. In advertising, the Philippines' and Thailand's brochures' quick response for the sustenance of interest was often realized through simple and familiar vocabulary which was mostly colloquial. This was shown in the practice of using common language associated with specific cultural contexts. It involved the repetition of keywords in informal sentence patterns to increase readability. Aside from style and familiar vocabulary, both advertisements suggested consistency in the use of single and direct statements to ensure memory recall of the advertisement is maintained.
Also, some examples of structures in both brochures displayed parallelism. According to MacWhinney (1996), using parallel units in the advertisements enhances the readability of the text. The Philippines' structures though simple and direct made use of complete sentence parts. Thai structures, on the other hand, made use of minor sentences (fragments) which resulted in omission, especially of pronouns and completers as meaning was assumed to be clear even without them. However, Thai words and phrases were with long and short tones, with high and low tones in pronunciation. Also, Thailand's brochures' use of minor sentences was attributed to the significant difference between the Thai alphabets from that of English. The strokes of Thai writing are more economical than the English alphabet. Another means to establish directness with less repetition is the employment of deictics. Terms like 'this', 'that', 'those', 'it', 'here', and 'there' were common among the brochures understudy.
Another aspect of readability in both materials was shown in the degree of informal styles expressed in the directness of the statements. Those informal styles suggest an easy-going social relationship between the audience and the advertisers (Rosengren & Campbell, 2021). This is expressed in the use of direct address to the reader mostly with the use of the pronoun 'you'. As such many of the slogans and taglines of the brochures started with verbs, they were mostly imperatives in form through the use of monosyllabic verbs. This in turn contributed to the simplicity and directness of the advertisement language. Monosyllabic verbs made the advertised information easily understood and remembered; hence, they serve the basic aim of advertisement which is to facilitate the persuasive stance of the subgenre of advertising.
Based on Table 3, there is a difference in the selection and frequency of the commonly used monosyllabic verbs in advertising in the two countries. For the Philippines, the most evident verbs are 'let', 'see', 'look', 'watch', and the 'different sense' verbs. The Philippines' tourism brochures somehow capitalize on what the senses can experience and the enjoyment and satisfaction derived from such. This is believed to be stabling the interest of the audience. For the Philippines' tourism brochures, what the senses can perceive was an important aspect of persuasion. For the Thai materials, on the other hand, verbs that were commonly used were 'visit', 'see', 'go', 'explore' and 'join'. These monosyllabic verbs are under a similar generic meaning, 'to move from one place to another'. Thailand's tourism advertising focused more on movement, both spatial and temporal. Unlike the Philippines' brochures, the persuasive character of the advertisement is not just sensual experience, but also more of the decision to act towards the totality of the experience.
In terms of memorability, Vasiloiaia (2009) says that advertising looks at the language items such as alliteration, metrical rhythm, rhyme, grammatical, semantic, and syntactic repetition. Closely associated with readability, memorability enhances familiarity through linguistic items such as rhyme and parallelism. In addition, alliteration as a rhetorical device maintains the memory of the information and message. Alliteration is a clever memory device for both the Philippines and Thailand as advertisers have been milking it in their brochures.
Thailand's counterparts, however, have very limited use of alliteration and metrical rhythm. According to Khanittanan (2013), alliteration and repetition, if they would occur in a Thai passage, are deemed inappropriate. For the Thais, alliteration is used orally in a direct and simple structure. The Philippines' brochures, on one hand, are poetic and they are somehow fond of using alliteration. For Filipinos, this is making the discourse playful, gay, and blissful (Anudin, 2019). Moreover, metrical rhymes were more evident in Thailand's brochures than in those of their Philippines counterparts. Indeed, from a linguistic point of view, repetitive structures facilitate memorability. But in the case of the Philippines and Thailand, the use of repetition in alliteration was subjective to language culture.

Imperatives
According to Vasiloaia (2009), prompting people to take the right kind of action can be best achieved by clear and direct instructions. Imperatives are ideal for these. Some linguistic items contribute to the selling power of advertisements such as the use of imperatives, the use of modifiers, and the pronoun 'you'. Myers (1994) says that imperatives are one of the most typical sentence types in advertising. This is because it is believed and practiced that imperatives convey a message that something should be acted upon and someone should do it. Frequency of imperatives in the discourse establishes the advertising stance of persuasion (Vasiloaia, 2009). The use of imperatives also creates a personal effect, a sense of one person talking to another. Further, Myers (1994) agrees that imperatives are the forms seen as an intimate interactive way to communicate with an audience and they are a conscious effort to engage the audience in an action rather than simply conveying the information.
As gleaned from the data, both the Philippines' and Thailand's tourism brochures included usual instances of imperatives, especially in their advertising taglines, slogans, and statements. Imperatives for both brochures go hand in hand with the use of positiveness, as important traits of effective advertising. The advertisers showed confidence in the goods and/or the services they offer. Using imperatives, the audience is persuaded by the confidence and the assurance of the benefits they can get from the product and services expressed by the imperatives. In attempting to persuade an audience, the speaker may reduce impositions and other forms of impoliteness to gain the interest, support, or response of the audience (Dietrich, 2018). Hence, imperatives evoke reassuring messages to the audience, thus helping in the persuasiveness of the material.

Modifiers
Another linguistic form used for selling power is modifiers. Modifiers especially adjectives stir consciousness and interest through vivid descriptions (Santos, 2019). Having a clearer picture because of the vibrant descriptions provided by the modifiers, the readers tend to sustain interest and then encouragement. According to Leech (1966), as cited in Cameron (2001), advertising language is marked by a wealth of adjective vocabulary. The Philippines and Thailand employed positive adjectives as shown in the advertising lines below. Philippines: "They may be separated by political differences but the 7,107 islands of the Philippines are united by the hospitality of its people. Getting in could be easy, but once you're in the Philippines, getting out is more difficult. You simply do not want to leave". "Baguio City probably has the most clustered popular visitor attractions in a relatively small area compared to other tourist destinations".
"Take the 'cosmic journey' through a pine forest that details the story of the universe in fourteen station trek. Well-known art exhibits are also held regularly at the gallery for not only for the artists but those art enthusiast craving for limited indigenous work of art". Thailand: "North of the royal residences and linked by a connecting gateway lies the Royal Monastery of the Emerald of Buddha, one of the most venerated sites in Thailand".
"The smiles of the Thai people never seem to fade away. Generally respectful and moderate, these qualities prevail in the Thai community".
Interestingly, an observation in the use of modifiers was recorded in Thailand's sample travel brochures. The advertisers made use of adjectives as nouns. This in a way, the concreteness of the description is emphasizing rather its conversion as literal nouns. These structures were in Thailand's brochures. "Find your fabulous". "Celebrate your extra ordinary". "Spread the happy".
Rather than seeing it as a deviation from the usual form and use of the language, as the Thai language is characterized to be segmented like that of the English structures given above, the structures are indications of creative manipulation of Thai English for advertising purposes.
Though the Philippines' tourism brochures used descriptive words, they seldom or never used the above structures of concern of grammar acceptability. The two cultures somehow are different in their own Englishes in this respect.

Pronouns
Cook (2001) as cited in Viskari (2008) says that what distinguishes the language of advertising from other genres is its use of pronouns. Between the Philippines' and Thailand's brochures, the Philippines' samples have evident instances of the use of the pronoun 'you'. "You'll run out of words yourself". "You simply don't want to leave". This employment of the pronoun 'you' by Filipinos can be attributed to the culture of being personal (Anudin, 2019). The Philippines' advertising believes that to persuade people, one should address the readers personally, directly, and individually.
However, Thailand's brochures have very limited sentences in the second person or the use of the pronoun 'you'. This can be attributed to the nature of the Thai language, especially Thai pronouns. According to Brown (1997), there are huge numbers of ways to say 'I' and 'you' in Thai. Moreover, he cited that there is also a great range of pronouns that they used sparingly and often omitted. The use of 'you' in the Thai language, therefore, is not of conventional use. This explains why they usually use imperatives but not sentences employing the pronoun 'you'.
For instance, the bpai nai (literally 'go where') is the only instance where 'you' should be used; bpai nai is to say, where are you going?' The omission is done as a culturally practiced expression especially if it is understood. In addition, the personal pronoun 'you' (Kun in Thai) is paired with other personal pronouns. However, in everyday and personal communication, the Kun ('you') is rarely used.

CONCLUSION
Language use is indeed unique to every situation, function as well as culture (Berowa & Agbayani, 2019). Each genre is distinct compared to others, much so with the subgenre. Tourism as a sub-genre of advertising requires attention as it not only serves its purpose in promoting the country, and its places and culture but also it has been a revenue source for a country. The Philippines and Thailand are geographically related and thereby somehow share characteristics in terms of political, economic, social, and tourism. They differ though in terms of the English language character. The Philippines consider English as a second language and exposure to its terms is really at hand. Thailand on the other hand has rigid educational training in terms of forms and conventions of English but outside the classroom, their exposure and practice of the language may not be as rigid.
Given the notion that both countries have to use the universal language, English in their tourism advertisement, this present study deduced that there are similarities in the use of linguistic items of persuasiveness in advertising. However, it is also evident that the differences in the language used between the two countries were culturally related.
The Philippines' and Thailand's tourism brochures in general adhered to the common characteristics of effective advertisement such as having attention value, readability, memorability, and selling power. These were commonly ascribed to the linguistic features in the taglines, slogans, and statements in the brochures. For the attention value, both countries' brochures have minimal use of the linguistic features of attention value such as rhyme, grammatical solecism, and neologism. Also, both did not employ anagrammatical structures. Thai expressions in their brochures which are related to attention value also included a deviation from the usual use of adjectives. Instances in Thailand's brochures showed adjectives used as nouns. Another deviation, in the brochures, was the unnecessary repetitions. However, this was used to emphasize the uniqueness of the geographical site and the ecological importance of the place.
The Philippines' and Thailand's brochures ensured readability through simple and familiar vocabulary. This is shown in their practice of using informal language associated with specific cultural contexts. It involved the repetition of keywords in informal sentence patterns. Aside from style and familiar vocabulary, both advertisements suggested consistency in the use of single and direct statements to ensure memory recall and also the readability of the advertisement. Another means to establish directness with less repetition was the employment of deictics in both brochures. Also, readability in both materials was shown on a degree of informal styles expressed in the directness of the statements. Those informal styles suggested an easygoing social relationship between the audience and the advertisers. This was expressed in the use of direct address to the reader mostly with the use of the pronoun 'you'. Most of the statements in the brochures were imperatives. Moreover, monosyllabic verbs made the advertisements easily understood and remembered. The Philippines' tourism brochures used verbs related to experience and the enjoyment and satisfaction derived from such. For the Philippines' tourism brochures, what the senses can perceive is an important aspect of persuasion. For Thailand, on the other hand, verbs that are related to movement and location both spatial and temporal were employed. Unlike the Philippines' brochures, the persuasive character of Thailand's advertisement is not just sensual experience, but also more of the decision to act towards the totality of the experience. Though the Philippines' texts used complete sentences and Thailand's used minor sentences, parallel units in both advertisements enhanced the readability of their own texts. Related to readability, the Philippines' and Thailand's brochures enhanced the familiarity of their subjects through linguistic items such as rhyme, parallelism as well as alliteration.
Lastly, the Philippines' and Thailand's brochures used imperatives to enhance the selling power of their advertisement. As noted, imperatives are believed to express