Advertising may be examined as a particular form of rhetoric the aims of which are the same as of rhetoric, namely to affect mind, will, feelings, and to persuade. The theory of rhetoric, the main object of which is discourse not only in narrow meaning (as verbal expression of ideas (i.e. to say text)), but also in broad meaning – as a communicative act between the addresser and the addressee since its interdisciplinary nature provides the right tools to explore the advertising discourse. The theory of rhetoric is successfully applied in development of advertising discourse, because it helps to foresee the communicative act between the addresser and the addressee. Advertising and rhetoric are combined by many common elements, but the same goal is the most important: both, rhetoric and advertising seek for persuasion through verbal and non-verbal measures.The paper deals with the analysis of the inventive level of advertising discourse, i.e., eristic arguments, spread of ways of proofing / persuasion. Eristic argumentation is a dominant argumentation type in advertising. This method of persuasion is a way to create truth visibility although it is just superficial. The most typical schemes of eristic argumentation used in advertising are as follows: argumentum ad vanitatem (appeal to the vanity of the addressee), argumentum ad verecundiam (appeal to the authority), argumentum baculinum (method of “whip” argument), argumentum ad novitatem (appeal to novelty). The article shows the usage of eristic arguments in Lithuanian commercial ads.

The article presents the study of political communication on social network “Facebook”. The object of the study is the motivation of using Russian inserts and potential influence on the effectiveness of the discourse. Effectiveness is related to the persuasion, the goal of the addressee in the communication process and the main concept of rhetoric, therefore, a rhetorical discourse analysis was used for the research. The focus of the presented research is on Russian language inserts in the posts by Lithuanian politicians published on the social network “Facebook”. The purpose of the research is to discuss the rhetorical value of Russian inserts. Inserts are elements of another language inserted into the main language, in this case Russian words (both authentic and adapted form), parts of words, text fragments. After examining over 100 Russian language inserts in the records of native Lithuanian politicians, two trends have emerged: 1) Russian language inserts in politicians’ records are deliberately used as means of stylistic expression, helping to imitate natural, informal speech, as well as creating contextual discourse; 2) Russian language is used as a way to express political attitudes and value positions.

The aim of the research presented in this article aims to determine the impact of polylingualism on the effectiveness of political rhetoric in Lithuania. The study focuses on elements borrowed from other languages and used by Lithuanian politicians in their Facebook posts. In addition, the motivation behind such use is explored, aiming to establish whether polylingualism is part of a conscious effort of political communication in order to build a positive image. Within the scope of this research are Facebook posts containing cases of polylingualism, specifically, English-language inserts. The authors of these posts are prominent politicians who are native Lithuanian speakers engaged in active communication on social media. Collected during the period of 2018–2021, the research material was examined using the method of rhetorical discourse analysis, resulting in the identification of characteristic instruments of persuasion, i.e. the tools which help enhance the effectiveness of certain discourse. The researchers aimed to determine the general patterns and dominant tendencies of mixed speech within the political discourse on social media. The research reveals the use of polylingualism as a stylistic tool imitating informal speaking and creating contextual discourse.

Candidate programs are a publication of political parties during the agitation campaign, which presents the political attitudes of a political actor and influence voters’ motivation to vote in elections. The electoral candidate program illustrates a politician’s relationship with voters. It is an element of political communication, part of the image of a political figure. The article deals with the rhetoric of electoral candidate programs announced before the elections to the Seimas, the European Parliament, and Municipal Councils (2014–2019). The aim is to identify and expand the characteristic rhetorical elements that allow qualifying political electoral programs as a specific genre of political rhetoric: at the inventive level, the study of rhetorical strategies includes the analysis of rhetorical reasoning, the relationship between a political actor and a voter; at the dispositional level, the composition of programs is analyzed; and finally, at the elocutionary level, the specifics of the linguistic expression of discourse are investigated. A rhetorical study of discourse revealed that, in many cases, the electoral candidate program functions as a tool for building the image of a political actor, a tool for discrediting opponents and spreading populist promises.

The article deals with the rhetoric of advertising, specifically with the means employed to persuade the audience in Lithuanian social advertising. Aristotle in his Rhetoric points out that persuasion can be achieved in three ways: through ethos, logos, and pathos. Ethos refers to the speaker’s character as it appears to the audience: if we believe that a speaker has good sense, good morality and goodwill, we are inclined to believe what he says. In social advertising, famous people, organizations and authorities who are recognizable to the audience stand for this ethos argument. Logos means logical arguments. In our society, rationality is highly valued and this way of persuasion is rated as the best, but scientific reasoning in social advertising is not as persuasive as it might appear. Of course it is a strong additional argument to the more rhetorical types of reasoning. Pathos in Aristotle’s sense means the emotions of the audience. Usually people think that they make their decisions based on rational thought, but Aristotle points out that emotions such as pity, anger, fear and their opposites influence our judgments as well. In social advertising, the employment of the pathos argument is the most powerful and persuasive strategy.In this research, some different Lithuanian social campaigns and advertisements are analysed in order to define what methods were chosen to persuade the audience in every campaign and what types of arguments were dominant. It appears that the most persuasive advertising employs a combination of all arguments: ethos, logos, and pathos. However, persuasion in social advertising is based mostly on the pathos argument, because this type of advertising appeals to the emotions.