Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

  • Sold on Language

  • How Advertisers Talk to You and What this Says about You
  • By: Julie Sedivy, Greg Carlson
  • Narrated by: William Hope
  • Length: 15 hrs and 49 mins
  • 4.8 out of 5 stars (4 ratings)
Offer ends May 1st, 2024 11:59PM GMT. Terms and conditions apply.
£7.99/month after 3 months. Renews automatically.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Sold on Language cover art

Sold on Language

By: Julie Sedivy,Greg Carlson
Narrated by: William Hope
Get this deal Try for £0.00

Pay £99p/month. After 3 months pay £7.99/month. Renews automatically. See terms for eligibility.

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £18.99

Buy Now for £18.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Listeners also enjoyed...

The Brain Sell cover art
Nobody's Fool cover art
The Leap cover art
Perceptual Intelligence cover art
The Persuaders cover art
Different cover art
Captivology cover art
Contagious cover art
Mindwise cover art
Made to Stick cover art
You Are Not So Smart cover art
Big Data cover art
Manipulation and Dark Psychology: 2 Manuscripts cover art
Strangers to Ourselves cover art
Virus of the Mind cover art
The Elephant in the Brain cover art

Summary

As citizens of capitalist, free–market societies, we tend to celebrate choice and competition. However, in the 21 st century, as we have gained more and more choices, we have also become greater targets for persuasive messages from advertisers who want to make those choices for us.

In Sold on Language , noted language scientists Julie Sedivy and Greg Carlson examine how rampant competition shapes the ways in which commercial and political advertisers speak to us. In an environment saturated with information, advertising messages attempt to compress as much persuasive power into as small a linguistic space as possible.

These messages, the authors reveal, might take the form of a brand name whose sound evokes a certain impression, a turn of phrase that gently applies peer pressure, or a subtle accent that zeroes in on a target audience. As more and more techniques of persuasion are aimed squarely at the corner of our mind which automatically takes in information without conscious thought or deliberation, does 'endless choice' actually mean the end of true choice?

Sold on Language offers thought–provoking insights into the choices we make as consumers and citizens – and the choices that are increasingly being made for us. For the authors’ blog visit: www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sold–language

©2013 Julie Sedivy & Greg Carlson (P)2013 Audible Ltd

Critic reviews

"Students and teachers of persuasion would benefit greatly from reading Sold on Language. Other professionals in communication, marketing, change management, sales, negotiation, and politics will find the examples and techniques of influence to be useful as both best practices to emulate and pitfalls to avoid." (PsycCRITIQUES, 11 January 2012)
"The result is a truly enjoyable, ironic and fresh volume, easy and pleasant to read for any type of audience." (Metapsychology, 15 November 2011)
"This is a well–written, entertaining, and penetrating book on advertisers' ubiquitous attempts at persuasion to influence marketplace behaviour, including the basis for an argument that advertisers are bent on making choices for the consumer. . . Highly recommended. Upper–division undergraduates through professionals/practitioners; consumers, general readers." (Choice, 1 October 2011) "I

More from the same

What listeners say about Sold on Language

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    3
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    2
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    3
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great content, beautifully presented

I really liked this book; it taps into so many different aspects of human psychology within the marketing context and served as really good brain candy. I bought it for educational purposes; purpose which I believe this book fulfils very well regardless of whether you are in the speaker or listener side of the marketing fence, and was surprised with how entertaining it was. The narrator is very articulate and the vocabulary used is a lot of fun. I listened to it from beginning to end and then listened to my favourite chapters again. My only (small) criticism would be that it tends to focus a lot on the use of marketing and persuasion techniques in politics as opposed to business. Anyhow, I would certainly recommend it to anyone who is interested in seeing marketing, psychology, persuasion, politics and business in general from a different angle in an entertaining manner.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful