Reading a Hindi advertisement for what it does not say
You are analysing a Hindi print advertisement for a coaching institute. The headline reads: "सिर्फ़ 90 दिनों में सफलता की गारंटी!" Below it, in small print: "*शर्तें लागू। पिछले वर्ष के 200 छात्रों में से 187 ने सफलता प्राप्त की।" A photo shows six smiling students in uniform. The body text uses आप सबसे आगे क्यों नहीं? and हर सपना पूरा होता है. The fee is listed as 45,000 rupees, with a smaller line: "छात्रवृत्ति के लिए प्रवेश परीक्षा अनिवार्य।"
1. Identify three persuasive techniques in the advertisement and quote the Hindi that carries each one.
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1. Absolute guarantee language softened by an asterisk. Quote: "सिर्फ़ 90 दिनों में सफलता की गारंटी!" The word गारंटी is the strongest claim on the page, but it is immediately qualified by "*शर्तें लागू" in small print. The technique is to let the eye absorb the guarantee and miss the condition.
2. Selective statistics. Quote: "पिछले वर्ष के 200 छात्रों में से 187 ने सफलता प्राप्त की।" 187 out of 200 is presented as near-total success, but the ad does not define सफलता (passing? top rank? any admission?), does not say how the 200 were selected, and does not mention the students who did not enrol or dropped out. The number feels precise, which makes it feel trustworthy.
3. Emotional aspiration and mild shaming. Quotes: "हर सपना पूरा होता है" and "आप सबसे आगे क्यों नहीं?" The first universalises success (every dream comes true); the second turns a structural question into a personal challenge, implying that not joining means falling behind. Together they shift the reader from evaluating the offer to evaluating themselves.
Supporting detail: the six smiling uniformed students function as visual proof by association, and the scholarship line adds a fairness glow while the 45,000-rupee fee remains the dominant number.
2. A classmate says the ad is 'basically lying'. Assess that claim carefully: what can and cannot be concluded from the text alone?
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What can be concluded:
- The ad uses a guarantee claim that is explicitly conditional (शर्तें लागू), so the promise is not unconditional on its own terms.
- The statistic is under-specified: सफलता is undefined, the base of 200 is unexplained, and no comparison group is given.
- The emotional appeals are persuasive devices, not factual claims.
What cannot be concluded:
- That the 187/200 figure is false. Nothing in the text contradicts it.
- That "शर्तें लागू" hides something illegal. Conditions on guarantees are common and not inherently deceptive.
- That the institute is bad. The ad's rhetoric is weak evidence about teaching quality either way.
Verdict: 'Basically lying' overstates it. The more defensible judgement is that the ad is misleading in emphasis: true or unverifiable claims are arranged so the strongest language is the least qualified and the qualifiers are the smallest text. The correct analytical move is to separate unverifiable (the statistic), conditional (the guarantee), and non-factual (the emotional appeals) rather than to label the whole thing a lie.
What a strong answer adds: name the missing information you would need - definition of सफलता, selection criteria for the 200, and the full text of the शर्तें.