The effects of Anglicisms in Brazilian fashion blog entries on persuasion.

Abstract

The emergence of new media has changed the communication between companies and stakeholders. Weblogs have become a powerful tool at the disposal of marketers to influence online communities. Readers may be affected by a blogger’s image and writing style. The present study investigated the effects of anglicisms on the attitudes towards the blogger, the entry, the products on which a post focuses and purchase intentions. The effects of text mode between niche audience and general public were analyzed. A total of 564 female Brazilians with high and low interest in fashion participated in a between-subjects experiment. The findings indicated more positive attitudes towards the author among the high fashion interest group when anglicisms were present, and no differences among the low fashion interest group. Anglicisms did not affect the attitudes towards the entry among any of the groups. Code-mixing elicited higher purchase intentions among the high fashion interest group as compared to a monolingual text. English proficiency and purism did not moderate any of the effects, but negatively predicted the attitudes towards the author and entry’s attractiveness.