Generalizing or personalizing: effects of three types of second person pronouns in service ads

Abstract

Second person pronouns have both generalizing and personalizing functions, corresponding to their generic and deictic readings. Netherlandic Dutch distinguishes three types of address pronouns: a weak informal pronoun, a strong informal pronoun, and a formal pronoun. The latter two seem more suitable for personalization thanks to their predominant deictic reading, while the former easily obtains a generic reading and is therefore best suited for generalization. An online experiment tested four hypotheses about the effects of these pronouns in service ads. The results show that hedonic service ads generally receive better evaluations (attitudes, purchase intention) than utilitarian ones. The pronoun type only makes a difference in hedonic service ads, where the highest scores are obtained with the weak informal pronoun and the lowest with the formal pronoun. For ratings on the lower end of the scale, the effect is reversed: the use of a formal pronoun actually improves the scores.