World Englishes, Vol. 29, No. 3, pp. 378–393, 2010. 0883-2919 Print advertisements in Malaysia AZIRAH HASHIM ∗ ABSTRACT: This paper examines print advertisements in Malaysia to determine how advertisers seek to achieve their primary goal of persuading or influencing an audience by the use of both language and visuals. It describes the main component moves and rhetorical strategies used by writers to articulate the communicative purpose of the genre and the language in the advertisements. A descriptive framework for multi-modal texts is adopted for analysing the visuals. How the advertisements encode national identity and cultural values, and illustrate innovative language use is shown. The findings illustrate the multilayered and competing values from various sources in the Malaysian society and reinforce the traditional as well as the new values based on national, global or commercial priorities. INTRODUCTION Print media represents a significant economic and cultural development in Asia, where developed and developing consumer markets have experienced rapid and sustained growth. Advertising offers insights into the myriad of cultures that make up Asia and illustrates cultural differences across the region. Variations that occur by country and insights into what creates successful advertising and marketing communication in different countries can be observed. Understanding the unique nature and the commonalities of Asia and the power of media to influence how we think and what we believe is a critical issue for both practitioners and academics. This paper seeks to investigate the role of language and visuals in print advertisements in Malaysia to determine how advertisers seek to achieve their primary goal of persuading or influencing an audience. It examines the main component moves, rhetorical strategies, language features and visuals used by writers to articulate the communicative purposes of the genre and to persuade the readers to purchase the product advertised. How the adver- tisements encode national identity and cultural values and illustrate innovative language use is discussed. LANGUAGE AND SOCIETY IN MALAYSIA Malaysia is a multi-racial country with three dominant ethnic groups, Malays, Chinese and Indians, and a diversity of languages. Of the total Malaysian citizens, Malays and other indigenous groups comprise 58 per cent, Chinese 25 per cent and Indian 7 per cent (based on 1997 population estimates; see Area and Population (Malaysia) 2010). The different groupings are different in terms of origin, religion and culture with each culture having its own practices, beliefs and attitudes. There is also the overall Malaysian identity that ∗ Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, University of Malaya, Lembah Pantai 50603, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. E-mail: azirahh@um.edu.my C  2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd