‘Now on tour’: Evaluation, Persuasion, and Multimodality in Late Modern English Theatre Posters

This paper draws upon collections of late-nineteenth-century theatre posters currently available at the National Library of Scotland for an investigation of the main linguistic strategies employed for promotional purposes. These posters are both descriptive (indicating for instance the names of the actors and the number of days on which the show can be viewed) and evaluative (stressing novelty, uniqueness, or indeed both features simultaneously). Accompanied by important paralinguistic and extralinguistic tools, such as the use of images, choice of typeface, and poster layout, such strategies are selected to make the posters striking and consequently memorable. My analysis highlights some typical traits contributing to the persuasiveness of the texts under analysis, focusing in particular on the features that appear to have been most popular.