Zwischen fachsprachlicher Präzision und werblicher Persuasion: Werbekommunikation im Spannungsfeld von Nachhaltigkeit und Greenwashing

This article explores specialised language strategies in sustainability advertising and examines how such discourse negotiates the tension between terminological precision and persuasive communication. As sustainability has become a central normative concept in contemporary public communication, its terminology is increasingly integrated into marketing campaigns. This raises the question of whether such usage enhances transparency or functions primarily as a strategic resource associated with greenwashing. Drawing on discourse-analytical and functional-pragmatic approaches, the study analyses selected advertising materials from the sectors of transport and logistics, food production, and household and personal care products. Particular attention is paid to the embedding of specialised terminology in advertising practice, processes of semantic shift and popularisation, and the multimodal construction of sustainability through text-image configurations, numerical data, and visual symbolism. The findings suggest that this form of advertising should not be conceptualised as a strict dichotomy between transparency and deception, but rather as a continuum between precision, strategic vagueness, and persuasive communication.