Linguistic Framing in Digital Commerce: The Roles of Lexical Choice and Cognitive Fluency in Shaping Consumer Conversion on Social Media
Keywords:
Linguistic framing , Lexical Choice, Cognitive fluency, Digital commerce, Consumer conversionAbstract
The rise of digital commerce has intensified the role of language as a persuasive instrument, especially within social media environments where consumer decisions are made rapidly and under cognitive constraints. While prior research acknowledges that linguistic features shape consumer attitudes and behaviors, the mechanisms through which specific dimensions of language exert influence remain insufficiently integrated. This study investigates how linguistic framing and lexical choice affect consumer conversion, and examines cognitive fluency as a mediating mechanism linking linguistic structure to behavioral outcomes. Drawing on theories from psycholinguistics, behavioral economics, and digital communication, the research analyzes a corpus of social media promotional texts using computational linguistic metrics, including lexical valence, concreteness, and syntactic complexity. Conversion indicators such as click-through and purchase intent are modeled using regression and mediation analyses. Findings indicate that positively framed messages and lexically fluent word choices significantly predict higher conversion rates, with cognitive fluency partially mediating these effects. The results suggest that persuasive digital communication operates not solely through semantic content but through the cognitive accessibility of the linguistic form. The study contributes an integrated framework for understanding how language functions within digital commerce and offers practical implications for designing promotion strategies optimized for rapid-processing digital audiences.
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