정치광고 언어에 대한 화용론적 분석 : 미국 대선 정치광고 사례를 중심으로

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to analyse the language used in the advertisements for the US presidential elections based on the presupposition and the implicature theory. The paper first analyses the so-called “Daisy Girl” ad of the 1964 presidential election, which is considered a representative political ad in the history of the US presidential elections as a classic ad case, and it analyses a total of four ads by the Donald Trump and Joe Biden campaigns in the 2020 US presidential election as the most recent presidential election. Ads with subtitle text on the screen or voice language delivered by people were selected for the study. The ads were analysed according to the semantic presupposition which is closely related to linguistic expressions and the pragmatic presupposition, connected with the situational presupposition. The study found that like Daisy Girl, the more negative presuppositions there are, the more effectively the message can be delivered, so it can be said to be more effective in persuasion. In the four 2020 presidential campaign ads, it was found that there were meanings conveyed implicitly but not directly through verbal messages and visual expressions. As shown through the case analysis of this study, political advertisements have meanings that are implicitly conveyed even if they are not expressed in explicit language. Therefore, it can be confirmed that the success of communication depends on understanding the linguistic meaning of the utterance as well as the particular circumstances in which the utterance is made.