A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Language Used in Dove’s Advertisements

Abstract

The study investigates the use of language in the ‘Real Beauty’ advertising campaign initiated by the care brand Dove from 2006 to 2020 through the lens of Fairclough’s (1989) three-dimensional critical discourse analysis and Wodak’s (2001) historical-discourse analysis. By unfolding the textual elements used in five video advertisements, it aims to examine how the advertiser Dove constructs the beauty image of women through discursive strategies used in the text and investigate the possible ideologies underlying the discourse. The findings indicate that the textual resources used in Dove’s advertisements experienced a discursive construction to reveal the essence of feminism and further explore the connection between female’s negative self-evaluation and social judgment. It concludes that although the changing traits of Dove’s advertisements may not escape from the accusation of legitimating the commercialism, they indeed attempted to empower women with the autonomy to control the vision of beauty and provide solutions to unite women of all ages and with all colors.