Intertextuality and localisation in contemporary Sri Lankan advertisements on television

Abstract

Recent literature on intertextuality identifies two tendencies, both of which tend to overlook its connection to ideology: one is the trend of hyper-theorisation, the other is under-theorisation. While the former establishes intertextuality as an all-encompassing ‘super’ theory, the latter makes it a mere matter of hunting for traces of some texts that are discernible in a given text. This article analyses television commercials, promoting prominent cellular phone network service providers in Sri Lanka, that were telecast during the past ten years, with a view to grasping how intertextuality becomes a live social process and how it is connected to ideology and localisation in advertising. The article discusses how the localisation of cellular phone network service providers’ television commercials in Sri Lanka has gradually become a key site for ideological reproduction/reinforcement, even leading to trends of war heroworship during the intensified stage of the civil war in the country (1983–2009). Thus, the article examines the intersection of interlinking texts, ideologies, markets and social life.