Advertising Discourse Research Articles

Semiotic Approach Towards Analyzing TV Advertisements: A Critical Discourse Analysis

AbstractPurpose - This research aims to uncover the ideologies and ethical perspectives behind electronic advertisements shown in Pakistan. The study examines the role of media adverts with an emphasis on stereotypic gender representation and spread of distorted information in shaping the minds of consumers through symbolic images and visual content. Design/methodology/approach - The current study is based on Peirce’s Semiotic Theory in 1860s, which analyzes the signs and visuals in mainstream television advertisements and unravel the social or cultural contexts underlying advertising discourse. Grounded in the theoretical framework of critical interpretation of electronic media, advertisements were interpreted using Semiotics and visuals features. The data for this study consists of three selected commercial broadcasts chosen randomly from all commercials aired on Pakistan’s most viewed TV channels (ARY, PTV, Geo, and Express). Lastly, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) has been used to critically examine TV advertisements to explore that how advertisers construct ideologies about gender stereotypes through signs, icons, and symbols. Findings – The findings revealed that electronic advertisements mostly represent gender roles stereotyping and promote unethical values against Islamic ideologies in Pakistan. Through the lens of Critical Discourse, it was found that advertisement’s content and symbols create meanings and convey the message with false narratives to consumers violating the ethical code of advertisements under the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) Pakistan. Originality/ value - The media revolution unfolds severe issues like women's objectification, ultra-modern culture, and misrepresentation of Islamic values. To date, many researchers have investigated the influence of advertisements on consumers in Western countries, but the Critical Semiotic Analysis of TV advertisements in complying with Islamic ideologies is never studied in Pakistan’s context. Practical Implications - The outcomes of this study will help advertising firms, Policymakers, and PEMRA by providing them with deep insights and knowledge about the perception of consumers and helping them to take strict measures to avoid anti-Islamic content that creates harm to Islamic values and civilization.

Discourse Structure of Food Product Advertisement on Television

Advertising discourse differs from other genres of text because advertisements are supposed to attract public attention and interest. The macro structure, superstructure, and microstructure of food product advertisements on Indonesian television are investigated using Van Dijk’s (2009) discourse theory. This study used a qualitative research method design to achieve these goals. The data analysis revealed that at the macro structure level of food product advertisements on Indonesian television, the writer’s ideology is to invite and persuade the public to purchase the advertised product using various word forms, including figurative languages. Each advertisement is organized and systematic at the superstructure level, beginning with the introduction, body, closing, and conclusion. Each advertisement’s text is constructed with great attention to semantic and syntactic aspects at the microstructure level. Background, detail, and purpose are included in the semantic aspect, while the syntactic aspect includes the relationships between ideas from one sentence to the next and from one paragraph to the next to create a complete message presentation (cohesion and coherence). As a result, grammatical and lexical cohesion are manifestations of the cohesive element. Advertising is a type of manipulative communication tool that employs lingual forms and strict diction to pique the public’s interest and attention. Further research is expected to investigate semantic aspects of advertising discourse texts using a larger number of data sources than the five types of advertisements used in this study, and to investigate changes in the way advertising texts are composed as a result of societal changes.
 Keywords: advertisement, food product, discourse structure, television

Exploring Concepts of the English-Language Tourism Advertising Discourse in Pre-Pandemic and Pandemic Times

After the Second World War, 2019 definitely became one of the most significant strength tests for humanity that gave a boost to gradual but crucial changes in every person’s mental worldview models, which are particular deeply established constructs of reality. There is no sphere of activity that has not been affected by the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19). Tourism became one of those areas most severely affected by the crisis, caused by pandemic conditions and quarantine measures. Consequently, they had to adjust to the new reality of life in circumstances of numerous human rights and freedom restrictions. This fact stipulates the topicality of the given comparative research. Based on the anthropocentric approach, the authors suggest the research methodology that lies in a complex approach to the discourse analysis as a platform for interrelations between the cognitive worldviews of addresser and addressee. Having identified the concepts-autochthons of the modern English-language tourism advertising discourse and determined their regular correlations, the cognitive map of the modern English-language tourism advertising discourse was designed. Having applied the comparative analysis of the cognitive maps of the traditional and modern English-language tourism advertising discourse, the authors determined the main suppositions of the English-speaking consumer of tourism services during pre-pandemic and pandemic periods. Thus, the traditional view of the English-speaking consumer of tourism services is the perception of tourism as the phenomenon related to unhindered, comfortable traveling and family holidays with gastronomic delight, new acquaintances and positive emotions. However, during the pandemic period, for English-speaking tourism services, consumer tourism became necessary for a change of surroundings, like a sip of fresh air that is available only by following quarantine rules and only in those countries open for tourists. Safety and sanitizing become the most critical factors in choosing a tourist location.

Functional and Pragmatic Potential of Toponyms in Russian Political Advertising Videotexts

The paper is aimed at studying the functioning particularities of toponyms in videotexts of Russian political advertisement and determines the role of these onyms in the implementation of linguistic manipulation. Toponymic lexis is classified in terms of its functioning. The study reveals tendencies of interaction between verbal and visual components of multimodal videotexts and determines the specificity of world-building that involves toponyms in Russian political advertising discourse. The research material includes political advertising videotexts referring to all presidential campaigns in Russia from early 1990s to 2018. The corpus is examined with the help of componential, contextual and semiotic analyses. The research has revealed two basic groups of toponymic lexis in the mentioned videotexts: toponyms in their conventional reference, and precedent toponyms. The former are mostly used in their denotative meaning and in a verbal form. The latter have additional value-based and cultural connotations, are well-known and recognizable, and often correlate with visual components. It is noted that conventional toponyms are more numerous and are usually involved in political advertising discourse for discussing domestic or foreign policy issues. Precedent toponyms are encountered less frequently but, due to their unique properties, serve as important tools of affective influence on the voters. Both groups of proper names contribute to modelling the spatial and political worldview, which reflects the position of Russia and the key directions of its domestic and foreign policy. The author pinpoints the generalized and schematic character of the revealed geopolitical worldview, which is determined by the heterogeneity of the toponymic content of different political advertising videotexts and by their thematic variety.

The Language Used in Advertisements for Herbal Medicines

Not only are quality and price important features for products, but environmental awareness or social commitment has a critical function in convincing target audiences in buying the products. Therefore, the present study takes into account the language used in the advertisements for herbal medicines in Tehran, Iran. The researcher considers critical discourse analysis (CDA) as the theoretical framework and empirical grounding for the advertisements of herbal medicines. To this end, using a qualitative approach, the data are collected from the words, phrases, clauses, and sentences of the advertisements through a questionnaire in which 45 participants were involved. The researcher used Fairclough’s (1992) three dimension framework for the investigation of the advertisements in the cases of textual features, discursive features, and social features. The investigation displays the results of the language used in the advertisement for this study. Findings from the study point to the fact that there is a close relationship between the advertisement discourse and the sale of these products. Considering the social practices, the language in the advertisement has control or power over people. Moreover, the advertisement, not the product per se is the selling point and has control or power over the target audience. The findings of this study can contribute in other areas and offer some implications in the research considering the discourse analysis of advertisements.

Using Genre-Based Approach to Teach Persuasive Netvertisement for English Learners in a Chinese Vocational College

This paper is part of the researcher’s Ph.D. thesis to deploy and develop the potential of genre-based pedagogy of systemic functional linguistics to support business-major English language learners’ development of persuasive strategies in the written discourse of online advertisement. Given the “value” of netvertisement in motivating consumption, it is vital for non-native English speakers preparing to participate in international e-commerce to take control of the current genre. The research question is how a genre-based writing class can promote students’ persuasive netvertisement with appropriate vocabulary, text organization, and strategies of engagement, graduation, and manipulation of information packaging. This paper describes an instructional intervention in Chinese vocational college using genre-based Curriculum Cycle to involve 51 student participants—coming from two classes—in the learning and teaching of persuasive netvertisement. Results identified the significant improvement between pre-and post-tutorial with Wilcoxon Test. Meanwhile, textual analysis of the two randomly selected writings supported the effectiveness of the intervention in terms of the reduced listing of phrases, expanded vocabulary to describe a broader range of products, and improved use of persuasive strategies of engagement (e.g., questioning), graduation (e.g., the metaphorical scenario in image design), and manipulation (e.g., use of subtitling, varied thematic structures). The findings indicate the potential of a genre-based approach in promoting college students’ persuasive practices in netvertisement writing.

Intertextuality in Native Advertising of International Glossy Magazines (of Tatler Magazine)

The article is devoted to the problem of intertextuality in native commercial advertising as one of the most modern technologies for promoting goods and services on the market. The types of intertextual inclusions in the international glossy magazine Tatler” is systematized in the paper and their functional potential is described. The choice of the research source is due to the significant influence of transnational media on the process of homogenization of cultural pictures of the world of different ethnic groups and the prototypical nature of the journal as an encyclopedia of the lifestyle of a successful person. It is proved that the native advertising discourse of “Tatler” magazine is characterized by the presence of a complex system of verifiable intertextual units, including quotes from fashion designers, models, actors, etc., transformed and non-transformed text applications from different source areas, precedent names, hashtags with an allusive function. It is noted that the analyzed units are multifunctional and perform informative, attractive, expressive, suggestive, compositional-playing and other functions. The author comes to the conclusion that the whole system of intertextual inclusions of “Tatler” native advertising is aimed at creating and maintaining a myth about the existence of a special “Tatler man” in the visually aesthetic world of luxury, whose image becomes a tool for forming the social status identity of the addressee of the advertising message.

Analysis of dialogical relations between speech genres in the text of a french novel

The object of research of this article is the types of dialogic connections that arise between speech genres inserted into the structure of a literary text, between genres and the text of a novel, between inserted genres and existing texts.
 Investigated problem: This study covers several levels. Firstly, the mechanisms of artistic communication, during which the author, with the help of the speech genres present in the text, can give the reader implicit information and activate the latter's participation in the perception of the text of the novel. Secondly, the concept of intertextual relations is expanded, in the case when we consider the inserted speech genre as an independent text. Thirdly, the studied dialogic connections can be extended to other areas of communication: advertising, political, Internet communication, etc.
 Main results scientific: The article is the result of the application of the theory of speech genres by M. Bakhtin to the analysis of the structure of a literary text, leading to further development of the concepts of dialogism and intertextuality.
 Area of practical implementation of the research results. Intertextuality is one of the main means of creating pragmatic influence in both commercial and political advertising, media and political discourse. Moreover, it can already be argued that with the advent of the latest information technologies, society is moving from intertext to hypertext, which is typical for communication in almost all areas, since they are mediated in one way or another by computer technologies. It is this fact that explains the necessity and necessity of studying the problem of dialogism and intertextuality

VISUAL ARTISTIC MEANS IN FRENCH ADVERTISING DISCOURSE

The article is devoted to the study of the use of artistic means of visualization, namely visual metaphor and personification in the discourse of French social advertising. The artistic, rhetorical and stylistic features of the use of metaphor and personification in advertising discourse are demonstrated on concrete examples of advertising messages of modern French advertising, taken from print and Internet sources. In general, the discourse of modern French social advertising is rich in artistic means. Many examples of figures of emphasis or understatement, figures of construction and figures of speech were found in the analysed corpus of advertising messages. However, in our opinion, the use of figures of speech, such as metaphor and personification, gives advertising more vivid clarity and imagery, and is therefore the most effective in achieving the final goal of the advertising message – to influence the potential reader. The research demonstrates that the most characteristic of French advertising discourse is the use of zoomorphic metaphor and subject metaphor. The second visual stylistic figure frequently used in French advertising discourse after metaphor is personification. The use of personification is typical of the discourse of French social advertising, as the authors of advertising messages tend to give certain phenomena or objects human qualities.

Intertextuality as a means of expression in the discourse of social advertising

We describe the forms of intertextuality that are active in the discourse of social advertising. The purpose of work is to establish the types of use of borrowed texts, as well as the ratio of verbal and visual borrowings. The material is 4000 posters of environmental themes, collected from various media banks on the Internet using a continuous sampling method. We conclude that the most frequent form of borrowing is reminiscence (61.5 % of the total number of intertextual inclusions). Here the visual and verbal components are in relative balance: the idea is expressed in words, and the image acts as an illustration and/or eye-stopper. In second place in terms of the number of examples is a citation (28.4 %). Rational (borrowings from legislative acts, scientific works, statements of recognized experts and other official sources) and emotional (statements of famous writers, cultural figures, artists, athletes, etc., containing metaphorical and evaluative elements) are distinguished here. When using this form, verbal quoting predominates. The third position is occupied by allusions (10.1 % of the total number of borrowings). Here, the main burden most often falls on the image, which should evoke associations with the prototext.

Psycopragmatics in Advertising Discourse: Review on Concerning the Effect of Psychological on the Speaking Actions of High School Students in Madiun City

The sale of a product is expected to be as successful as possible so that it can provide a large profit. This can be done if the public knows the products offered by the companies that produce the products. To make the public know and understand, the company must communicate to inform the products offered. Speech in advertising discourse has a psychological impact on consumers and/ or potential consumers so that what is expected by producers is that the consumers or potential consumers are interested and they buy the product advertised. However, it does not only affect the interest of potential consumers or consumers but utterances in advertisements can also affect the form of speech acts of users of a product, especially high school students, who may be one of the potential consumers or only connoisseurs of advertising discourse. Theoretically, the objective that the researcher intends to achieve in this study is to obtain a deeper picture of psychopragmatics in discourse and utterance of advertisement that has a psychological impact on high school students in Madiun City. This study uses qualitative methods with interviews and open questionnaires as data collection tools. The analysis of data uses referential techniques with a distinction theory approach and is presented in descriptive techniques. From the data obtained, 52.8% indicated that the words in the advertisement were seen, mimicked, or muttered by students in the act of communication. If it is broken down in more detail, the words in the advertisement have more effect on female students (66.7%) than male students (33.3%). Based on the analysis, the results showed that the words in the advertising discourse had quite an effect on the psychological condition of the students in acting in the speech act. The advantage of this research is to add and enrich insight in the field of pragmatics, especially psychopragmatics; to add and enrich insight in the application of psychopragmatic language learning.

Visualization in medical advertising discourse in Germany

A study was made of non-verbal signs used to visualize the printed text of advertising, selected both by belonging to the corresponding subdiscourse and taking into account the territorial feature. Advertising as a type of media text, which has a special composition and influences consumer behavior with the help of specific means, consists of two interrelated codes: a verbal code and a visual code. It has been established that the non-verbal code of this type of text not only transmits information about over-the-counter drugs in order to maintain and enhance sales, but also contains information about the cultural situation of the country, about ethnocultural stereotypes and values prevailing in German society, contributing, in turn, their promotion in society. The authors, setting themselves the goal of identifying the visual resources involved in the creolized advertising texts of leading German pharmaceutical companies, attempt to systematize the idea of the visualization tools used here, correlating with gender parameters, national and cultural characteristics of Germany, its national identity, taking into account technological solutions in the colour picker. The suggestive potential of visual means that affect the potential consumer of over-the-counter medicines due to the appeal to what is close and understandable to him as a representative of a certain cultural community or gender has been determined. It was revealed that in the visual plan, advertising of over-the-counter drugs not only adapts to the cultural environment, reflecting the originality of the national-specific picture of the world of the Germans, their mentality and preferred lifestyle but also reveals a close connection with the symbols of medicine. Cultural signs, directly related to the cultural and value space of Germany, are a universal tool for influencing potential consumers of over-the-counter medicines.

Linguistic peculiarities of intensifiers in english advertising discourse

Linguistic peculiarities of intensifiers in english advertising discourse

Representation of the Phenomenon “Trust” in Medical Advertising Discourse

The problem of creating institutional trust in modern Russian society is considered on the example of advertising activities of companies that produce and promote drugs on the consumer market. In order to identify techniques that contribute to the effective impact on the recipient – the formation of a trusting attitude towards the advertised product, the commercials shown on Russian television from 2010 to 2020 were analyzed. Using the methods of content analysis, discourse and stylistic analysis, elements of component and distributive analysis, it has been established that professional participants in medical advertising discourse use such techniques as the use of toponyms, lexical units borrowed from military discourse, terms, words with positive or negative connotations, presentation of statistical data, construction of a first-person statement, rhetorical questions. It was found that the mention of the country of origin of the drug, which is authoritative for the Russian consumer, has a positive effect on the confidence of patients in this drug; military vocabulary evokes associations with speed, accuracy, direction, strength and testifies to the effectiveness of the drug; medical, chemical, biological terms, statistical data objectify the transmitted information; rhetorical questions, self-narrative and others contribute to the establishment of close contact with the consumer.

Discourse Analysis of Cosmetic Maybelline Advertising

The writing of words in print media advertisements is certainly influenced by the elements and structures of its own discourse. This study analyzes the elements and structures of cosmetic advertising discourse used by cosmetic manufacturers in promoting their products. The research approach used in this research is qualitative research by taking samples from Maybelline cosmetic advertisements contained in Seventeen Magazine 2012. Based on the analysis of elements and structures contained in Maybelline cosmetic advertisements, the elements used in the discourse of cosmetic advertisements are verbal elements and visual elements. while the structure of the discourse that appears is the opening, the content and the closing.

Productive Manipulation as an Element of University Advertising Discourse: Pragma-Axiological Analysis

The article is devoted to the pragma-axiological and partial psycholinguistic analysis of advertising videos of US universities in order to identify the productive manipulative potential of modern advertising university discourse. The relevance of the study is due to both extralinguistically — the great demand for quality education in the modern world, and linguistically — by the study of the processes of productive speech manipulation as one of the fundamental components of quality communication. The novelty of the research is seen in a qualitatively new pragma-axiological approach to the study of discourse and the value component of the suggestive influence exerted by this discourse. The author’s method of conducting pragma-axiological and partial psycholinguistic analysis, used to identify the pragma-axiological charge of the discursive space and its manipulative potential is presented in the article. Particular attention is paid to the interdependence of the addressee’s value-evaluative attitudes, the lexical units-verbalizers of these attitudes, their pragma-axiological charge and the suggestive (productive manipulative) impact provided. The results of the frequency analysis of part-of-speech indicators and the coefficients of discourse emotivity that depend on them are presented. The results, gained in the framework of the pragma-axiological analysis, are confirmed by the coefficients of the emotiveness of the discourse under study, obtained in the course of a partial psycholinguistic analysis. The key axiological components of productive speech manipulation in the modern advertising university discourse of US universities are presented.

Populist Strategies in the Political Advertising Discourse of the French National Front

This study investigates the discourse of the French right-wing political party National Front (FN) through a qualitative Critical Discourse Analysis approach examining their electoral campaign material from 2011 until 2017. The findings reveal that the FN adopts typical populist tropes and strategies to broaden its electoral base and win popular support. At the core of their discourse lie binary conceptualisations constructing an in-group (the FN, the people) and an out-group (political individuals and entities, immigrants) in a scheme of opposition, typically attributing positive qualities to the former and negative values to the latter. The linguistic construction of the Self and the Other was achieved through the use of metaphor and speech acts, in addition to other discursive strategies involving the appeal to negative emotions. In accordance with van Dijk’s ideological square, metaphors reveal a sharp polarisation in the depiction of the Self and the Other, mainly through the FN's positive self-presentation in terms of benevolent and optimistic metaphors. In contrast, the Other is mainly portrayed through war metaphors. Similarly, through the use of speech acts, the FN blames, accuses and criticises the Other, holding it accountable for the French people’s grievances, while the Self (in the person of the FN’s leader Marine Le Pen) is assertive, firm and determined in its defence of the nation and the people. Linguistic strategies are ultimately reinforced through semiotic representations, enhancing the us/them dichotomy.

CONCEPTSYSTEM OF MODERN ENGLISH GASTRONOMY ADVERTISING AESTHETIC DISCOURSE

The article presents a study that allowed us to construct a cognitive map of modern English gastronomic advertising aesthetic discourse. The main features in the understanding of gastronomic advertising discourse by the representatives of the English-speaking community – gourmet aesthetes are analyzed. The research material for the modern English gastronomic advertising aesthetic discourse was the gastronomic Internet texts of the social network Instagram, which contained a particularly expressive specific aesthetic component. It is established that the mental framework of the cognitive space of a modern English gourmet esthete is formed by 48 significant discourse-creating autochthons-concepts (sensations, emotions, recipe, ingredient, taste and others). The separation of the constants of the concept system of modern English gastronomic advertising aesthetic discourse – generative autochthonous concepts was carried out through the inventory of texts, fixation of objectifiers of concepts and their grouping into semantic areas. To verify the objectivity of the facts, a quantitative method of calculation is used, the criterion χ2. With the help of linguo quantitative methods, system connections (strong, medium and weak) between the main autochthonous concepts (RECIPE – INGREDIENT, TRADITIONAL MEAL – TEA, EXPERIENCE – SATISFACTION and others) were established and significant autochthonous concepts in modern English gastronomy were identified. The components of the conceptual system of modern English-language gastronomic aesthetic discourse and their combination builds a unique representation in the form of a cognitive map. The study allowed to construct a cognitive map of the studied type of discursive practice, which reproduces its conceptual system and, thus, explains the main mental cores of its participants – modern English gourmet aesthetes: characteristics of products, feelings and emotions they evoke, the principle of healthy eating, demonstration of their own gastronomic preferences in social networks in the form of blogs, because the modern English-speaking aesthetic and gourmet world of social network is impossible to imagine without a blog, where it is important to post on the social network Instagram, which describes the author's experience and feelings and emotions from food (first of all, pleasure and happiness), which provide the aesthetics of the advertising text. Key words: discourse; advertising discourse; gastronomic discourse; aesthetic discourse, cognitive mapping.

PЕCULIARITIES OF ADVERTISEMENT STRUCTURING IN MODERN ENGLISH TOURISM DISCOURSE

Nowadays tourism industry is one of the areas that facilitate the economic and cultural growth of the country. Tourism does not only open borders, acquaint with the cultural heritage, and expand “intellectual capacity”, it is a sphere where various suggestive means – subconsciously and consciously – are widely used. A tourist destination is popularized through advertising, so advertising texts in tourism advertising discourse – an institutional type of discourse focused on specifying within numerous tourism destinations and on reciprocal communication with recipients – are one of the key means of promoting tourism products. The end goal of our paper is to pinpoint the basic structure of the modern English tourism advertisement and determine the correlation of its verbal and nonverbal components, the subject of the research is verbal and nonverbal means of reproducing tourism advertisement content. The goal can be achieved through the tasks aimed at analyzing the correlation of verbal and nonverbal and at the presentation of the basic framework of the modern English advertisement in tourism advertising discourse. The results of the research proved that the peculiarity of advertising texts in modern English tourism advertising discourse is in the combination of informational, linguistic, socio-cultural, gender, and psychological components that altogether create a positively-marked tourism destination image in the recipient’s consciousness. The information in the advertisements is fragmented to avoid overwhelming recipients with “known” facts. The tourism destination advertisements have a basic structure of a visual component (arch-fragment) as a means of attracting the recipient’s attention and a verbal component: title (middle fragment), as a means of interest, and text (terminal-fragment), as the main means of suggestion. Key words: modern English tourism advertising discourse, correlation, verbal component, non-verbal component, visual component.

Роль положительных и отрицательных эвфемизмов в рекламном дискурсе на примере французского и русского языков

The article provides an analysis of euphemisms, both usual and occasional, which allows revealing pragmatic orientation of these linguistic units. The research objective is as follows: to reveal specificity of euphemisms functioning in commercial and social advertising discourse by the material of the Russian and French languages. The author considers a highly specialized problem of euphemisms functioning in advertising discourse, summarizes the existing studies on this issue, identifies previously unknown features of euphemisms, highlights their importance in modern society, and herein lies scientific originality of the research. The findings are as follows: the author reveals pragmatic orientation of euphemisms, evaluates the efficiency of their usage in advertising discourse.