ISLT 2022-23 Discourse Analysis of Advretising S AYARI

LECTURE NOTES: Lectures 1&2

What Is Discourse Analysis?

What Is Discourse Analysis of Advertising?

Introduction

In today’s society, it is nearly impossible to avoid being exposed to advertising, as it tends to

occur in many casual situations regardless of whether it is a sign on a bus passing by, a
television commercial or the food packages in the grocery store. Ads use fiction, word play,
compressed story-telling, stylized acting, photography, cartoons, puns, and rhythms, in
ways which are memorable, enjoyable and amusing . The words and details of ads often
come to people’s minds more readily than those of novels and poems and they are often
recalled with more laughter and enthusiasm

It is a love-hate relationship: one which frequently cause unease and in which the love is
often denied. With so many ads we suffer a split reaction: spontaneous enjoyment and
conscious reflective rejection. With other genres we know our where or loyalties lie, with
ads we are often confused

The present course examines the nature of the discourse of advertising. It aims to analyze
advertisements as discourse, and although the main focus of a discourse analysis is on
language, it also examines the context of communication (Cook 2001:3). Therefore it is also
concerned with the participants in the discourse: who is communicating with whom and for
what purpose

By analyzing advertising from a discourse perspective, this course examines the context of
communication and the participants’ roles in the context. It focuses on commercial
advertising, based on the assumption that the intended meaning of the advertiser is to
persuade the viewer to perform a purchase.

Examining advertising as discourse; the present course looks at how advertisements are
presented to persuade a viewer to buy a particular product or to present that product in as
desirable way as possible. It therefore observes persuasive messages and how they are
presented in advertising.

Although the main focus of discourse analysis is on language, it is not concerned with
language alone. It also examines the context of communication: who is communicating with
whom and why, in what kind of society and situation through what medium. When music
and pictures combine with language to alter or add to its meaning, then discourse analysis
considers these modes of communication too

The focus is on consumer advertising, which is directed towards the promotion of some
product or service to the general public. It examines the interaction of language, image and
layout, examines advertising persuasive strategies.

In addition, this course provides analyses of some ads, using different ways of
interpretations; and ends with a discussion on the interrelationship between culture
(schemes) and advertising discourse. In this connection, instances from English Tunisian

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media, and their analyses are provided, with a view to clarifying some rhetorical categories
in English and Arabic Advertising, and showing that texts construct meaning through
interaction with other types of discourse, and inseparable from the culture of the advertising
text.

The course, however, is not meant to exhaust all the aspects of this particular discourse, or
present an answer to all the problems it poses. Rather, it aims at uncovering the basic
elements of the most pervasive, influential and inescapable discourse of the 21st century:
the advertising text.

What Is Discourse Analysis

Discourse analysis is a research method for studying written or spoken language in

relation to its social context. It seeks to understand how language is used in real life
situations.

Discourse analysis is defined as being concerned with

❖ language use beyond the boundaries of a sentence/utterance

❖ the interrelationships between language and society and

❖ the interactive or dialogic properties of everyday communication.

It analyzes larger chunks of language, such as entire conversations, texts, or

collections of texts. The selected pieces of discourse can be analyzed on a myriad of
levels
Discourse & Texts
A conceptually-loaded term , Discourse is an extremely difficult concept
The concept has a rich scholarly tradition: various definitions of discourse analysis
These definitions fall into three categories (Schriffin, 2001)
1. Discourse as anything above the sentence
2. Discourse as language
3. Discourse as a broad range of social practice
Is not limited to sentence or smaller units. It rather focuses upon higher-level
organizational properties of dialogue (eg: turn-taking; interruptions, the structure of
conversational openings or closings) or of written texts
- Social reality is produced and made real through discourses
- Discourses are embodied and enacted in a variety of texts. Texts can be viewed as
a discursive unit and a material manifestation of a discourse. Texts may take a

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variety of forms including written texts, spoken words, pictures, symbols, artifacts
and so forth
- Texts are not meaningful individually; it is only through their interconnection with
other texts, the different discourses they draw upon, and the nature of their
dissemination and consumption that they are rendered meaningful

‘Little “D” Discourse & Big “D” Discourse’

Discourse can simultaneously refer both to the micro-level of language use at a
given moment ‘little “d” discourse (Gee, 2011) and the macro-level of discursive
patterns that are associated with particular values, identities and ideologies ‘the big
“D” discourse’
Ideally analyzing discourse means investigating the links between the micro and
macro levels and explaining how little d discourse both instantiates and creates big
D discourses
Text in DA: in DA text includes all conversations, road signs, … Text is an entity that
fulfills the criteria of ‘textuality’ such as internal cohesion intentionality on the part
of the text producer and acceptance on the part of the text receiver. Broad
conception of text extends to include non-verbal forms of expression such as
pictures (Fairclough, 2003)

What Is Analyzed In DA?

Level of communication What is analyzed?

Lexis /Vocabulary Words and phrases can be analyzed for ideological

associations, formality, euphemistic and
metaphorical content.

Grammar The way that sentences are constructed (e.g. verb

tenses, active or passive construction, and the use of
imperatives and questions) can reveal aspects of
intended meaning

Structure The structure of a text can be analyzed for how it

creates emphasis (e.g. foregrounding)°

Genre Texts can be analyzed in relation to the conventions

and communicative aims of their genre (e.g. political
speeches, scientific texts, adverts

Non-verbal Non-verbal aspects of speech, such as tone of voice,

communication pauses, gestures, and sounds can be indicative of

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aspects of speakers’ intentions, attitudes, and

emotions.

Conversational codes The interaction between people in a conversation,

such as turn-taking, interruptions and listener
response, can reveal aspects of cultural conventions
and social roles

Advertising
At the root of the word ‘advertisement’ is the Latin verb ‘advertere' meaning ‘to turn
towards’ (Goddard 1998:6). Advertising is not necessarily easy to define, but in general the
concept of advertising can be decided as either commercial or non-commercial

Advertising is one of the most powerful means of communication in today's commercial

world. It constantly carries a variety of marketing messages to the consumer. Different types
of advertising can be seen to embellish that advertising message. Sometimes these ads are
very artistically advertised in electronic or print media. The primary purpose of an
advertisement is to somehow persuade the consumer to the relevant product or service.
Selling to the consumer no matter what the need for the goods or services is. These
advertisements have unequivocally added that the decision-maker regarding the goods
consumed by all human beings. Unilateral advertising represents the needs of the consumer.
That's the ultimate goal of marketing. “Advertising is not just a business expenditure
undertaken in the hope of moving some merchandise off the store shelves, but is rather an
integral part of modern culture. Its creations appropriate and transform a vast range of
symbols and ideas; its unsurpassed communicative powers recycle cultural models and
references back through the networks of social interactions. ”. (Leiss et al., 2005)

Advertising as discourse

The analysis of discourse is the analysis of language in use. While some linguistics may
concentrate on determining the formal properties of a language, the discourse analyst is
committed to an investigation on what the language is used for (Brown 1983:1).

As researchers note, advertising refers to the types of texts, focused primarily on the impact.
The most significant for the study of advertising are interpretations of advertising, revealing
the essence of the advertising text as a multi-level communicative formation, intended to
influence the addressee with a particular purpose. Many scientists consider advertising as
"an act of specific communication, involving the influence of the addressee on the
intellectual, emotional and volitional structure of the recipient's psyche" [E.V. Kulikova].
Another interpretation of the concept of advertising exists: "Advertising is a non-personal
form of communication performed through paid means of information spreading with a
clearly specified source of funding" [F. Kotler]. Finally, Russian researchers elaborate that
"Advertising is any form of non-personal presentation and promotion of commercial ideas,
goods and services, financed by a clearly specified advertiser." [E.V. Kulikova]

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In the light of modern linguistics, a need arises to study the phenomenon of advertising in
depth through the prism of the discursive space of language. In this regard, it is essential to
introduce the term advertising discourse, since it not only includes all of the above
characteristics inherent in the advertising text, but also extra-linguistic factors that cover a
wide range of linguistic and non-linguistic aspects.

The discourse of advertising is based on the assumption that the text is produced with the
intentions of persuading the viewer to buy a product or a service, or to present that product
or service as desirable as possible to the viewer.

1. Hermerén (1999: 35) discusses the persuasive effect of commercial advertising,

comparing advertising with the process of persuasion, which can be divided into four
components:
1. comprehension
2. Acceptance
3. attitude change
4. retention of the message

A text produced with the intention of selling a product or service will likely intend to guide
the viewer through the process of persuasion. That is, in order for a message to have a
persuasive function on the receiver, the receiver first has to comprehend the message and
accept it as well as being ready to develop a positive attitude towards what is being
promoted. Even though it might seem like purchasing or reacting to an advertisement is a
personal choice, research shows that the way we process information lies outside of our
conscious control of awareness (Sedivy & Carlson 2011:577). This gives advertisers great
advantage when attempting to persuade with an advertisement; whether or not the
advertisement is noticed as an advertisement or not it will still be processed in the receiver’s
mind as information. The effect of a persuasive message is shown in the viewer’s assessment
of the information given in the message. While the reaction to a miss-assessment is that of
correction, impositions are normally accepted by the viewer who adjusts his or her
perspective on the matter. Whether or not it is appropriate to impose one’s own concern on
the viewer depends on the interpersonal relationship between the participants in a speech
event (Egorova 2014:2). Advertisers, of course, have no interpersonal relationship with the
viewer and depend on linguistic sources to create one. Hermerén (1999:40) states that in a
mass-communication, it is understandable if the receiver of a message often finds the
message irrelevant knowing that thousands, perhaps millions of other people get the same
message. It is therefore important to create the impression that what is being promoted is
important to the viewer. According to Hermerén (1999:40), attempts at personalization can
take different forms. One is to address the receiver as if he was an old friend; another is to
have a celebrity or a stereotype that the viewer will recognize engage with the viewer
(Hermerén 1999:40). Other researchers have observed the importance of the address
situation and participants in advertising discourse

Because in the process of convincing the consumer of an advertisement, the consumer

always fails to see the advertisement as an advertisement. It simply stays in the consumer's
mind as information. Thus, advertisements, regardless of the form in which they reach the
consumer, whether verbal or non-verbal, can be identified as a more critical media discourse
because of its use of language and hidden ideology. This is because advertising is a part of

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our daily lives and it carries a lot of messages. “Consumers are engaged in the exchange of
values, attitudes, and knowledge that have come into harmony with culture through
advertising." (Abdelaal, 2014) The reason for this can be pointed out that advertisements
gather a lot of things in an advertisement at once. Among them goals, symbols, power,
communication etc. are paramount. Today, the message of most advertisements is that it is
impossible to separate them from the culture. Looking at the art of advertising in different
countries, it appears that the story concepts based on advertisements are largely nurtured
by cultural storytelling. No matter what type of product you are selling, this is a good thing
when you look at the ads. It’s a sign of sharing at some point. Respect for a different cultural
identity. It is a deep focus on an ancient cultural identity nurtured by folklore

Advertising as a discourse type

This part introduces a brief reviews of some of the basic concepts on advertising as a
discourse type by paying particular attention to the contributions made by Cook (1992,1994)
and by Campos Pardillos (1995), before turning to the description of the text world model
proposed for the analysis of advertising discourse.

Cook (1992) offers a detailed study of advertising as a discourse type from a functional
perspective and is complemented by further comments framed within the field of linguistic
stylistics in his (1994) work on the discourse of literature. Campos Pardillos (1995) focuses
on the function of deictics inthe creation of a common ground between sender and receiver
in political and advertising discourse. Of the features discussed by Cook and by Campos
Pardillos with regard to advertising discourse, the following are particularly significant for
the present discussion: first, the description of the context(s) of advertising and the function
or functions of advertising discourse, together with a specification of the relations that are
established between sender(s) and addressee(s); second, the description of some typical
linguistic textual devices which are exploited by advertising discourse to pursue a
communicative purpose.

1. Context Starting from the general description of advertising discourse, it is necessary to

expand on the notion of context mentioned above with specific reference to advertising
discourse. Cook (1992:1-2) observes that "context" in advertising must be understood to
include the following specific features:

FEATURES OF CONTEXT IN ADVERTISING DISCOURSE

1-Substance (=physical material of ad)

2. Music and pictures

3. Paralanguage (voice, gestures, type and size of letters, etc.)

4. Situation ("the properties and relations of objects and people in the vicinity of the text, as
perceived by the participants")

5. Co-text ("text which precedes or follows that under analysis")

6. Intertext ("text which the participants perceive as belonging to other discourse, but which
they associate with the text under consideration, and which affects their interpretation")

7. Participants: senders, addressers, addressees and receivers.

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8. Function: ("what the text is intended to do by the senders and addressers, or perceived to
do by the receivers and addressees")

In this course we will be focusing on aspects related to the situation, the co-text, the
intertext, the participants and the function, that is, those features that foreground the
relation between participants in the interaction and textual features.

2.2. Function :Although advertising is usually defined by making reference to its

predominant function, the conative or persuasive function, which urges people to buy a
product, different authors have made reference to the crucial role played by other functions.
Thus, Cook (1992: 5) argues that advertising also presents functions such as amusing,
informing, pleading, warning, etc., among which emotive and phatic functions play
significant roles. Indeed, the emotional and phatic components of advertising discourse form
part of a more complex phenomenon which is crucial in advertising

While in other social contexts or activities such as prayer, íncantation or bragging,

participants take active part in the discourse, in activities such as advertising participants
only engage in the discourse in a more passive way; in this sense, "We express our identity
by accepting someone else's product, political program, sporting prowess or art, rather than
by making our own." (Cook, 1992: 148). The process of identification between addressee
and the situation represented in the advertisement can be described as a relation which
involves four participant worlds:

1. the world of the sender, where the product is manufactured,

2. the fictional world where characters present the product or are associated
with it
3. the fantasy world of the receiver and
4. the real world of the receiver (Cook, 1992: 177).

Cook argues that the aim of senders is "to push the product, via the world of fiction and
fantasy, into the real world of the consumer" (1992: 177). For this to be possible, enough
contact has to be achieved between the different worlds, between the worlds of fiction and
fantasy on the one hand and the real worlds of senders and receivers on the other. In order
to pursue this objective, advertising discourse makes use of a series of strategies, among
which textual-discursive strategies play a significant role. Indeed, the creative manipulation
of language, the exploitation of ambiguity and indeterminacy and the appeal to personal and
emotional experiences (affective, evaluative, aesthetic functions) seem to bring advertising
discourse close to literary discourse. According to Cook (1994: 193), one of the crucial
differences between literary discourse and advertising discourse is that while literary
discourse typically performs the function that Cook defines as the function of cognitive
change, that is, the modification or challenging of the reader's world schemata leading to a
revaluation of concepts, advertising discourse tends to be conservative in the sense that it
reinforces already existing and accepted world schemata, thus reinforcing the feeling of
identity of a given social group.

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(Cook, 2001) Figure 1:

Studying the discourse of an advertisement cannot be done by focusing only on the

language of that advertisement. This is because a set of creative features that nurture the
language of advertising are integrated around the ad in order to deliver the language
interpretation of an ad more effectively to the consumer. It is difficult to analyze the
discourse without studying its music, backgrounds, actors, voice acting and a host of other
features. Isolation does not happen by studying only its text. Many scholars have expressed
differing views on the issues to be considered in understanding the context of advertising.
Meanwhile, in this research, the discourse in this ad is studied according to the note
identifying the interactions of the elements of the advertisements pointed out by Cook.

Interaction of Elements in ads as he points out, all of these elements of advertising influence
the consumer to understand the advertisements.

Linguistic Choices For Persuasive Effect

Persuasion is woven into the fabric of certain genres including advertisements.
General principles and techniques of persuasion fall into 3 broad categories
depending on whether the persuasive effect derives primarily from
a) Sound
b) Structure
c) word meaning
d) any combination of these
In addition they interact with any non-verbal means of expression such as
a) picture
b) color
c) the shape of letters (etc)
SOUND
In both the spoken or written modes, it matters what language sounds like and this
quality can be used for persuasive effect. Here are some key techniques
RHYME

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A so-called perfect rhyme occurs when the last stressed vowel in a word and
everything that follows it sound identical (eg: dine, fine, wine, bluff, taugh, enough).
Here are examples from slogans that use rhyming
- Don’t be trolley wally (Victoria station)
- Delicious nutritious (waitrose supermarket)
- Don’t just book it, Thomas Cook’it 1

The last example illustrates the capacity of the English language to turn any word
even a proper noun into a verb without changing its form noun into verb. A brand
name may be come synonymous with the product (eg: hoover manufactured by
Hoover. By extension it has come to refer to the activity associated with it to hoover
a carpet/ to hoover around / to google has come to refer to the activity of web
searching no matter what search engine is used.
ALLITERATION
Refers to the repetition of initial consonant or combinations of consonants; it is a
popular device used for brand names (Coca Cola; Krispy Krema; Kitkat, Rampant
Rabit) as well for slogans advertising products as diverse as blinds, dictionaries
a) BLOOMING BEAUTIFUL BLINDS (Sussex Blinds)
b) Learn English, Live English, Love English (online Macmillan dictionary)
c) RELAX, REINVIGORATE, REDISCOVER Royal Botanical Garden s Kew)
Both techniques make words more striking and more memorable, essential
attributes, clearly if the brand or an advertising message name is to stand out of the
crowd and make an impact amid the clamor of competing voices. Advertising
intensively foregrounds the poetic function of language

STRUCTURE
The way linguistic elements are arranged has a very significant persuasive potential,
what comes first, what in the middle and what last; what is in the foreground and
what is in the background. Some structures seem to carry special rhetorical weight
and have a long-standing tradition as persuasive devices, such as sequences of three
elements leading to up to a climax (tripling).

1 Thomas Cook, (born November 22, 1808, Melbourne, Derbyshire, England—died July 18, 1892,
Leicester, Leicestershire), English innovator of the conducted tour and founder of Thomas Cook and
Son, a worldwide travel agency. Cook can be said to have invented modern tourism.

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Often ,Repetition/ syntactic parallelism is involved as well . in a recent TV campaign

by the electronics firm, LG, the benefits of its entertainment system were summed
up by the slogan
- You want, you point, you get
The LG slogan is also a striking example of the promise of instant gratification, a
hallmark of consumer capitalism; the promise is made all the more convincing by the
way it is presented: in three parallel, simple clauses, each consisting of one subject
you and a verb phrase in the simple present, the timeless present suggesting
permanent truth. Each verb is monosyllabic, resulting in repeated metrical pattern as
well. The verb forms are grammatically deviant. These are transitive verbs normally
and normally require an obligatory element functioning as an object. In advertising
when there is a tradeoff between linguistic rules and rhetorical effect the latter wins
hands down. This ties with in with a general preference in advertising text for
‘unusual stylist choices’ These may be syntactic, orthographic, morphological, or
lexical (coining)
Structures also play a key role in foregrounding and backgrounding pieces of
discourse. One way of foregrounding a piece of text consists in upgrading it by
assigning it a relatively more prominent place in the textual hierarchy. Words or
phrases that the authors/speakers wish to ‘talk up’ are often given salience by taking
final position bringing thereby an emphatic close to that piece of text. Remember
that in English, the final position of syntactic units – phrases and clauses carries the
heaviest rhetorical weight

WORD MEANING
Word meaning is perhaps the area where the connection with persuasion is most
intuitively obvious. The use of ‘adjust’ instead of ‘raise’ in for electricity bill by the
utility company, or ‘farmhouse’ eggs at the supermarket remind us that marketing
discourse has to be taken with more than a pinch of salt. Nevertheless, such usages
are still the stock-in-trade of marketers persuasive techniques on the lexical level.
These involve word choice including the following
1- Clusters of words with positive semantic Load are aligned with views the
author/speaker aims to advocate and clusters of negatively loaded words with views
the writer wishes to distance themselves from
2- Negative actions or attributes are ‘glossed over’ with the help of ‘Euphemisms‘
that words that sound more positive than their blunter equivalents. Adjusting prices
rather than raising them would be an example.
3- Everyday terms and phrases are replaced by more unusual, hyperbolic (i.e.,
exaggerated) equivalents. A gourmet chocolate bar comes with the warning: Careful.
Do not eat: enjoy instead. Similarly, car manufacturer SEAT claims: When you get
behind the wheel of SEAT car, you don’t just go for a drive, you go for an experience

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4- METAPHORS are used to highlight certain features of a company or a product for

example anti-ageing cosmetics are often metaphorized through the language of war
(e.g., a new weapon in the arsenal of treatments of for facial wrinkles’
5- Word play is a popular attention-getting device. For example in 2012 TV
campaign, SEAT talks about ‘enjoyneeering’ and Pumpkin, a UK caterer advertises its
soup offering on a poster saying SOU-PER! Other instances word play by pumpkin all
written on pumpkin skin) soup include

Of course, word meaning interacts with structure as well as sound, so that in

practice, the three dimensions are very closely clinked. Indeed, the most effective
utterances are arguably those that activate persuasive force in all three dimensions
simultaneously.
Julius Caesar ‘s famous line “ veni, vedi, vici“ (I came, I saw, I conquered) is a case in
point ( and an impressive exercise in personal branding to boot). it ticks all three
boxes: sound because of the alliteration, structure because of the three elements
arranged for maximum effect, and meaning because of what the words say.
Identify Linguistic & Rhetorical Mechanisms

You will need to identify how the various statements function at the level of
language.. Here are some of the things you should be on the lookout for:

● PHRASES: does the text deploy words that have a common contextual background?
For instance, the vocabulary may be drawn directly from military language, or
business language, or highly colloquial youth language. Take a closer look at nouns,
verbs, and adjectives in your text and see if you find any common features. Such
regularities can shed light on the sort of logic that the text implies.

● GRAMMAR FEATURES: check who or what the subjects and objects in the various
statements are. Are there any regularities, for instance frequently used pronouns
like “we” and “they”? If so, can you identify who the protagonists and antagonists
are? A look at adjectives and adverbs might tell you more about judgments that the
text passes on these groups. Also, take a closer look at the main and auxiliary verbs
that the text uses, and check what tense they appear in. Particularly interesting are
active versus passive phrases – does the text delete actors from its arguments by
using passive phrases? A statement like “we are under economic pressure” is very
different from “X puts us under economic pressure”… particularly if “X” is self-

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inflicted. Passive phrases and impersonal chains of nouns are a common way to
obscure relationships behind the text and shirk responsibility. Make such strategies
visible through your analysis.

● RHETORICAL AND LITERARY FIGURES : see if you can identify and mark any of the following
five elements in your text: allegories, metaphors, similes, idioms, and proverbs. Take
a look at how they are deployed in the service of the overall argument/persuasion
process. Inviting the reader to entertain certain associations, for instance in the form
of an allegory, helps construct certain kinds of categories and relations, which in turn
shape the argument/persuasion process. Follow up by examining additional
rhetorical figures to see how these frame the meaning of specific statements.
Devices to look for include parallelisms, hyperboles, tri-colons, rhetorical questions,
to name only the most common.
● DIRECT AND INDIRECT SPEECH: does the text include quotes? If so, are they paraphrased
or are they cited as direct speech? In either case, you should track down the original
phrases to see what their context was, and what function they now play in your
source material.
● MODALITY: see if the text includes any statements on what “should” or “could” be.
Such phrases may create a sense of urgency, serve as a call to action, or imply
hypothetical scenarios.
● EVIDENTIALITIES: lastly, are there any phrases in the text that suggest factuality?
Sample phrases might include “of course”, “obviously”, or “as everyone knows”. A
related question then is what kinds of “facts” the text actually presents in support of
its argument/ product. Does the text report factuality, actively demonstrate it, or
merely suggested it as self-evident? One of the strongest features of discourse is
how it “naturalizes” certain statements as “common sense” or “fact”, even if the
statements are actually controversial (and in discourse theory, all statements are
controversial).

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