Theoretical frameworks in the study of press advertisements: Polish, English and Chinese perspective

Książka stanowi próbę poszerzenia metodologii badań nad reklamami prasowymi poprzez wypracowanie nowych modeli analizy tego szczególnego typu obrazowo-tekstowego artefaktu oraz wykazanie ich zasadności i przydatności w oparciu o obszerny korpus przykładów zaczerpnięty z prasy polskiej, brytyjskiej i chińskiej. Praca podzielona jest na trzy rozdziały, z których pierwszy stanowi wprowadzenie teoretyczne oraz przegląd badań nad dyskursem reklamowym, natomiast dwa następne najpierw omawiają i poszerzają wybrane modele teoretyczne (Politeness Theory - Brown & Levinson (1987), Graded Salience Hypothesis - Giora (2003), Dynamic Model of Meaning - Kecskes (2008)), a w dalszej części demonstrują ich wykorzystanie w badaniach o charakterze analitycznym oraz empirycznym. Książka jest bogato ilustrowana, zawiera także obszerną bibliografię literatury poświęconej dyskursowi reklamowemu oraz indeks. The book is an attemtp at extending the scope of methodological insights into the discourse of press advertisements by means of elaborating new models of analysis of this peculiar type of pictorial-textual artefact. The applicability and feasibility of these new models are tested against a rich corpus of press advertisements extracted from Polish, British and Chinese newspapers and magazines. The book is divided into three chapters: the first one constitutes a theoretical introduction, containing an overview of studies on the discourse of advertising, whereas the remaining two first introduce seleced theoretical models (Politeness Theory - Brown & Levinson (1987), Graded Salience Hypothesis - Giora (2003), Dynamic Model of Meaning - Kecskes (2008)) and later demonstrate their analytical potential in the investigation of press advertisements. The book is richly illustrated and contains extensive bibliography of advertising discourse literature, followed by an index.

Spis treści

Table of contents Acknowledgements / 9 Abbreviations used in the text / 11 Preface / 13 Chapter One Academic reflections on the phenomenon of advertising 1.1. Introduction / 17 1.2. The scope of analysis / 19 1.2.1. The medium / 21 1.2.2. Analysts’ favourites / 25 1.2.2.1. Code-mixing in advertising / 26 1.2.2.2. The wordplay in commercials / 28 1.2.2.3. The application of gender stereotyping in advertisements / 31 1.2.3. Dissecting advertisements / 35 1.2.3.1. Illustrative elements: pictures, videos, music, sound effects / 35 1.2.3.2. Slogans / 37 1.2.3.3. Brand names / 39 1.2.3.4. Disclaimers and disclosures / 44 1.3. The input/output perspective / 46 1.3.1. The content analysis / 47 1.3.1.1. The size of the sample / 48 1.3.1.2. The selection of focus / 48 1.3.1.3. Aspects of bottom-up and top-down design / 51 1.3.1.4. Exemplification of inductive content analysis / 53 1.3.2. The processing and responses / 55 1.3.2.1. The selection of the input material and the area of focus / 56 1.3.2.2. The perspective of the subjects’ responses / 62 1.3.2.3. The participant characteristics / 66 1.3.2.4. Summary / 67 Chapter Two Politeness Theory in the analysis of advertisements 2.1. Introduction / 69 2.2. Brown and Levinson’s model / 70 2.3. Reflections on politeness, face and the applicability of the model / 75 2.4. Modeling the selected aspects of face / 78 2.5. Content-analysis-based illustration / 80 2.6. The theoretical basis of the study design / 87 2.6.1. The materials and the subjects / 89 2.6.2. The questionnaire construction / 90 2.7. The qualitative investigation / 94 2.7.1. The Polish responses / 94 2.7.2. The British responses / 105 2.7.3. The Chinese responses / 110 2.8. The survey-based intercultural comparison / 115 Chapter Three The new perspectives 3.1. Introduction / 124 3.2. Salient meanings in advertisements / 125 3.2.1. Graded Salience Hypothesis – an overview / 125 3.2.2. Static and dynamic attributes of salience / 129 3.2.3. Salience as the feature of linguistic and extra-linguistic units / 138 3.2.3.1. The exploitation of font / 139 3.2.3.2. Pictorial metonymy / 146 3.2.3.3. Visualisations of idiomatic meanings / 151 3.2.3.4. Visuals directing the interpretation / 155 3.2.3.5. Summary / 159 3.2.4. Optimal innovation in press advertisements / 160 3.2.4.1. Study design and elicitation method / 161 3.2.4.2. Gauging the level of innovativeness / 162 3.2.4.3. Measuring the attractiveness of innovation / 163 3.2.4.4. Discussion of the results / 164 3.2.5. Salience in advertising: the new territory / 167 3.3. Dynamic Nature of Context / 172 3.3.1. Dynamic Model of Meaning – an overview / 173 3.3.2. The perspective of the sender and the recipient / 179 3.3.2.1. Reconstruction of the creative process / 180 3.3.2.2. Predicting the viewers’ reactions / 185 3.3.2.3. Peculiarities of the low-involvement processing of commercial messages / 187 3.3.3. The role and components of context in advertising communication / 191 3.3.3.1. Activation of multiple consenses / 191 3.3.3.2. The Stratified Model of the actual situational context / 197 3.3.3.3. Modelling the interpretation of advertisements / 204 3.3.4. Expansion and extended application of the model / 206 3.4. Summary / 215 References / 219 Appendix 1 Transcript of advertisements used in the study of face-work / 239 The Polish advertisements / 240 The British advertisements / 246 The Chinese advertisements / 250 Appendix 2 Investigation of the elements of face and face-work / 255 The Polish questionnaire / 256 The English questionnaire / 257 The Chinese questionnaire / 258 Appendix 3 Investigation of optimal innovation / 259 Originality and innovation: Polish version / 260 Originality and innovation: English version / 261 Appreciation: Polish version / 262 Appreciation: English version / 263 Index of names / 265 Subject index / 271