Encounters between theory and practice: Semiotic and pragmatic principles in advertising

402 Pages·2017·3.38 MB·English

by  Caroline Fixter

Encounters between theory and practice: Semiotic and pragmatic principles in advertising
FOSTER, Stuart
Available from the Sheffield Hallam University Research Archive (SHURA) at:
http://shura.shu.ac.uk/18155/
A Sheffield Hallam University thesis
This thesis is protected by copyright which belongs to the author.
The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium
without the formal permission of the author.
When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding
institution and date of the thesis must be given.
Please visit http://shura.shu.ac.uk/18155/ and http://shura.shu.ac.uk/information.html for
further details about copyright and re-use permissions.
SHEFFIELD HALLAM UNIVERSITY
Faculty of Development and Society

Encounters between Theory and Practice: Semiotic and
Pragmatic Principles in Advertising

A Doctoral Thesis

By

Stuart Foster

Supervisors: Dr Peter Jones
Dr Jodie Clark
Acknowledgments

I would like to extend my thanks to my supervisors and other staff at Sheffield
Hallam University for their invaluable assistance and advice throughout the
process, and also special thanks to Dr Barbara McMahon who has since taken up
a new post another institution.

I wish to thank those who cooperated with my research, and especially to those
who work in the advertising industry who gave up some of their precious time
to answer my questions so comprehensively.

Lastly, I would like to thank my wife, Jill, for her willingness to let me spend
countless hours in the library and in my study working on this thesis and for
taking the load in relieving me of many of my usual chores.

Stuart Foster
Abstract
Advertising has long been of interest to semiotic, linguistics and pragmatic
theorists including Barthes (1957; 1977), Williamson (1978), Myers (1994),
Cook (2001) and Tanaka (1994). Marketing scholars, including Brierley (2002)
and Beaseley (in Beaseley & Danesi, 2002) show a reciprocal interest in the
potential for semiotics to advance their discipline, but there is no apparent
awareness of theories of pragmatics or its relevance to their field. While
semiotics offers a tool in understanding how meaning is conveyed through
linguistic and non-linguistic signs, pragmatics focuses upon language, speaker
intentions and the interpretation of utterances in context. This study compares
these two approaches in understanding the creative processes involved in the
design of advertisements. Universities and professional bodies were contacted
to ascertain whether these subjects were taught to prospective and practising
advertising professionals and, if so, what was the precise content. Considerable
variation is found between institutions, ranging from no input to a moderate
level of input in semiotics; pragmatics is absent in the syllabus. Where semiotics
is taught, it is confined to using theories to deconstruct selected advertisements
rather than employing semiotic principles as a design technique. In addition, five
copywriters are interviewed to ascertain their awareness of semiotics and, more
generally, the creative processes they adopt. While a vague knowledge of the
theories is reported, and some appreciation of their possible relevance to the
industry, practitioners make no attempt to apply semiotics systematically in
their design practices. There is evidence of an awareness of the effects of
signification and context which aligns with the theoretical frameworks, although
this alignment can be explained more through intuition and job experience than
a conscious application of theories. It is recommended that further research
should be conducted into the value of teaching semiotics to marketing students,
that an applied semiotic method is developed specifically for students of
advertising and that consideration is given to incorporating aspects of
pragmatics into their training.

Key Words: advertising, copywriter, linguistics, marketing, pragmatics, semiotic
TABLE OF CONTENTS
page
CHAPTER 1 – THESIS INTRODUCTION

1.1 CHAPTER INTRODUCTION 1
1.2 THE CHARACTER OF ADVERTISING DISCOURSE 2
1.3 ADVERTISING AS AN OBJECT OF STUDY 4
1.4 ADVERTISING AS COMMUNICATION 6
1.5 STATEMENT OF AIMS AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS 8
1.6 SCOPE AND STRUCTURE 11

CHAPTER 2 - ADVERTISING FROM A SEMIOTIC PERSPECTIVE

2.1 CHAPTER INTRODUCTION 15
2.2 OVERVIEW OF SEMIOTICS 16
2.3 SAUSSURE 17
2.4 PEIRCE 20
2.5 STRUCTURALISM AND FORMALISM 21
2.6 BARTHES 30
2.7 LÉVI-STRAUSS 38
2.8 INTERTEXTUALITY 41
2.9 ECO 44
2.10 MULTIMODALITY 47
2.11 LIMITATIONS OF SEMIOTIC ANALYSIS OF ADVERTISING 53
2.12 METALANGUAGE 59

CHAPTER 3 - ADVERTISING FROM A PRAGMATIC PERSPECTIVE

3.1 CHAPTER INTRODUCTION 61
3.2 OVERVIEW OF THEORIES OF IMPLICATURE 63
3.3 LIMITATIONS OF GRICE / RELEVANCE THEORY 72
3.4 DEIXIS AND PRONOUNS 76
3.5 OSTENSIVE INFERENTIAL AND COVERT COMMUNICATION 86
3.6 LOOSE TALK AND METAPHORS 91
3.7 AMBIGUITY, PUNS AND POLYSEMES 100
3.8 REASON/TICKLE AND HARD/SOFT SELL DISTINCTIONS 105

CHAPTER 4 – METHODOLOGY

4.1 CHAPTER INTRODUCTION 109
4.2 RESEARCH - ADVERTISING EDUCATION 110
4.3 RESEARCH - ADVERTISING PRACTICES 112
4.4 ADDITIONAL INTERVIEW 113
4.5 ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS 114
4.6 INTERVIEWS - DATA HANDLING 116
page
CHAPTER 5 - TEXTS FOR STUDENTS OF ADVERTISING

5.1 CHAPTER INTRODUCTION 117
5.2 PROFESSIONAL BODIES 117
5.3 UNIVERSITIES 119
5.4 SIGNIFICATION 122
5.5 DENOTATION, CONNOTATION AND MYTHS 126
5.6 INTERTEXTUALITY AND CONNOTATIVE CHAINS 129
5.7 PRODUCT AND BRAND NAMES 136
5.8 RHETORICAL DEVICES 139
5.9 RATIONAL AND NON-RATIONAL ADVERTISING 141
5.10 BRAND BUILDING AND BRAND RECOGNITION 142

CHAPTER 6 - INTERVIEWS, RESULTS AND ANALYSIS

6.1 CHAPTER INTRODUCTION 147
6.2 ADVERTISERS – AGENCY 150
6.3 INTERVIEWEE BACKGROUND 155
6.4 FORMING IDEAS 163
6.5 STRATEGY 182
6.6 COMMERCIAL SEMIOTICIAN INTERVIEW 209

CHAPTER 7 – DISCUSSION

7.1 CHAPTER INTRODUCTION 216
7.2 LINGUISTIC CONTENT IN ADVERTISING EDUCATION 217
7.3 THE BRIEF 221
7.4 APPLICATION OF SEMIOTIC PRINCIPLES IN ADVERTISING 223
7.5 APPLICATION OF PRAGMATIC PRINCIPLES IN ADVERTISING 239
7.6 PRODUCT VERSUS BRAND 258
7.7 FINDINGS AS THEY RELATE TO THESIS QUESTIONS 261

CHAPTER 8 – CONCLUSION

8.1 CHAPTER INTRODUCTION 272
8.2 REVIEW OF RESEARCH PROCESS 272
8.3 RESEARCH EVALUATION 273
8.4 RECOMMENDATIONS AND FUTURE RESEARCH 277

BIBLIOGRAPHY 281

APPENDICES 291
CHAPTER 1 – THESIS INTRODUCTION

1.1 CHAPTER INTRODUCTION

The principle aim of this thesis is to establish a dialogue between linguistic and
semiotic theory on the one hand and the practice of advertising design and
production on the other. Advertising may be naturally associated with business-
oriented disciplines like marketing, but it also has also attracted the interest of
scholars within other diverse fields, ranging from modern art (e.g. Flood, 2012;
Cairns, 2010) to applied psychology (e.g. Fennis et al, 1968; O'Shaughnessy &
O'Shaughnessy, 2004). The focus of previous studies into advertising has to date
been almost entirely directed towards the finished product of the creators'
endeavours, i.e. advertisements that have been published or broadcast, or the
cognitive effects achieved by the advertisements, rather than on the processes
involved in advertising creation.

As Brierley (2002: p. 2) states:

“Though there are thousands of academic studies of advertising
texts and their interaction with audiences, there are very few that
examine the production of advertising from the advertiser’s
perspective.”

The focus of research in this thesis was directed towards addressing this
deficiency through examining the relationship between the creative
processes involved in the production of advertisements and the
treatment of advertising discourse within the theoretical frameworks
found in semiotics and pragmatics. Where alignments between theory
and practice are identified, the author has investigated whether
practitioners consciously appied methods and principles from their
knowledge of the theories in their advertising design. Where it was
1
discovered practitioners were neither aware of, nor consciously applying,
the principles, the study attempted to establish whether any correlations
identified between theory and practice could be explained by other
means, such as through intuition derived from experience, and
consequently whether the principles were applied unconsciously. To
illustrate this point, in the case of semiotics, an advertising designer
interviewed during the course of this research stated:

“I bet if you broke down our processes … if you could look into our
heads…we’d be using semiotics in some way, but not actively…not
explicitly”. (Subject B)

It was further intended that this research would shed light on whether the
processes involved in the creation of advertisements tend to support semiotic
and pragmatic models and, if so, in what ways and to what degree.

1.2 THE CHARACTER OF ADVERTISING DISCOURSE

Advertising is a distinctive and unique type of discourse for several reasons. It is
prevalent in modern society or, as Williamson (1978: p. 11) states,
advertisements:

"are ubiquitous, an inevitable part of everyone's lives: even if
you do not read a newspaper or watch television, the images
posted over our urban surroundings are inescapable."

2
While, according to Dyer (1982), a business that engages in advertising may
claim that the purpose is simply to make consumers aware of the ranges of
goods and services available within a free market economy, it would be naïve
to suppose the purpose is as altruistic as this suggests. The ultimate aim of
an advertiser is to modify consumer perceptions, and thereby influence
consumer behavior to the advantage of a supplier; in other words, it is to
transform receivers of advertisements into customers. Advertisers employ
an assortment of methods to capture the attention of potential customers
including such as images juxtaposed with captions (as described in
subchapter 2.6), presenting a reader of viewer with a riddle or enigma
(subchapter 2.10) and personalization (subchapter 3.4). Their success in this
respect is contingent upon them possessing some understanding of the
interpretive abilities of receivers (i.e. their cognitive processing), and taking
account of these in the design of their advertisements. As a genre,
advertising shares some of its features with that of literature. It constructs
parallel worlds that can be entered and which have similarities with those
inhabited by the reader or audience, but are often more glamorous, exotic
and exciting than the banality of day-to-day experience. It generates
narratives that allude to folklore and popular culture, as exemplified by
Beasley and Danesi (2002) where they suggest allusions are made to the
Ancient Greek god of wine and carnal pleasures, Dionysus, in a Versace
advertisement (as described in Subchapter 5.6, below). In some cases, these
feature celebrities, such as Halle Berry, who is used to market Revlon beauty
products (Subchapter 2.6). Sometimes, advertising creates stories, and
characters, of its own which it can develop throughout a campaign and a
notable example of this is a series of television advertisements for Nescafe
Gold Blend instant coffee broadcast in the UK between 1987 and 1993, and
this depicts a slowly developing romance between a couple (Armstrong,
1995). To be successful, advertisers have to capture attention, perhaps even
overcoming some resistance in the process. In order to engage consumers,
advertisers exploit some of the methods favoured by authors and film
directors, such as visual stimuli by way of images which may be striking in
terms of the photography or graphics used, and through linguistic devices
3
such as jingles, straplines, enigmatic wording or personalization (as
mentioned above)(Brierley, 2002). However, unlike novelists, playwrights
and movie directors, advertisers do not invite those who experience them
into these worlds primarily to entertain. For them, Dyer (1982) asserts, the
entertainment aspect is instead a vehicle used to fulfill an entirely different
purpose, namely to promote a product or brand and thereby alter
perceptions and, ultimately, behavior with respect to that product or brand.
This difference in purpose makes it necessary to view advertisements from a
different perspective from that of other genres. Specifically, if the future
behaviour of the receiver is not influenced in the precise way intended then,
as Bissel (2001) points out, communication may be regarded as unsuccessful,
the opportunity as lost and money spent on producing the advertisement as
wasted.

1.3 ADVERTISING AS AN OBJECT OF STUDY

As a general rule, commercial and public information advertisements are
received unsolicited and attached to other discourses such as television and
radio programmes, and periodicals. Nonetheless, research shows that
advertising is memorable as the content of advertisements readily comes to
mind, such as when shopping (Cobb & Hoyer, 1985; Dalton et al, 2013).
Commercials are, as noted by Dyer (1982), ubiquitous in modern society and are
found in all forms of media (Cook, 2001). To be effective, they must be relevant
to the consumers and so efforts are made both to reflect modern lifestyles and,
in some cases, present consumers with a projected “idealized self” in “idealized
settings” (Richins, 1991). The effectiveness of advertising has ultimately to be
measured in terms of the profit it is able to generate and, as a consequence,

4