Masarykova univerzita Filozofická fakulta Katedra anglistiky a amerikanistiky FF AJ Anglický jazyk PhDr. Katarína Nemčoková DISCOURSE STRATEGIES OF STORYTELLING, INTERTEXTUALITY AND METAPHOR IN AMERICAN PRINTED ADVERTISING Disertační práce Školitelka: prof. PhDr. Ludmila Urbanová, CSc. 2012 I hereby declare that I worked on this thesis independently using only the sources listed in references. ........................................................... Acknowledgements I owe my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, prof. PhDr. Ludmila Urbanová, CSc. Her expertise, constant scholarly and personal encouragement, motivating support and patience enabled me to write this dissertation. She has been a teacher who every student longs to meet in the course of their studies. My special thanks belong to Gregory Jason Bell, my dear friend and colleague, for his invaluable editorial comments and language supervision. I would also like to thank to Juraj Hrúz for his acute observations, challenging discussions and help with statistics. Finally, my endless gratitude belongs to my wonderful support team – my dear family and friends, who always seem to do the right things. Contents Introduction ........................................................................................................ 8 2 Notions and Concepts of Advertising Communication ............................. 13 2.1 Categories within the Genre of Advertisements ................................ 15 2.2 Categories of Product Consumer Ads ............................................... 16 2.2.1 Categories Based on Media of Distribution .............................. 16 2.2.2 Categories Based on the Targeted Recipients ........................... 16 2.2.3 Categories Based on the Marketing Techniques ....................... 17 2.3 Corpus Description ........................................................................... 19 2.4 The Context of Advertising Communication .................................... 24 2.4.1 The Conjunctures of Advertising Communication .................... 25 2.4.2 The Structure of an Advertising Message ................................. 29 2.4.3 The Goal of Advertising Communication ................................. 33 2.4.4 The Sender of the Advertising Message .................................... 39 2.4.5 The Recipient of the Advertising Message ................................ 41 2.4.6 The Sender and the Recipient in the Social Power Context ...... 42 2.4.7 Magazines as the Channel of Advertising Communication ...... 43 2.4.8 Display Product Consumer Ads as a Sub-genre ........................ 46 3 Mental Space as a Common Interpretive Principle ................................... 48 4 Storytelling as a Discourse Strategy .......................................................... 51 4.1 Advertising Stories ............................................................................. 54 4.1.1 Fictional Stories .......................................................................... 54 4.1.2 Hinted Stories ............................................................................. 57 4.1.3 True Account Stories .................................................................. 63 4.1.4 Plot-lines Conclusion ................................................................. 73 4.2 Storytelling Cues ............................................................................... 74 4.2.1 Time Sequencing of Events as a Storytelling Cue .................... 75 4.2.2 Characters as Storytelling Cues ................................................. 76 4.2.3 Location ..................................................................................... 82 4.3 Cues Conclusion ............................................................................... 83 5 Intertextuality as a Discourse Strategy ...................................................... 84 5.1 The Phenomenon of Intertextuality.................................................... 84 5 5.1.1 Genre and Voice in Intertextual References ............................... 85 5.2 The Functions of Intertextuality ......................................................... 87 5.2.1 Intertextuality and Associations in Mental Space ...................... 87 5.2.2 Intertextuality and Products in a New Context ........................... 88 5.3 Types of Intertextuality ...................................................................... 89 5.4 Intertextuality in Print Advertising .................................................... 90 5.4.1 Illustration-Depicted Intertextuality ........................................... 90 5.4.2 Mass Culture Intertextuality ....................................................... 99 5.4.3 Non-Specific Multigeneric Intertextuality ................................ 105 5.4.4 Multigeneric Intertextuality Scale ........................................... 113 5.4.5 Heteroglossic Intertextuality .................................................... 115 5.5 Concluding Remarks on Intertextuality in Ads.............................. 125 6 Metaphor as a Discourse Strategy ........................................................... 126 6.1 Metaphor as a Cognitive Device ...................................................... 126 6.1.2 Functions of Metaphors ............................................................ 126 6.1.3 Presence of Metaphors in Printed Ads ..................................... 127 6.1.4 Metaphors Used as a Discourse Strategy in Advertising.......... 128 6.1.5 Creating and Filling the Mental Space with Metaphors ........... 129 6.2 Metaphors Used as a Discourse Strategy ......................................... 131 6.2.1 Distribution in the Corpus under Investigation ........................ 132 6.2.2 Revealing Metaphors ............................................................... 133 6.2.3 Ideological Metaphors ............................................................. 153 6.3 Conclusion on Metaphor as a Discourse Strategy .......................... 157 7 Overlapping Discourse Strategies ........................................................... 158 7.1 Storytelling and Intertextuality ........................................................ 159 7.2 Storytelling and Metaphor ............................................................... 161 7.3 Intertextuality and Metaphor ............................................................ 165 7.4 Storytelling, Intertextuality and Metaphor ....................................... 168 8 Statistical Summary ................................................................................. 174 9 Conclusion ............................................................................................... 178 9.1 Functioning of Storytelling, Intertextuality and Metaphor as Discourse Strategies ..................................................................................................... 178 9.2 The Principle of Undercoding .......................................................... 179 9.3 Power Relations in Advertising Discourse ...................................... 179 6 9.4 Strategies Revisited .......................................................................... 180 9.4.1 Storytelling .............................................................................. 182 9.4.2 Intertextuality ........................................................................... 184 9.4.3 Metaphor ................................................................................... 187 9.5 Hypotheses Revisited ....................................................................... 189 Bibliography ................................................................................................... 191 Corpus Material .......................................................................................... 200 APPENDICES ................................................................................................ 202 Appendix I: Glossary of Terms ...................................................................... 202 Appedix II: Corpus of Ads (Textual Parts) .................................................... 212 Appendix III: Corpus of Ads (Full Ads) ........................................................ 262 7 We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. (T. S. Eliot: Little Gidding (V), No. 4 of “Four Quartets”) Introduction Discourse is language at work. Advertising discourse, which is the focal point of this dissertation, has a specific social setting and its influence on events in society is profound. Fairclough in his study of discourse as a tool of power sees the relationship of language and society as internal and dialectical. He stresses three principles that determine the relationship of language and society: “Firstly, … language is a part of society, and not somehow external to it. Secondly, … language is a social process. And thirdly, … language is a socially conditioned process, conditioned that is by other (non-linguistic) parts of society” (1989, 22). Advertising discourse inevitably involves the conditions of its social setting; that is both of its production and interpretation. This is where the dissertation positions itself: it deals with advertising discourse in printed ads, as determined by its social environment. As discourse is also a social practice, the participants in this practice create the critical viewpoint of the study. Due to its social embedding, discourse in the context of advertising reflects