A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF THE BEAUTY
ADVERTISEMNETS BY MAYBELLINE:
THE 80’S AND THE PRESENT
Faranak Modaresi
a thesis submitted to the Faculty of Humanities in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree
Master of Arts (MA) in
General Linguistics at
University of Amsterdam
JUNE 2016
Supervisor: Ineke Vedder Co-Supervisor: Petra Sleeman
Acknowledgment
I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to all the people who helped me through my studies. Foremost, I would like to thank my supervisor Dr. Ineke Vedder for her continuous assistance and guidance. I would also like to thank my mother and my brother for all their love and support.
Abstract
The research at hand employed a critical approach towards the discourse of advertising in order to ascertain the linguistic and visual features of the persuasive language in the beauty ads of the well-known cosmetics brand of Maybelline, during the 80’s and the time period of 2015-2016. The three-dimensional analytical model of Fairclough (1992) was used for the purpose of this research. The findings suggest that the beauty advertisements of both time periods employ different grammatical cohesive devices and lexical cohesive devices. However, there are a number of differences in the type of the features they employed in the advertisements. The advertising texts in the past were more cohesive with the use of a lot of lexical and grammatical cohesive devices. The sentences were longer and had a more complex structure in the past. The visual elements of the ads have also showed a slight change. In the past there were four main parts; the headline, the body copy, the image, and the signature line. However, nowadays the image of the celebrity or the picture of the product covers most of the page and the texts are rather brief and do not follow a certain order.
Table of Contents Abstract
Chapter 1
1.1. Introduction
1.2. Discourse Analysis and Critical Discourse Analysis 1.3. Rhetoric and The Art of Persuasion
1.4. Multimodal Discourse Analysis Chapter 2
2.1 Theoretical Background and Framework 2.2. Previous Studies
Chapter 3
3.1. Method and Research Questions 3.2. Data
3.3. Data Analysis Procedure
Chapter 4: Results and The Discussion of The Ads Published In The 80’s 4. The Ads From The 80’s
4.1. Textual Analysis: Linguistic Elements 4.1.1. Reference
4.1.2. Substitution and Ellipsis 4.1.3. Conjunction
4. 2. Textual Analysis: Visual Elements
Chapter 5: Results and The Discussion of The Ads Published In 2015-2016 5. The Results of The Ads From 2015-2016
5. 1. Textual Analysis: Linguistic Elements 5. 2. Textual Analysis: Visual Elements Chapter 6: Comparison
6. Comparison
6.1. Similarities and Differences in Linguistic Elements 6.2. Similarities and Differences in Visual Elements Chapter 7 7.1. Conclusion References Appendix 3 5 6 7 8 9 12 13 14 18 19 20 21 23 24 24 26 29 31 41 45 46 47 56 59 60 60 63 65 66
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1. Introduction
The media and advertisement as a powerful source in forming the public thoughts and desires, provide an invaluable source for the research on language. Although the advertisement discourse is very brief, it is very complex in nature. The persuasive language of advertisements has become the focus of attention for many discourse analysis studies in recent years. Some researchers employ the traditional approach of looking at linguistic elements of advertisement language, while other scholars such as Fairclough (1995) employed a more critical approach and analyzed the procedures and the type of language that these adverts employ in order to persuade their audience to act. Cook (2001) looked at the interaction of the verbal and visual elements in the language of advertisement and studied how they relate to each other and contribute towards meaning; in his opinion advertising discourse is then a combination of language and images.
As stated by Cook (2013) the Collins Concise Dictionary defines advertising as “the promotion of goods or services through sale through impersonal media” (p. 9). In his opinion language and symbols in advertisements work to persuade, inform, misinform, amuse or warn people. Therefore, advertisements change people’s mind and make them buy the products they do not want or need (Ayasuriya, 2015). According to Cook (2013) persuasive language of advertising is filled with connotations, ellipsis, conjunctions, collocations and frequent use of first and second person pronouns. Advertising as a creative field and a growing industry, has provided an enormous opportunity for discourse studies. Much research has been dedicated to the language of advertising from different theoretical points of view. Discourse Analysis and Critical Discourse Analysis are two of the approaches mostly taken towards the advertising discourse; which is known to be persuasive and informative (Woods, 2006). To be able to define what is discourse analysis, it is crucial to describe what is discourse first. Discourse is anything that is beyond the level of a sentence; for example, two people in a conversation or two sentences that are connected is considered as discourse. On the other hand, discourse is language in use, how people put the language in use in different contexts and situations. . Weedon (1987) defines discourse as “…ways of constituting knowledge, together with the social practices, forms of subjectivity and power relations that inhere in such knowledge and relations between them. Discourses are more than ways of thinking and
producing meaning” (p, 108). What follows is an overview of Critical Discourse Analysis, the notion of Rhetoric, and Multimodal Discourse Analysis, which is of importance for the current research, since it helps us to find out the procedures and the type of language that adverts employ in order to persuade their prospects.
1.2. Critical Discourse Analysis
For a long time the traditional approach of Discourse Analysis has been taken towards language with the aim of describing pieces of discourse and how they function, however in the 70’s a more critical view of discourse analysis emerged. Critical Discourse Analysis is concerned with the manifestation of social and political inequalities in discourse (Wooffitt, 2005). The main purpose of CDA is to examine how people are manipulated and persuaded by public discourse and how they undergo power. It is an interdisciplinary approach, which studies the abuse of power by texts.
Fairclough (1989) defines Critical Discourse Analysis as a kind of social practice where power and ideology influence and interact with one another. Van Dijk (1996) suggests that Critical Discourse Analysis is a type of analytical discourse research that discusses social power abuse, dominance and inequality. Wodak (2006) states “CDA [is] fundamentally interested in analyzing opaque as well as transparent structural relationships of dominance, discrimination, power and control when these are manifested in language. In other words, CDA aims to investigate critically social inequality as it is expressed, constituted, and legitimized by language use” (p. 53). CDA at the starting point had more of a critical linguistics approach to text analysis but in later years incorporated more social, cognitive and rhetorical aspects of language and broadened its scope of analysis. Two groups of scholars in the late 70’s emerged who had a new approach towards discourse; Critical Linguistics (CL) and Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). These two notions are often used interchangeably, however, CDA, which is the focus of this research, deals more with the interaction of language and power in addition to the effect of language on the society.
Hodge and Kress (1993) along with Fowler and Kress (1972) were among the leading scholars who paved the way for investigating the language critically by analyzing ‘texts’. The type of discourse analysis they performed was based on the theoretical
foundation of Halliday’s metafunctional grammar and Systemic Functional Linguistics, which was based on the premise that language and society are inevitably connected. Nevertheless, there were limitations in CL as a system, some of which are the ones argued by Fairclough (2006) who states this type of discourse analysis considers text as a product rather than considering the production and interpretation of it. In 1989, Fairclough published the book Language and Power; a pioneer work in the field of Critical Discourse Analysis, in which he proposes a framework for examining the interaction of language and social practice. His main concern was the interactions of language and power. Fairclough’s ideological doctrine can be used in everyday practice; advertisement texts as well as political texts are subject to his analysis.
One major development in the field has been achieved following a conference in 1991, at the University of Amsterdam, where a group of linguists gathered and discussed the theories of Discourse Analysis. Teun van Dijk, Norman Fairclough, Gunther Kress, Theo van Leeuwen and Ruth Wodak, discussed various approaches and their similarities and differences. The emergence of the term Critical Discourse Analysis traces back to the work of Fairclough Critical Language Awareness in 1992, in which the ‘critical approaches’ to discourse analysis was outlined and he used other terms such as Critical Language Awareness (CLA) and Critical Language Studies (CLS). Later in the edited version of his book Critical Language Awareness, Fairclough use the term ‘critical discourse analysis’ and categorized it as a form CLS. In 1995 the book named Critical Discourse Analysis was published and the term was confirmed (Billig, 2003).
1.3. Rhetoric and The Art of Persuasion
Rhetoric is one of the various dimensions of discourse and therefore it is difficult to distinguish the principles of rhetorical analysis from those of discourse analysis. Rhetoric is concerned with the power of spoken and written language in persuading people in important public issues (Huckin et al., 2012). Burke (1969) defines rhetoric as “the use of words by human agents to form attitudes or to induce actions in other human agents” (p. 41). One of the areas of interest in discourse analysis and rhetoric is the language of advertisement, which usually aims at evoking a sense of persuasion, attraction or interest in the consumers for a product or a service. The language of
advertisements is known to be informative and persuasive. In the current study the focus is on the advertising discourse of beauty products. Beauty as an ideology is produced and presented through advertisements. Beauty products advertisements can manipulate people to an extent that they accept whatever said is true (Kaur et al., 2013). Harris (1952) defines an advertisement as a public notice that publishes information with the aim of promoting products and services. Advertisers use rhetorical devices to evoke the emotions of potential costumers. The famous Greek Philosopher Aristotle argues that persuasion could be brought about by the speaker’s use of three modes of “rhetoric”: Ethos, Pathos and Logos. Ethos is the demonstration of a communicator’s character and/or credentials. The persuasion lies in the authority and power of the speaker. Aristotle considered this as the most important attribute of any communication. The audience has to find the speaker’s character credible and trustworthy otherwise, the communication will not be persuasive. Pathos is an appeal based on emotion. The intent is to motivate people to take action. Logos, or appeal through reasoning refers to the internal consistency of the message, the clarity of the claim, the logic of its reasons, and the effectiveness of the supporting evidence that comes with it. Hermerén (1999) compares the language of commercial advertising to the process of persuasion which consists of four steps according to Sandell (1977); comprehension, acceptance, attitude change and retention of the message. Larsen (2015) argues that rhetoric deals with communicative situations and the aims and intentions of the communicators are important in relation to the text, therefore, “any kind of analysis that sets out to describe the ways in which a given discourse is determined or affected by its immediate communicative context could be said to be rhetorical in nature” (p. 650).
1.4. Multimodal Discourse Analysis
A great number of researchers have previously focused on the verbal means of communication (Chouliaraki & Fairclough, 1999; Fowler & Kress, 1979); however, lately CDA is applied also to non-verbal means of communication such as images and videos (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006). As stated in Labrador et al. (2014) persuasion in advertisement is not only achieved by linguistic means but also visuals elements contribute to the communicative and illocutionary function of advertising. Van Leeuwan
(2004) pointed out that the visual elements of images such as composition, typography and color are important since these elements, in relation to each other, contribute to the communication and production of the meaning. Each element has a ‘meaning potential’ or the ability to convey meaning, but the complete meaning is the sum of all the elements together. Multimodal Discourse Analysis attempts to understand the power and meaning of texts that are accompanied by visual or aural modes (Kress & Van Leeuwan, 2006), therefore, it is employed to analyze magazine covers, advertisements or movies. According to Dyer (1993) “a picture is used to lead the eye to the written copy in magazine ads and in commercials; language is used merely to reinforce a photograph or filmed sequence” (1993: 86).
The language of persuasion seem to have had some changes over the years, while in the past advertisements tended to have longer texts and give more information about the product, nowadays they achieve their goals by brief and creative catch phrases, and using more visual elements, which leave a greater impact on the audience. The first objective of the present research is to extensively analyze the discourse of health and beauty products advertisements from the decade of the 80’s together with the period of 2015-2016 and identify the linguistic features which help them persuade their audience to buy a certain product or achieve their goals. The second aim of the research is to compare the linguistic and visual elements of the vintage ads and the new ones, in order to find out whether they have changed their strategies to keep persuading their potential costumers to act. The current research employs a critical discourse analysis approach towards the advertising texts and takes the three-dimensional analytical model of Fairclough (1989, 1992) in order to analyze both the linguistic and visual features of the texts and images. Fairclough’s model proposes three dimensions in analyzing discourse; the first dimension is concerned with discourse as ‘text’ and studies verbal, visual or verbal and visual texts. The second dimension is concerned with the production and consumption of the text in a certain context and the third dimension studies text as a social practice. This study deals only with the first dimension of this model, since the main aim of the study is to investigate the linguistic and visual elements of the advertising discourse. The beauty related adverts were chosen for the study since this is a growing industry and there are lots of new brands lunching at the time and the competitive market demands novelty and
creativity which makes the language of these ads an interesting area for discursive studies. Although many studies investigated advertising discourse (Labrador et al., 2013; Kaur et al., 2013; Chong, 2015; Lunyal, 2015), only few compared the language of advertising in different years (González, 2014).
The following chapter presents a review of the literature that enabled me to conduct this research. First the theoretical background and the research framework are discussed and then a number of previous studies on advertising discourse are introduced. Chapter three explains the methodology, which is an overview of the research framework and design along with the research questions and the hypothesis. Then the data used in the study and the data analysis procedure is introduced. Chapter four presents the results and discussion on the analysis of the ads published in the 80’s in two parts; the linguistic analysis and the visual elements analysis. Chapter five present the results and the discussion on the ads published over the period of 2015-2016. This chapter is also in two parts; the linguistic and the visual element analysis. Chapter six establishes the similarities and the differences of the two time periods. Finally, chapter seven is the conclusion of the thesis.
CHAPTER TWO
BACKGROUND
2.1. Theoretical Background and Framework
Norman Fairclough was one of the leading scholars in the field of Critical Discourse Analysis who unlike other scholars instead of working through a linguistic approach in CDA, employed a sociological approach. His concept of discourse was of the ‘social practice’ kind and he was mainly interested in institutional discourse and power and he evaluated different areas such as linguistics, pragmatics, sociolinguistics, conversation analysis, discourse analysis etc. and argued that these areas present limitations for critical perspective. In the book Language and Power (1989) Fairclough was one of the first linguists to talk about the relationship of language and power. He asserts that discourse is a social practice and the approach that he takes is critical in the sense that it is not only a description of discourse but it also explains and interprets how the discourse is shaped by power and ideologies.
Starting in the eighties, Fairclough provided a schematic picture or a step-by-step model of how CDA works in a number of his studies (1992, 1995, 2000, 2006, 2008). The framework developed by Fairclough reveals the social practices of the advertising language, which is considered as a media discourse deeply connected to the society. The CDA framework investigates both lexical and grammatical relations of a text and social interactions of a certain discourse as a means of social change.
The Three-dimensional model of Fairclough (1992) proposes three dimensions in the framework of CDA; the first dimension is concerned with discourse as ‘text’, and it is not limited to the linguistics units of sentences or clauses, but both verbal, visual or verbal and visual texts are included. It is related to the grammar, vocabulary, cohesion and organization of the text as well as the semiotic indications including: images, different colors, signs, sounds. (Vahid & Esmae’li, 2012). The second dimension which studies discourse as a ‘discursive practice’ is concerned with coherence and speech acts, and intertextuality. It examines the production and reception of the text in a certain context. There are two types of context; the situational context, which deals with time and place of production (e.g. certain magazine published in New York), or the intertextual context, which is concerned with the producers and receivers of the discourse (certain target group like women). This dimension deals with questions such as ‘who are the producers and what are their objectives?’. The third dimension, which studies text as a
social practice, is concerned with the ideological influences and the operation of discourse in hegemonic processes, i.e. how discourse is manipulated to control the way people think. It is the power functioning behind the entire process and deals with questions such as ‘what is the relation of the topic of investigation with the type of social practice or discourse?’ (Vahid & Esmae’li, 2012). As Chong (2015) states: “Fairclough’s three-dimensional model with its three phases of research procedure aims at exploring the links between language use and social practice” (p. 91). This framework constitutes the theoretical basis of the objectives of this study; to analyze the language of advertising and see which devices are used in this type of discourse. However, it is crucial to bear in mind that the research at hand is only concerned with the first dimension of the model, since it solely investigates the linguistic and visual features of the advertising discourse.
2.2. Previous Studies
Numerous companies emerge each year to introduce new products and services with the aim of attracting more and more costumers, as a consequence, a huge number of ads are produced in order to promote products and services or keep the already established companies on top by selling their products. As a consequence of the competitive market, there is a trend towards employing promotional strategies in both television commercials and print ads. Content writers consistently face a challenge in choosing the ‘right’ language to persuade people. Hatim (1990) states ‘‘In text-typological terms, the advertisement seems to be better represented as a continuum of text functions fluctuating between ‘informing’ and ‘manipulating’’ (p. 117). Various researchers made an attempt to investigate the nature of rhetoric and the language of advertising discourse in order to ascertain persuasion strategies and detect the rhetorical devices employed in this genre of discourse. There are different approaches and methods applied in analyzing the persuasive language of advertisement. Many researchers combine the theories from the discourse analysis, critical discourse analysis and rhetorical analysis to attain the best results. Hermerén (1999) discussed the persuasive effect of commercial advertising based on what Sandell (1977) wrote in his book and compared the function of advertisements to the process of persuasion and pointed out that the persuasion procedure could be divided into four components: comprehension,
acceptance, attitude change and retention of the message. Cook (1992) discusses how the language of advertising contributes to the message to be transmitted by looking at the interaction of verbal and visual elements; he states that discourse of advertisements is a combination of language and images.
Labrador et al. (2013) studied the rhetorical structure and persuasive language in the subgenre of online advertisements. They chose a corpus of two hundred Spanish and English online small electronic devices advertisements. Regarding the method used for their study, they tagged both corpora for rhetorical moves, identifying the rhetorical structure of their texts. The method was based on the Swales (1990) move–step rhetorical analysis (CARS model), which proposes a hierarchical classification for the organization of research articles involving moves and steps. The English corpus was used as the experimental data for analyzing the rhetorical and persuasive language while the Spanish corpus was used as a reference. Rhetorical labels were assigned to sections of each text for each advertisement. Then, the moves were identified ranging from words to paragraphs; this helped identifying the distributional pattern of rhetorical moves in each move or step. The second step for analyzing the text was to identify the lexical and grammatical features; by doing this, the lexical patterns of use for certain words that occur more often in one move were identified. The results of this study on rhetorical moves suggest two compulsory moves in the data; ‘identifying product and purpose’ and ‘describing the product’. The former consists of naming the company, naming the product, explaining the application and giving pictures. The latter includes the description characteristics and objective features like size or weight and positive evaluation of the product. In terms of lexical and grammatical features, the results indicated the use of informal style resembling the spoken language with the use of second person and imperatives, contractions, catchphrases, alliteration, clipping, subject omissions, emphatic enumeratives, multiple modifiers, quantifying expressions, non-finite clauses. The main conclusion of the study was that clear persuasive steps do not occur in any of the texts. In English there seem to be clearer boundaries between the different rhetorical sections of the texts, however the rhetorical structure of English and Spanish is very similar.
Kaur et al. (2013) examined the discourse of beauty product advertisements in two woman magazines, using the Critical Discourse Analysis approach and the three dimensional framework of Fairclough, in order to see how these advertisers use language to manipulate or influence their costumers. The results demonstrated how the ideology of beauty (the idea of what is considered as beautiful) is produced through ads published in these magazines and the fact that advertisers promote an idealized lifestyle and show that beauty products result in a better life. The study further suggests that advertisers use various linguistic devices such as direct address, positive vocabulary, headlines, and catch phrases in order to attract women.
The focus of the research at hand is on the verbal and visual building blocks of persuasive language. It goes without saying that the visual elements contribute to the function of advertisements to a great extent. Some studies focus on visual rhetoric as well as the verbal rhetoric. Dyer (1993) states that in advertisement and commercials language is used to strengthen the visual elements and pictures are used to the lead the attention to the written discourse. Chong (2015) points out that the visual images convey social meanings beside their commercial and attractive function. Walker (2007) explored the nature of American advertising discourse, as well as, verbal and visual rhetorical elements integrated with it. The study discussed television, radio, and billboard in addition magazine advertisements. Walker identifies imagery, rhythm, symbolism and hyperbole and explains that the rhetorical devices used in advertising are also found in poetry. Lunyal (2015) examined the discourse of perfume advertisements with respect to their verbal and visual rhetoric devices. The study made use of the Fairclough’s model of critical discourse analysis (CDA) to analyze the verbal and visual content to reveal ideological underpinnings. It concluded, “advertisements emerge from social realities and reflect the ideology of the society in which they are created” (p. 129). Mzoughi and Abdelhak (2011) experimented the effect of visual and verbal rhetoric on emotions, as well as the attitude towards the advertisements and the brand. Their results suggest that using figures enhances the effect of print advertisements; verbal figures in particular led to a more favorable attitude toward the ad. Hillier (2004) compared the British television advertisement in the 1950’s and the 1990s-2000s, by using the Leech’s framework (1966). The findings of the study suggested that in the more recent years there
was a tendency towards using less direct address forms in advertising. Ellison (2014) conducted a research on a sample of anti-aging print advertisements collected from fourteen North American magazines and examined the discourse of anti-aging skin care advertisement, using the CDA approach through the use of semiotics and visual rhetoric, Semiotics was employed because it offers a systematic, comprehensive study of communications phenomena. The study was mainly interested in finding out the way anti-aging skin care advertisements present a certain ideal image to their viewers. Four views of agelessness were identified in the study: Agelessness as Scientific Purity, Agelessness as Genetic Impulse, Agelessness as Nature's Essence, and Agelessness as Myth.
There have not been many studies focusing on the chronological aspects and development of advertising language during time. One of the studies which has considered the time frame as well was conducted by González (2014) who investigated the development of cosmetic advertising extensively; the adverts from the cosmetics brand of Max Factor, which were published from 1940 to 2000 were analyzed from a CDA point of view. The corpus consisted of print adverts of Max Factor, from different decades, which were all in English. The Fairclough’s analytical framework was employed to analyze the persuasive language used in these ads. This framework assigns three dimensions to every discursive event, which Fairclough (1993) describes as “instance of language use, analyzed as text, discursive practice, social practice” (p. 138). The result of the study indicated that all of the adverts consisted of four main parts: i) the headline, ii) the first reading (texts); ii) the body, the description of the product and its advantages; iii) the signature line, which is compounded by slogans, logos or the name of the brand; iv) the illustration, which comprises the pictures of the product and a celebrity. The author concludes that the results are against the initial hypothesis of the study, which was that Max Factor would have changed its linguistic strategies in order to remain a successful brand. It turned out instead, that Max Factor’s ads have not changed much, only the length of their text has shortened during time, along with some of their discursive devices. This research is in line with the present study, which focuses on another brand of beauty products, Maybelline.
CHAPTER THREE
METHODOLOGY
3. Method and Research Questions
A mentioned in chapter two, the analytical approach to study the advertising discourse in this research is that of Critical Discourse Analysis. This approach provides us with the tool that helps to achieve the purpose of this research, which is analyzing the advertising texts in relation to their social context. As already discussed in the introduction chapter, critical discourse analysis is concerned with revealing the social inequalities in texts and scholars often use it in order to analyze advertising discourse in order to see the way they persuade or manipulate people.
The framework employed for analyzing the data in this study is the three-dimensional model of Fairclough, which has been discussed earlier in the Theoretical Background chapter (2). This model has been adopted and used by many researchers in the field of discourse analysis studies. It proposes three dimensions to language use in communication. The first dimension describes discourse as text and focuses on the linguistic features of the text as well as the visual features like images, colors, signs, etc. The second dimension examines discourse as discursive practice and it is concerned with the production, the perception and the distribution of text. The third dimension is concerned with discourse as social practice and the sociocultural situations related to the distribution and production. The study aims to answer the following questions:
1. What are the linguistic and visual devices that were employed in the beauty advertisements of the 80’s?
2. What are the linguistic and visual devices that were employed in the beauty advertisements over the years of 2015-2016?
3. Have the linguistic and visual devices used in the advertising discourse changed during time? What are the similarities and differences?
Accordingly, in order to answer these questions the first dimension of Fairclough’s framework will be employed to analyze the data. This dimension is concerned with the verbal as well as visual elements. The current investigation comprises a qualitative in-depth analysis of the adverts in terms of grammar, vocabulary, cohesion, cohesion and organization of the text and the visual and graphic indications including:
images, different colors, and signs. It is hypothesized that due to the natural development that language goes through and the competitive market of the health and beauty products both the linguistic and visual devices that these adverts employ have changed and adapted to the needs and interests of the society; as a consequence the persuasion strategies have changed during the decades. The focus of the advertisements is now more on visual elements and less on the linguistic features.
3.2. Data
The materials selected for the study are health and beauty advertisements from the brand of Maybelline, which were published in women magazines and promote either beauty or health related products like cream foundations or moisturizers, for women. The sampling method was purposive and non-random, i.e. a kind of sampling method that some elements of the population have no chance of selection, or the probability of selection cannot be accurately determined. For example, certain ads that advertise mascara or creams were selected. The adverts were chosen based on their audience focus (the target group here is women). and the product they promote as well as their layout, which is in either one or two full-page format including pictures accompanied by texts. In order to create a homogeneous corpus, the vintage adverts also promote the same products as the new ones.
The corpus is comprised of ten advertisements from the 80’s and ten advertisements from 2015-2016, which were selected for the purpose of this study from one of the pioneer brands of cosmetics, Maybelline. The advertisements published in the decade of 1980, were randomly collected through the Google search engine. The adverts that were published in 2015 and 2016 were collected through the electronic version of the beauty and fashion magazines such as Vogue, since these magazines are mainly dedicated to women and beauty and usually include advertisements mostly dedicated to beauty products. The advertisements chosen for this study were published in English speaking countries; as a result, the samples were all in English. In selecting the advertisement the following criteria were considered in order to have a homogeneous sample for the research; the purpose of the (advertisement) text, which is promoting beauty products here, the producer (Maybelline), the date of production (the 80’s and
2015-2016). The availability of the material was another factor to consider. Table 1 and Table 2 show the name and the type of the products, besides the year of the production.
Table 1 – Adverts from the 80’s
Table 2 – Adverts from 2015/2016
3.3. Data Analysis Procedure
In order to answer the first research question, the textual dimension of the data will be analyzed. Each advertisement from the decade of the eighties will be extensively analyzed in terms of the linguistic features and visual and graphic features (chapter 4). Then, in order to answer the second research question, the adverts published in the years
Name of The Product Type of The Product Year
1. Long Wearing make-up Maybelline 2. Maybelline Brush/Blush
3. Shine Free Crease-Resistant Eye Shadow 4. Magic Mascara Maybelline
5. Fresh Lash
6. Moisture Whip Maybelline
7. Shine Free Cosmetics. Rich ‘n Gentle Mascara 8. Rich ‘n Gentle Mascara
9. Moisture Whip Make-up Maybelline 10. Moisture Whip Maybelline
Cream Foundation Blush Eye shadow Mascara Mascara Moisturizer
Eye shadow, Powder Blush, Cover Stick, Translucent Pressed Powder
Mascara Foundation, Blush Lipstick 1983 1984 1984 1980 1982 1981 1984 1984 1982 1985
Name of The Product Type of The Product Year
1. Color Sensational The Reds 2. New Brow Drama Pro Palette 3. Blushed Nudes Palette
4. New Brow Drama Sculpting Brow Mascara 5. New The Falsies Push Up Drama Mascara 6. New Dream Velvet Foundation
7. New Lasting Drama Waterproof Gel Pencil 8. Lash Sensational Luscious Mascara 9. New The Rock Nudes Palette 10. Color Sensational The Plums
Lipstick Eyebrow Kit Blush Brow Mascara Mascara Foundation Eye Pencil Mascara Eye Shadow Kit
Lipstick 2015 2015 2015 2015 2015 2016 2015 2016 2016 2016
of 2015 and 2016 will be analyzed by employing the same procedure as the one used for analyzing the vintage ads (chapter 5). Finally, the adverts from the 80’s will be compared to the recent ones (chapter 6). This comparison will reveal their changes in terms of linguistic and visual features. For the purpose of linguistic elements analysis the data will be analyzed in terms of grammatical cohesion, lexical cohesion, sentence structure, verbs, pronouns, adjectives, and adverbs. The features of the verbs such as tense, aspect, mood and voice will be also analyzed. For the visual features analysis of the advertisements the data will be also analyzed in terms of the type, size and color of the font used in the texts, as well as the organization of different parts of the texts and the features of the pictures. The organization of the advertising texts will be based on Leech (1966) who states that adverts are structured into five moves and steps: headline, illustration, body copy, signature line and standing details. This detailed analysis of the data contributes to the aim of the research, which is to find out what type of linguistic devices are employed in the advertising discourse and whether these devices, as well as visual and graphic elements have changed over time.
CHAPTER FOUR
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION OF
THE ADS PUBLISHED IN THE
4. The Ads From The 80’s
This section attempts to find the answer to the first research question, i.e. to find out which linguistic and visual devices were employed in the advertisements published during the 80’s in order to persuade the potential costumers. Therefore, the answer to this question is comprised of two parts; the linguistic elements analysis and the visual elements analysis. The first dimension of the three-dimensional model of Fairclough, which is concerned with both verbal and visual elements of text, constitutes the framework used to answer the first research question. The grammar, vocabulary, cohesion and organization of the text in addition to the semiotic indications including composition, images, signs, and fonts are the elements studied at this dimension.
4. 1. Textual Analysis: Linguistic Elements
The linguistic features of the advertisements are explained and discussed in this section. Firstly, the grammatical cohesive devices, then the lexical cohesive devices are introduced and explained. Secondly, the general findings of cohesive devices used in these ads are presented. Thirdly, the features of the sentences and the verb are discussed. The following table (1) introduces the devices used in these ads in order to create
grammatical cohesion, some of which were not present in this sample. Cohesive devices, including reference, substitution, ellipsis, and conjunction will be introduced throughout the analysis.
Cohesion refers to the grammatical and lexical relationship between different elements of the text. It is achieved by means of different formal linguistic features. As discussed by Halliday and Hasan (1976), Grammatical cohesion is created by the use of grammatical structures. The authors classify grammatical cohesive devices into four main categories; Reference, substitution, ellipsis, and conjunction. As can be seen from the table also these devices are employed in advertising discourse in order to create grammatical cohesion in the text. Cohesive devices are used to simplify or shorten the texts, because these pro-forms are more economical, and help to keep the information current without restating everything.
Table 1, Grammatical Cohesive Devices Used In The 80's
Ads Reference Substitution Ellipsis Conjunction
1. Long
Wearing make-up Maybelline
- Personal pronoun: you
- Personal pronoun: It - Nominal: One - -
2. Maybelline
Brush/Blush - Pronoun: your - Nominal: each one - -
3. Shine Free Crease-Resistant Eye Shadow
- Personal: your
- Personal pronoun: you - - -
4.Magic Mascara Maybelline
- Personal: your
- Personal pronoun: you - Personal pronoun: it - - - 5. Fresh Lash - Personal: my - Personal pronoun: I - Personal pronoun: it - - - 6. Moisture Whip Maybelline - Demonstrative: this - Personal pronoun: it - Personal pronoun: I - Personal: your - Personal: our - Personal: its - Verbal: do - - Causal: because - Causal: so - Additive: also
7. Shine Free Cosmetics. Rich
‘n Gentle Mascara - Personal pronoun: you
- - - Causal: after all
8. Rich ‘n Gentle Mascara
- Personal pronoun: it - Personal pronoun: you - Personal: its
- Personal pronoun: them
- - - Causal: so 9. Moisture Whip Make-up Maybelline - Personal pronoun: I - Personal pronoun: it - Personal pronoun: you - Personal: my
- Personal: its
- - - Adversative: but
- Additive: also
10. Moisture
Whip Maybelline - Personal pronoun: it
- Personal: your - Nominal: each (one) - -
4.1.1. Reference
Reference is used in order to refer to the entities in the outside world or to other parts of the discourse (Brown & Yule, 1983). There are two broad categories of reference; Endophora (textual) and exophora (situational), the former refers to an entity within the text and the latter refers to the entities beyond the text. Both are used in the advertising discourse. The three types of references, which could be anaphoric or exophoric, are Personal References classified as personal pronouns (e.g. I, he, she), possessive determiners (e.g. my your, his), and possessive pronouns (e.g. mine, hers, his), However, there was no example of the last type in the corpus chosen for this study. Demonstrative References showing the proximity to the speaker (this, these, here) and the distance (that those, there), and Comparative References, showing the referent by contrasting it.
As indicated by Table 1, there was a large use of reference, especially that of personal pronouns in all of these ads. As Beaugrande & Dressler (1981) state pronouns are the best representations of pro-forms, which replace the noun or the noun phrase to which they refer. Personal pronouns are not only used to achieve cohesion but to address the readers directly and personally. The second-person pronoun is abundant in advertising discourse and according to Cook (2001) it is one of the most distinctive features of it. This pronoun is used in the spoken language to address the interlocutor and creates a sense of intimacy.
There are several pronouns in the first advertisement, ‘Long Wearing make-up by Maybelline’, which makes use of the personal pronoun ‘you’ five times throughout the text to address the prospects or the readers. The pronoun ‘it’ is also used to refer to the product. There is also the use of the pronoun ‘I’ in some of the ads (5,6,9), which is used by the public figure whose picture appears on the advertisement in order to introduce the product from her point of view. There are many people who follow the footsteps of the celebrities, thus the fact that a certain famous person uses the product give it more credibility. Only the ad of ‘Rich ‘n Gentle Mascara’ (8) employed the pronoun ‘them’ in order to refer to the lashes and avoiding the repetition of the word in a short sentence. These four personal pronouns are the only ones used in the corpus. The interest here is especially on the second person pronoun ‘you’ because addressing the readers directly in the advertising text involves more of their attention, such involvement is the basis of all linguistic understanding since it is “a state of motivation, arousal, or interest and results in searching, information processing, and decision making” (Tannen, 2007; Colbert et al., 2001). The second person pronoun ‘you’ and the personal pronoun ‘it’ as well as ‘your’ was used in almost all the adverts. Examples (the numbers given to the examples indicate the number of the ad in the table):
[1] It’s not just how good you look, but how long you look good. You’ll notice the difference with Long Wearing
make-up by Maybelline. One is just right for you.
Long Wearing make-up Maybelline keeps you looking good all day It feels light to the touch
[2] So you can mix and match the colors to get just the look you want.
[3] The Magicurve Brush is contoured to the shape
of your eye to brush out clumps as it colors and curls even the tiniest lashes. And the Magic formula is waterproof gives you long luscious lashes that won’t smudge.
[5] It’s waterproof, smear proof, even sleep-proof.
[8] Put it on the way you like it, Take it off the way you like it. Lashes The Way You Like Them.
Another pronoun, which was used in the second ad ‘Maybelline Brush/Blush’ for a blush product, is the possessive determiner ‘your’. The ‘Fresh Lash’ advertisements (5) together with ‘Moisture Whip Make-up Maybelline’ ad (9) include the possessive determiner ‘my’, used by the actress to talk about her own experience and engage the prospects in her personal life. The use of this type of reference also functions like the personal pronouns, in that, since advertisements target a vast number of people at the same time; accordingly using the second person determiners or pronouns helps the advertisers to address each person directly and personally. Fairclough (1989) developed the label ‘Synthetic personalization’ as a term assigned to the process of addressing mass audiences as though they were individuals through inclusive language usage, which was developed from CDA. In the sixth advertisement “Moisture Whip Maybelline” promoting a Moisturizer, the possessive determiner ‘its’ is also used in order to refer to the skin. In another ad this possessive determiner is used in order to refer to the product. There was only one instance of the possessive determiner ‘our’ by the actress to say that she is also part of the crown and the society, sharing the same issue of ‘aging the skin and getting wrinkles because of the sun rays’. Examples:
[3] These colorful collections of powdered shadows resist creasing for hours to keep your eyes looking beautiful. [4] Put Magic in your life.
[6] harmful light rays that cause our skin to age and wrinkle before its time.
“So use moisture Whip every day and do more than moisture your face.”
[5] “My Fresh Lash stays fresh and I give it a workout!”
“When I rehearse my specials I work a long, exhausting day, But my Fresh lash mascara always looks fresh”
[9] “Moisture Whip Make-up is rich with moisturizers To blend flawlessly. And protect my skin from dryness.”
“.. Padimate O, a sunscreen that helps protect my skin from aging and wrinkling before its time.”
[8] So you can create your own individual look.
And its gentle formula washes off simply with soap and water. [10] “Pick color so moist it licks your lips”
Further more, the sixth ad ‘Moisture Whip Maybelline’ employs the demonstrative reference ‘this’ two times in the text, in order to show the proximity. Example:
[6] This is where a wrinkle could start…. This is what could stop it.
The actress Lynda Carter is pointing to her eye corner to show that ‘the wrinkle’ could start there and then again by using the reference ‘this’ she refers to the product, which could help to stop the skin to wrinkle. Demonstrative references need an accompanying gesture for its meaning to be complete and here the picture of the actress and the product or the text related to the product completes its meaning.
4.1.2. Substitution and Ellipsis
Substitution is the replacement of one item by another one. It is similar to ellipsis, however in ellipsis the item is omitted. There are three types of substitution: Nominal substitution which is the replacement of nouns with words like one, ones, same, so. Verbal substitution which is the replacement of verbs with words like do, be, have, do the same, likewise, do so, be so. Clausal substitution is the process of the replacement of a clause by words like so or not. The advertisement of ‘Long Wearing make-up
Maybelline’ (1) uses the word ‘one’ as a nominal substitution in order to avoid repeating the same phrase right after the first sentence and also to pick out one of the colors “in a spectrum of naturally soft shades”. The second ad ‘Maybelline Brush/Blush’ also uses ‘each one’ in order to avoid the repetition of the name of the products; Brush/Blush, and Brush/Blush II. Nominal substitution is also found in the ‘Moisture Whip Maybelline’ ad (10), where ‘each’ substitutes ’30 long-lasting shades’. The verbal substitution could be seen in the ‘Moisture Whip Maybelline’ ad (6), in which the verb ‘do’ replaces the action performed by the actress; using moisture whip and protecting the skin. Examples are as follows:
[1] It feels light to the touch, blends easily, comes in a spectrum of naturally soft shades. One is just right for you.
[2] Choose Brush/Blush in an array of naturally soft shades and subtly frosted shades. Or try the Blush/Brush II collections. Each one has two
complementary colors
[6[ So use moisture Whip every day and do more than moisture your face. Help protect it from wrinkles. I do.
[10] moisture Whip Lipstick offers you over 30 long-lasting shades. Each whipped with moisturizers and a protective sunscreen.
Ellipsis happens when an item is omitted within a text and it is replaced by nothing. In the sample of the ads from the 80’s there were no Ellipsis. There are several sentences in the ads, which are rather short and do not allow more omission of the words. There are three types if ellipses; nominal, verbal and causal. Nominal ellipsis is the omission of a noun head in a noun group; verbal ellipsis occurs when a verbal group presupposes one or more words from a previous verbal group, and Causal ellipsis is the omission of a part of the clause or all of it.
4.1.3. Conjunction
Conjunctions are a group of words used to connect words, phrases or clauses and they show a certain order or relation between clauses and sentences. It is used in order to structure a text or discourse and give it a logical organization. There are four types of conjunctions; Additive (and, moreover, in addition, besides, by the way, thus, that is, etc.), Adversative (yet, but, however, on the other hand, anyhow, nevertheless, rather, etc.), Causal (so, thus, hence, therefore, because, accordingly, etc.), and Temporal (then, next, afterward, previously, finally, from now on, up to now, etc.). These four types are found in the corpus, although there is a only limited number of them. The ‘Moisture Whip Maybelline’ (6) ad used three different conjunctions in the quotation from the actress, which is essential of the spoken language and works in favor of the flow of speech. The causal conjunction ‘because’ is used to give a reason why the actress uses the product. The second causal conjunction in this ad is ‘so’ as a conclusion to the entire positive remarks the actress made about the product in order to persuade the prospects. Another type of conjunction that is used in this ad is ‘also’ as an additive; to add more information following what the actress were saying. The ‘Shine Free Cosmetics. Rich ‘n Gentle Mascara’ ad (7) also used a causal conjunction ‘after all’ since the word here is a conclusion of the ad in view of all circumstances. The causal conjunction ‘so’ is also found in the ‘Rich ‘n Gentle Mascara’ (8} to show the result of the positive feature of the product, which is being Dial Control. The other type of conjunction is employed in the ninth ad ‘Moisture Whip Make-up Maybelline’ is the adversative ‘but’ along with ‘also’ to introduce a new statement, adding something to what the actress previously said and to show a contrast in some way. Examples (5):
[6] “That’s why I use Moisture Whip Moisturizer by Maybelline. Because unlike the leading moisturizers, Moisture Whip contains Padimate O…”
“Moisture Whip is also dermatologist tested and fragrance free. So use moisture Whip every day and do more than moisture your face.”
[7] “After all you were meant to be Shine Free!”
[8] “Rich ’n Gentle Mascara’s unique Dial Control System lets you put on as much, or as little mascara as you like. So you can create your own individual look.”
[9] “I love the look I get with Moisture Whip Make-up by Maybelline. But I also love knowing it’s good for me.”
Table 2 is concerned with Lexical Cohesion, which was analyzed in the data. Lexical Cohesion is achieved through the choice of vocabulary and it is concerned with the meaning in text. it is concerned with two distinct but related aspects; reiteration and collocation. Reiteration is a form of lexical cohesion, which involves repetition, synonym, hypernym, subordinate and a general noun and Collocation is achieved through the association of lexical items that regularity co-occurs and these lexical items or words usually occur in similar environments. The following table indicates the types and the examples of the words used in order to achieve cohesion in the advertisements. As can be seen from the table not all types of these cohesive devices were employed in various ads.
Table 2, Lexical Cohesive Devices Used in The 80's
Ads Repetition Synonym/ Near Synonym
Hypernym/
Subordinate General Noun Collocation
1. Long
Wearing make-up Maybelline
good, look, Long Wearing make-up, beautiful, beautifully, long, natural, naturally - Feel, touch - spectrum, soft shades, dermatologist, skin 2. Maybelline Brush/Blush
brush, blush, soft, softness, shades, fresh, silky, brush/blush soft, silky color, pink, burgundy, petal frost; shades, color - color, shades
3. Shine Free Crease-Resistant Eye Shadow
eye shadow, shine free,
crease-resistant, colors, new
- - - - 4. Magic Mascara Maybelline brush, magicurve, clumps, magic, mascara, magic,
waterproof little, tiny
eye, lashes; - brush, curls; brush, clumps
5. Fresh Lash fresh, lash, mascara - - - lash, mascara;
camera, close-up
6. Moisture Whip Maybelline
wrinkle, moisturizer,
whip protect, screen face, skin - -
7. Shine Free Cosmetics. Rich ‘n Gentle Mascara
‘Shine Free’, look,
oil, hours, cosmetics - - - -
8. Rich ‘n Gentle Mascara
the way you like it,
mascara, gentle - - - soap, water; lash, mascara
9. Moisture Whip Make-up Maybelline ‘Moisture Whip Make up’,beautiful, good, protect - - - - 10. Moisture Whip Maybelline 1
lips, color, moist,
lick - - - color, shades
As indicated by Table 2, the first device that helps the cohesiveness of the texts is Repetition, which involves the reiteration of a lexical item and it is the simplest form of lexical cohesion. In other words, the use of the same word (not restricted to the same morphological forms, e.g. beautiful, beautifully) over again. The repetition of words could be seen in all of the advertisements. According to Kaur et al. “intensify the meaning of the advertisement” (2013; 64).
In a number of the ads such as ‘Shine Free Cosmetics, Rich ‘n Gentle Mascara’ ad (7) or ‘Moisture Whip Make-up Maybelline’ ad (9), the name of the product is repeated in order to make the readers remember the name. The repetition of the name of the product along with the positive adjectives that describe the features of it could be also found in other ads of this period. Nevertheless, some of the ads repeat only the keywords of the text and not only the positive vocabulary, for example, ‘Moisture Whip Maybelline’ not only repeats the name of the product, but also uses the word ‘wrinkle’
four times in the text to convince the readers to think about the ‘problem’ and then presents the product as the ‘solution’. Adjectives and adverbs such as ‘beautiful or ‘natural’ are constantly used in the advertising discourse to emphasize the positive effects of using the product and therefore, they help to persuade the prospects. Examples (6):
[1] “It’s not just how good you look, but how long you look good.”
“A lovely, natural look. A simply beautiful look. You’ll notice the difference with Long Wearing make-up by Maybelline. “
“Maybelline’s special long-lasting formula was developed to wear beautifully”
[4] “The Magicurve Brush is contoured to the shape
of your eye to brush out clumps as it colors and curls even the tiniest lashes. And the Magic formula is waterproof..”
“Put Magic in your life.”
The next form of lexical cohesion is created through the use of lexical items that are in some sense synonymous. Synonyms or near synonyms are sometimes used in order to avoid the repetition of the same word. There were not so many instances of synonymous words in the data. The words ‘soft’ and ‘silky’ in the ‘Maybelline Brush/Blush’ advertisements (2) are synonyms and are both repeated throughout the text, however they are not used for the same purpose, ‘soft’ describes the colors of the blushes and ‘silky’ refer to the quality of the product. Example:
[2] “Like Soft Burgundy and Petal Frost.
The other form of lexical cohesion could be achieved through the use of Hypernym and Subordinate, i.e. a word with a broad meaning constituting a category into which words with more specific meanings fall, a superordinate. In other words, one word represents a class or a broad term of a thing and the second word represents the subclass or subgroup or another class at the same level. For example, in the ad (4) the words ‘eye’ represents a broader term and ‘lash’ is part of it. Another example (8) is found the second ad, the words ‘color, pink; burgundy, petal frost, shades, color’ are hyponyms in that a certain color is classified under the general term ‘color’.
[2] “Brush on the blushing softness of colors like Soft Misty Pink or soft Fresh Peach.”
General nouns are another type of cohesive devices; the class of general noun is a small set of nouns having generalized reference within the major noun classes such as ‘place noun’ or ‘human noun’. There was no type of this cohesive device within the corpus. There were a number of Collocations in the data. A collocation is two or more words that often go together. It refers to a set of lexical items that belong to the same semantic field but whose relationship is not clear enough to be identified. The cohesive effect of these items is that they share the same lexical environment. The first ad (1) uses the collocations such as ‘soft shades’ and ‘spectrum’ or ‘harmful’ and ‘rays’. The words ‘camera’ and ‘close-ups’ are also collocations in the ‘Fresh lash’ ad (5). It is important to bear in mind that sometimes it is difficult to distinguish the collocations and synonyms or hypernyms, as the part and whole relationships could be collocations as well. For example, the ‘Magic Mascara Maybelline’ ad (4) used the words ‘eye’ and ‘lash’, which could be collocations as well as hypernyms. Examples (8):
[1] It feels light to the touch, blends easily, comes in a spectrum of naturally soft shades.
[4] The Magicurve Brush is contoured to the shape of your eye to brush out clumps as it colors and curls even the tiniest lashes.
[5] Fresh lash mascara always looks fresh—without a touch-up. Even in camera close-ups.
Table (3) presents the summary of the advertisements feature, in addition to some examples and the percentage of the occurrence of each feature. The numbers indicate the number of ads that include such feature, for example the use of reference is seen in all of the ads.
Table 3, Cohesive Devices in Ads of The 80's
The grammatical cohesion was mostly attained through the use of references, which were found in all of the ads, as well as substitution, which was used in four of the ads. There were no examples of ellipsis, which shows that sentences tend to be longer. Different types of conjunctions were also found in four ads. The sentences achieved lexical cohesion by the means of repetition in addition to synonyms and hypernyms in only three ads, respectively. There were no examples of general nouns but collocations were used in most of six different ads. In the following paragraph different features of the sentences will be explained.
Table 4 is associated with the features of the sentences in the advertisements of the 80’s. Features such as the type of the sentence, verb type, pronouns, adjectives, and
Cohesive Devices Examples Number of Ads Grammatical Cohesion
you, your, it, I one, do -
so, also, but
10 4 0 4 Reference Substitution Ellipsis Conjunction Lexical Cohesion Product’s name Little, tiny Pink, color - camera, close-up 10 3 4 0 6 Repetition
Synonym or near synonym Hypernym and subordinate General noun
adverbs are discussed in this sample of discourse. Sentences structurally could be classified to four main categories: Simple sentences, which are the ones with one independent clause and no dependent clauses, Compound sentences, which are the ones with multiple independent clauses and no dependent clauses, Complex sentences, which are the ones with one independent clause and at least one dependent clause, and Complex-compound sentences, which are the ones with multiple independent clauses and at least one dependent clause.
The verb features such as tense, aspect, mood and voice are presented in the table. Tense is the time of the accordance of the verb, which is generally classified into three major groups of past, present, and future. Aspect refers to the duration of the action, it determines whether the action performed by the verb is completed or still ongoing (progressive or non-progressive). Mood refers to the manner in which the action or condition is conceived or intended. There are three categories of mood in English; Indicative: verbs of this kind state a matter of fact, to indicate something; Subjunctive mood expresses a wish or an indirect command, usually by using English auxiliary verbs such as may, might, should, could, and ought are often part of subjunctive verb forms; Imperative mood expresses a direct command, Voice describes the relationship between the action or state described by a verb and subject of the verb. If the action is being performed by the subject, the verb is in the active voice and if something is performing an action upon the subject of the verb, it is in the passive voice.
Table 4, Grammatical Features in The 80's
Ads Sentence Structure Verb Pronouns Adjectives Adverbs
1
simple combined with complex
Tense: simple present, simple
future, simple past (passive)
Aspect: non progressive Mood: indicative Voice: active, passive
you, it long-wearing, good, lovely, natural, beautiful, long-lasting, light, soft beautifully, easily, naturally
2 Simple and complex
Tense: simple present Aspect: non progressive Mood: imperative, indicative Voice: active
-
natural-liking, silky, soft, misty, fresh, frosted, beautiful
naturally, subtly
3 simple combined with complex
Tense: simple present Aspect: non progressive Mood: indicative Voice: passive, active
you shine-free, crease-resistant, new, colorful, powdered, beautiful, coordinated specially
4 simple combined with complex
Tense: simple present, simple
future
Aspect: non progressive Mood: indicative, imperative Voice: active
you, it
contoured, tiny, waterproof, long,
luscious, little -
5 mostly complex and simple forms
Tense: simple present Aspect: non progressive Mood: indicative Voice: active I, it fresh, long, exhausting, waterproof, smear proof, sleep proof, 24-hour, nice
-
6 simple, mostly complex
forms
Tense: simple present, simple
past
Aspect: non progressive Mood: indicative, imperative Voice: active
I, you, it, our harmful, leading -
7 simple, mostly complex
Tense: simple present Aspect: non progressive Mood: indicative Voice: active
you shiny, oily, shine-free, translucent,
pressed, natural now, beautifully
8 mostly complex forms, few simple structures
Tense: simple present Aspect: non progressive Mood: indicative Voice: active
you, it, them gentle, unique, individual simply
9 simple, mostly complex
sentences
Tense: simple present Aspect: non progressive Mood: indicative, imperative Voice: active
I, you beautiful, glorious, good flawlessly
10 simple combined with complex forms
Tense: simple present Aspect: non progressive Mood: indicative and
imperative
Voice: active
it, you
rich, radiant,
long-lasting, protective, -
As indicated by Table (3), in terms of sentence structure all of the advertisements had simple sentence structure along with the complex sentences. The sentences although brief, include complex forms; specifically the ads, which include a quotation by the actress, have a complex structure, because the nature of the spoken language includes more complex forms and connected structures. This could be seen in the ‘Moisture Whip Make-up Maybelline’ ad (9), where there are complex sentences such as “I love the look I get with Moisture Whip Make-up by Maybelline But I also love knowing it’s good for me”. The sentences are usually separated by punctuations in this corpus, however they are connected and dependent and could not be read separately. The sentence “The Magicurve Brush is contoured to the shape of your eye to brush out clumps as it colors and curls even the tiniest lashes” extracted from the ‘Magic Mascara Maybelline’ ad (4) is also an example of complex sentences including one independent sentence and
