Make It Happen: A Diachronic Critical
Discourse Analysis of Maybelline New
York Print Advertisements
Master’s Thesis: Language and Society
Evrydiki Karagkouni 12737704
Supervisor: Dr. Robert Cloutier
20-08-2020
University of Amsterdam
Faculty of Humanities
1 CONTENTS
1. Introduction ... 4
2. Theoretical Background ... 5
2.1 The sex-gender distinction and the Beauty Myth ... 5
2.2 What is Advertising? ... 9
2.3 Interaction of elements ... 10
2.4 Writer, narrator and reader ... 12
2.5 The critique of Advertising Discourse ... 13
2.6 Fairclough (2001) and the Three-Dimensional Model ... 14
2.7 Discourse Analysis ... 17
2.8 Literature Review ... 18
2.9 The significance of this research ... 22
3. Research Question and Hypotheses ... 23
4. Methodology ... 24
4.1 Rationale ... 24
4.2 Source of data ... 25
4.3 Data Collection & Categorization ... 27
4.3.1 Images ... 27
4.3.2 Slogo ... 27
4.3.3 Synthetic personalization ... 28
4.3.4 Lexical selection ... 28
4.3.5 Repetition of words in the same advertisement ... 29
4.3.6 (Elliptical) Comparisons ... 29 4.3.7 Poetic devices ... 29 5. Results ... 30 5.1 Adverts from 1940s to 1960s ... 30 5.1.1 Images ... 31 5.1.2 The slogo ... 31 5.1.3 Synthetic Personalization ... 31 5.1.4 Lexical selection ... 33
5.1.5 Repetition of words in the same advertisement ... 34
5.1.6 (Elliptical) Comparisons ... 35
5.1.7 Poetic devices ... 35
5.2 Adverts from 1970s... 37
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5.2.2 The slogo ... 38
5.2.3 Synthetic Personalization ... 39
5.2.4 Lexical selection ... 40
5.2.5 Repetition of words in the same advertisement ... 41
5.2.6 (Elliptical) Comparisons ... 42 5.2.7 Poetic devices ... 42 5.3 Adverts from 1980s... 43 5.3.1 Images ... 44 5.3.2 The slogo ... 44 5.3.3 Synthetic Personalization ... 45 5.3.4 Lexical selection ... 46
5.3.5 Repetition of word in the same advertisement ... 47
5.3.6 (Elliptical) Comparisons ... 48 5.3.7 Poetic devices ... 48 5.4 Adverts from 1990s ... 50 5.4.1 Images ... 50 5.4.2 The slogo ... 51 5.4.3 Synthetic Personalization ... 51 5.4.4 Lexical selection ... 52
5.4.5 Repetition of words in the same advertisement ... 53
5.4.6 (Elliptical) Comparisons ... 54 5.4.7 Poetic devices ... 54 5.5 Adverts from 2000s... 55 5.5.1 Images ... 56 5.5.2 The slogo ... 57 5.5.3 Synthetic Personalization ... 57 5.5.4 Lexical selection ... 58
5.5.5 Repetition of words in the same advertisement ... 58
5.5.6 (Elliptical) Comparisons ... 59 5.5.7 Poetic devices ... 60 5.6 Adverts from 2010s... 61 5.6.1 Images ... 61 5.6.2 The slogo ... 62 5.6.3 Synthetic Personalization ... 62 5.6.4 Lexical Selection ... 63
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5.6.6 (Elliptical) Comparisons ... 64
5.6.7 Poetic devices ... 65
6. Discussion & Conclusion ... 66
6.1 Images ... 66
6.2 Slogo ... 67
6.3 Synthetic Personalization ... 68
6.4 Lexical selection ... 69
6.5 Repetition of words in the same advertisement ... 69
6.6 (Elliptical) Comparisons ... 69
6.7 Poetic devices ... 70
6.8 Constructing the feminine ideal ... 70
6.9 Limitations and suggestions for further research ... 72
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1. Introduction
“Let us not forget that behind every woman’s dreams lie the fundamental human issues that touch upon identity, body, beauty, sexuality, race and the longing to be accepted.” (Vasilopoulou, 2014, p. 493)
People are reluctant to acknowledge that concerns related to physical appearance are considered frivolous but in reality, they carry so much weight. Despite the embarrassment that may accompany such a realization, more and more women recognize that something significant is in fact at risk, with regard to the connection between women’s beauty and female emancipation (Wolf, 1991). Women’s freedom is subverted by a concealed “underlife” (Wolf, 1991, p. 10) saturated with beauty ideals. Wolf describes it as “a dark vein of self-hatred, physical obsessions, terror of aging, and dread of lost control” (p. 10).
Women are constantly judged against unrealistic ideals that concern physical appearance and are relentlessly urged to pursue the seemingly essential quality of beauty. Gender and beauty are two interdependent notions and according to Wolf (1991), beauty, presented as a universal and objective quality, is assumed to be the core of female identity. This study adopts a social constructionist approach on sex and gender. According to Butler (1986), choosing a gender can be comprehended as the realization of possibilities within a system of deeply rooted cultural standards. To put it simply, gender is not a fixed entity: it is socially constructed as one interpretation of sex imposed by cultural norms. Consequently, being a woman is to become a woman by adhering to the prescribed social norms among which are the beauty norms.
This study attempts to answer the following questions: How is the ideology of femininity and beauty constructed and reproduced in discourse? How are unequal power relations discursively enacted, legitimized and perpetuated? The topic offers infinite possibilities for research. This research is an in-depth analysis of the language, images and used in Maybelline New York make-up print advertisements over the course of eight decades (1940s to 2010s). Therefore, a Critical Discourse Analysis informed by Fairclough’s (2001) Three-Dimensional Model in which language is treated as discourse and social practice is a well-suited approach.
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The study employs a qualitative research design comprised of a corpus of 56 Maybelline
New York advertisements in order to uncover the hidden ideological underpinnings of
the advertising discourse and reveal the inherent exploitative relations among societal groups. Butler (1986) proclaims that unequal gender norms recur because people revitalize them repeatedly. Indeed, the illusion perpetuated by the beauty myth becomes increasingly penetrating and persuasive due to deliberate advertising manipulation. Billion-dollar beauty industries are rooted in women’s unconscious anxieties and can in turn strengthen the illusion in an ascending profit-making whorl. As Wolf puts it, the contemporary armory of the myth is a propagation of innumerable images of the prevailing ideal.
2. Theoretical Background
This section provides the theoretical underpinnings of the present research. Firstly, it delves into De Beauvoir’s (1974) sex-gender distinction and correlates it with Wolf’s (1991) perception of the Beauty Myth and by extension beauty product advertisements. Following that, it explores the notion of advertising as discourse and gives a description of Fairclough’s (2001) three-dimensional model which serves as the theoretical framework of the study. Furthermore, it gives a description of what discourse analysis is and provides an overview of existing academic literature related to this study. Finally, this section explains the importance of this research.
2.1 The sex-gender distinction and the Beauty Myth
Drawing on The Second Sex, De Beauvoir’s most celebrated work, this research endeavors to show how we can conceive gender as a process of realizing cultural probabilities through the prism of advertising discourse. As Butler (1986) notes, being a woman is to become a woman: a dynamic process of appropriation, interpretation and reinterpretation. In particular, Butler makes a clear distinction between two kinds of being: being ‘female’ and being a ‘woman’, which constitutes the core of De Beauvoir’s (1974) well known statement “one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman” (p. 301). Gender may be perceived as one interpretation of sex imposed by cultural norms. Being a gender, whether man or woman, can be seen as a dynamic position within the sphere of cultural probabilities. Leboeuf (2016) agrees that sex has a biological implication
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since it refers to the anatomical traits that classify a person as a male or female. Gender has a social implication and includes the identity and the manners of conducting oneself, so to speak, assumed on account of the social norms that prescribe what is appropriate for a woman or a man. Leboeuf (2016) explains that “to become gendered is, then, to be determined by social forces to acquire the identity and behaviors characteristic of one sex or another” (p. 142). De Beauvoir considers women as products of social powers that act on a newborn; that is to say an infant is originally sexed but genderless and eventually she acquires the corresponding gender. From the moment the doctor declares the newborn’s gender (It’s a girl!), the gender is assigned and the socialization commences. Therefore, in this study the terms ‘male/female’ refer to biological sex and the terms ‘man/woman’ refer to cultural gender. However, it should be noted that the boundaries of these two are not clear cut which very often results in their conflation.
Interpreting De Beauvoir’s assertion, Vasilopoulou (2014) rejects that there is ‘fixed feminine nature’ (p. 492) and explains that the female is identified as Other. The existence of Other is essential for the composition of one’s identity. The self and the Other are two binary but interdependent entities because the individual desires the other’s gaze to ratify his or her own existence. Crucially, according to Wolf (1991) beauty must be the core of female identity, leaving women exposed to external approval and threatening their confidence. Among the old female related ideologies, the ideology of beauty is the last one to endure, meaning that it still has power over women who would have been somewhat uncontrollable on account of the second wave feminism. It has been strengthened to undertake the oppressive activities that notions “about motherhood, domesticity, chastity, and passivity no longer can manage” (p. 11). Now, the ideology of beauty, which is primarily perpetuated through the discourse of advertising, is attempting to clandestinely undermine what feminism has overtly and substantially achieved. Woolf clarifies what the beauty myth denotes: “that the quality called ‘beauty’ objectively and universally exists. Women must want to embody it and men must want to possess women who embody it” (p. 12). It is important to note this embodiment is crucial only for women. Undoubtedly, beauty products advertisements are predominantly female targeted. Female beauty is necessarily associated with their fecundity, as it is supposedly explained in terms of sexual selection, and therefore it is unavoidable and perpetual. Wolf certainly rejects this justification and draws a parallel
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between the notion of beauty and economy. She argues that beauty is a currency system governed by politics and in present-day western societies, it is the system that preserves male dominance. Women are evaluated against socially imposed ideals that concern outward appearance in a vertical power structure; “it is an expression of power relations in which women must unnaturally compete for resources that men have appropriated for themselves” (p. 12). Vasilopoulou (2014) agrees that women’s condition is a “struggle among a manly-made society” (p. 488).
Butler suggests that to become a woman is not only a social construction but to a certain extent the procedure of self-construction. Thus, she wonders to what extent and in what sense we construct ourselves so as to become our genders through a self-reflexive process. It may seem a bizarre and perplexing assumption that we can step outside gender positions so as to decide for ourselves which gender to choose. As Butler (1986) puts it, “if we are always already gendered, immersed in gender, then what sense does it make to say that we choose what we already are?” (p. 37). Stets and Burke (2000) scrutinized the constituents of identity theory (IT) and social identity theory (SIT), attempting to show that despite their differences they can be combined to construct a comprehensive theory of the self. Both theories stress the reflexivity of the self as an entity that can consider itself as an object and categorize itself with reference to other social classifications. The reflexive activity results in the formation of identities consisted of self-views. The basis of self-categorization differs in the two theories: in social identity theory a group/social identity does not necessarily have to be defined in relation to someone else. In identity theory, an identity is the classification of the self in terms of a role occupation and it always has to be defined in relation to somebody else. Probably, the emergence of stereotypes is best explained by social identity theory. Great emphasis is placed on the evaluation of persons either as the in-group or the outgroup. The in-group will be assessed favorably while the outgroup adversely. De Beauvoir, according to Butler, seems to draw upon Sartre’s notion of ‘quasi knowledge’ in order to specify the act of assuming a gender. It is a choice of a particular sort that we make, not entirely conscious but still linked to consciousness, and only later we become aware that we have made that choice. Assuming a gender is a process that is very infrequently revealed in introspective awareness:
Becoming a gender is an impulsive yet mindful process of interpreting a cultural reality laden with sanctions, taboos, and prescriptions.To choose a gender is to
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interpret received gender norms in a way that organizes them anew.Rather than a radical act of creation, gender is a tacit project to renew one's cultural history in one's own terms. (Butler, 1986, p. 40).
Goddard (1998) underlines that advertising discourse plays a fundamental role in the construction of our identities. In order for an advert to be effective it must draw upon language features that influence us. Freitas (2012) explains that in every encounter with an ad, the viewers are engaged in an interchange with it and are invited to adopt a role, even if they are not members of the targeted group. Goddard (1998) affirms that “it is enough that readers think there is some connection-a loose association is all that is required for advertising purposes. It is this point that the process of stereotyping is clearly at work” (p. 62).
Butler observes that, gender compliance is imposed by social pressures so strong that people may get very upset in case, for example, they are told that they are not masculine or feminine enough or that they have not succeeded in performing their manliness or femaleness suitably. If existing is gendered existing, deviating from the entrenched gender could challenge the person’s existence. Commenting on feminine beauty, Wolf argues that in any time period, the characteristics considered as beautiful in women are connotations of their behavior which that particular period regards as acceptable. In reality the beauty myth is always imposing behavior rather than appearance.
Leboeuf (2016) remarks that the sex-gender distinction implies that the features by reason of which women were considered inferior to men were merely the product of social constraint. Therefore, social changes that reshape gender features can question established gender hierarchies. In other words, separating sex from gender suggests that biology does not govern social rankings and does not justify social inequalities. Leboeuf’s opinion seems to be in accordance with Wolf’s (1991) views on the ideology of beauty. Wolf dismisses the idea that female physical attractiveness is unchanging and universal and that it is derived from evolution since beauty standards alter faster than the evolution of species. The belief that the male mammal chooses the most physically attractive female counterpart in order to mate has been disproved by the science of anthropology. The idea that women compete with each other in terms of physical attractiveness contradicts the processes of natural selection that involve all other mammals. The beauty myth straightforwardly contradicts women’s actual
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condition; while today “women are growing, moving, and expressing their individuality” (Wolf, 1991, p. 17), the myth preserves the essential and intentional illusion that beauty is, by its very nature, static, perpetual and universal. Simply put, given that the myth arises merely from the need of present-day’s economy and social hierarchy “to mount a counteroffensive against women” (Wolf, 1991, p. 13), this research attempts to uncover the hidden ideological agenda of advertising discourse that perpetuates it.
2.2 What is Advertising?
Answering the ostensibly simple question ‘What is advertising?’ is the essential first step for a research that endeavors an in-depth examination of elements that constitute this discourse type. The birth of advertising goes back to ancient civilizations as a means of informing people about the availability of commodities. Industrialization in the 19th century stimulated the development of advertising and by the beginning of 20th century advertising evolved in its new form as a means of persuasion and temptation. Onwards 1920, advertising became the utmost mediator between product manufacturers and consumers (Tehseem & Hameed, 2015). As Goddard (1998) observes ‘What is an advertisement?’ may even sound like a bizarre question to the modern consumer since the practice of advertising is so well-established in contemporary society and people are highly accustomed to it. It is not an exaggeration to say that advertising is literally everywhere around us. Maybe on account of its omnipresence, we barely take the time to contemplate the nature of advertising discourse. Yet, every day innumerable readers unconsciously engage in brief conversations with the producers of a vast number of advertising texts. The etymology of the word ‘advertising’ can be traced in the Latin word advertere which means to ‘turn towards’. Indeed, advertisements attempt to attract our attention, in other words to compel us to ‘turn towards them’. Yet undoubtedly, not everything that we notice is an advert. This research adopts Arens’ (2006) definition of advertising. According to Arens (2006) advertising is “the structured and composed nonpersonal communication of information, usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature, about products (goods, services, ideas) by identified sponsors through various media” (p. 7). Goddard (1998) notes that we, as consumers, entertain the illusion that advertising may be effective on some people but not on ourselves. We tend to reject advertising language as frivolous
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discourse aimed at a less educated public. But Goddard (1998) underscores that, even if we are not willing to admit it, the huge amounts of money spent in advertising confirm that advertising is actually effective. Indeed, we may conjecture that if advertising had been proven to be ineffective it would gradually decline, but on the contrary, there is an increase of advertisements over the past decades. Fairclough (2001) attaches to the advertising discourse the term ‘colonizer’ due to the impressive rise in the amount of advertising and he also points to the ‘penetration’ of adverts into all aspects of present-day life.
2.3 Interaction of elements
Cook (2001) suggests that we should consider language as only one of the many elements that constitute an ad and that the nature of each ad is not concrete but rather dynamic. It is a whole, comprised of many diverse parts which are interdependent as illustrated by Cook in Figure 1. Even in the advertisements in which language is the dominant component, it is still misleading to examine it in isolation. However, an examination of elements such as pictures or music is doomed to inadequacy merely because “they are different from the mode of the analysis itself, which is language” (Cook, 2001, p. 42).
Figure 1 Interplay of elements in ads
Given that is practically impossible to handle all the elements of each advert in a single research paper, this particular thesis will deal mostly with the linguistic features of print ads and will touch upon some aspects of their pictures.
In particular, this study will draw on Kress and Van Leeuwen (2006) so as to reveal how advertisers employ images to promote cosmetic products but on a deeper level to
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construct the ideology of the beautiful and desirable woman. Kellner (1995, as cited in Chafai 2010) explains that images not only strengthen the idea of selling a commodity, but they also robustly sell systems of values, ways of leaving and worldviews. According to Messaris (1997), images serve three main purposes: They evoke emotions, they function as indisputable evidence and they create an implicit connection between the commodity being advertised and some other image. Concerning this implicit connection, in the case of images in ads, they present a product which gives meaning to a ‘human context’. Thus, in the majority of adverts, people are depicted and predominantly young people:
The imagery depicts young people because youth is the stage most given over to the formation of self-identity. It shows leisure activities because those are the hours devoted to the self. It is gender ridden because gender lies at the core of self-identity. Advertising imagery fixes on what individuals fix on, converting their needs into its forms in the hope that acceptance of these figurations will lead to acceptance of the commodities offered (Fowles, 1996, p. 157).
Leiss (1997) affirms that the use of images in media is continuously increasing and the interconnection between words and images becomes more interdependent. Chafai (2010) agrees that language and visuals are complementary in constructing the advertising message.
Kress and Van Leeuwen (2006) have examined the constituents of visuals (such as perspective, color, figures, framing) in order to illustrate how images communicate meaning. They argued that images serve similar functions to language as proposed by Halliday: they depict our experience of the world (ideational function), they are used to negotiate our relationship with the people we communicate (interpersonal function) and they are useful to structure our ideas and other sorts of messages so that we can interpret them accurately. Kress and Van Leeuwen suggested that images have their own way to be ‘read’ which is somewhat different to the way we read language. In images participants are depicted as figures instead of as nouns and processes are represented visually instead of through the use of verbs. In any mode (either language or image), some kind of relationship is established between the creator of the message and the recipient. In images, readers are positioned in a relationship with the figures and by extension the creators of the image, by means of perspective, gaze and proximity
(long-12
shots vs close-ups). O’Toole (1994) underscored that gaze is the most crucial feature in images because the creation of a sense of directness and closeness between the viewer and the figure is primarily based on the presence or absence of gaze.
Regarding the textual function of images, it is interesting to note that in contrast to written texts which are structured in a linear manner, images are structured spatially. Image makers possess less control than the authors of texts over how the image will be read, but “they can create pathways for the viewer’s gaze” (Jones, 2019, p. 84). They achieve that by making use of aspects such as foreground - background, center - margins, left side - right side, upper part - lower part. In particular, on the grounds that people read texts from left to right, it is assumed that they read images the same way. Therefore, advertising will most likely place the given information on the left side and the new information on the right side (Kress and van Leeuwen 2006). Yet, it should be noted that this may differ in cultures that people read text from right to left such as Arabic or Hebrew. Similarly, as Kress and Van Leeuwen observed, the top section of a picture usually gives more abstract, ideal information while the bottom section conveys more precise and factual messages. In the case of advertisements, it is probable that the upper part depicts what the product promises while the lower part contains less abstract information such as where the product can be purchased.
2.4 Writer, narrator and reader
Goddard (1998) makes a distinction between the writer and the narrator of the advertising texts. The writers are the copywriters that work for the advertising agencies, while the narrators are constructed by the copywriters in order to communicate the advertising message. Goddard makes a second distinction between the actual readers of an advert and the implied readers that seem to be addressed, namely the narratees. The narratees might be either explicitly addressed or it may be a less clearly defined group of people, specified by their supposed qualities. Goddard notes that “the widest address forms to be given to a narratee in an advertisement are no address form at all (0) or ‘you’” (p. 31). The personal ‘you’ falls into the category of what Fairclough (2001) named Synthetic personalization, “a compensatory tendency to give the impression of treating each of the people handled en masse as an individual” (p. 52). Copywriters attempt to compose the advertising text in an interactive manner that imitates spoken language in order to build an intimate relation between the narrator and the narratee.
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Thus, the interaction takes the form of a cordial chat rather than the impersonal communication between a large international corporation and a nameless mass of readers.
The narratee is expected to be a particular kind of person and should wish to act in a particular manner. As Goddard observes, “in wanting to be a certain kind of person as we read and interact with the text, we become narratees- in other words, we position ourselves in the way the text wants us to” (p. 31). The real readers consist of all the people that happen to read the advertising text, and arguably, not all of them are interested in what is promoted by the adverts, nor would they be convinced by those adverts. In most cases, advertisements do not openly name their narratees, rather they specify a “kind of person, a profile that is presumed to exist” (Goddard, 1998, p. 32). This person type may not correspond to the real readers “but he or she might be someone that the real readers would like to be, would like to aspire to. In identifying themselves with this profile, readers ‘become the narratees’ of the text” (p. 32). For that reason, Goddard notes that adverts are strategically positioned in spaces that at least a great number of real readers will most probably identify themselves as narratees. In cosmetic ads, the narratee is, for the most part, constructed as female. But also, men receive a variety of meanings from the content of the advert regarding the presumed nature of women. Freitas (2012) argues that advertisements suggest a worldview of standard values and address people in compliance with them. Presumably a lot of people would challenge these premises if they were explicitly articulated, but most likely a considerable number of viewers will not object to the suggested reality and they ultimately assume the role presented to them: Even when a person is not regarded as member of the targeted audience, an advertisement can still create the impression of addressing them. As Freitas (2012) explains, “for some ads I do step into the position offered. [but] the address in ads can also be effective even when I don’t step in” (p. 433).
2.5 The critique of Advertising Discourse
According to Freitas (2012), examining advertisements as a type of discourse can be very illuminating because of their vivid and illustrative nature with regard to their ability to exhibit their inner work. Freitas notes that the discourse of advertising has been condemned to be considered as marginal due to its insufficiency of credibility. In
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other words, the advertising discourse draws upon the features of other well established and clearly defined discourse types while it preserves its vagueness. Therefore, the advertising discourse faces an attitude of suspicion from consumers as well as researchers and has been criticized for its shortage of innate and defining attributes. The equivocal nature of this discourse and the absence of clear-cut limits impede its assessment since there is no way to set reliable standards for its evaluation. What is more, the commercial objectives of ads enhance the sense of mistrust towards them. In addition to that, advertising is criticized for generating an opposition between society as it actually is and another fictitious version of it, forged by the adverts. Eventually, advertising may be held accountable for threatening social values; consumers, discontented with the real world, will constantly pursue the deceptive world advanced by the ads as a superior substitute. The marginality of advertising discourse is also related to its invasive nature as an “ad is never the programme people are watching, never the letter they are waiting for, never the part of the newspaper they are reading” (Freitas, 2012, p. 428). Ads are designed to convey their message at a glance because as Freitas puts it, “they are never what people really want to look at” (p. 428). Ads flourish in spite of, or even on account of, the disdain and rejection as a lesser discourse type.
Views on advertising vary in terms of their impact on society: from one standpoint ads can have both a beneficial and negative effect on society. Research into advertising discourse can show in what sense and to what extent ads affect society either positively or adversely. From a second perspective, advertising is just a mirror of the state of affairs and changes in society, whether desirable or not. Looking into advertising as a reflection of society can shed light to vital societal issues. From yet another point of view, ads are always unethical because all the presented features are stylized and embellished as “versions of everyday life in disguise” (Freitas, 2012, p. 429) and advertising itself is an intrusive phenomenon. In this case, research into advertising discourse can spotlight those versions in disguise and suggest ways of coping with them.
2.6 Fairclough (2001) and the Three-Dimensional Model
Fairclough (2001) defines ‘ideologies’ as the common-sense assumptions embedded implicitly in certain conventions of linguistic interaction. Ideologies are closely related
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to the power relations which regulate these conventions; ideologies are firmly connected to language given that language is the most prevalent form of social interaction and the type of social practice where we depend most on common-sense assumptions. Thus, Fairclough (2001) suggests that language is probably the dominant tool of social control and power and attempts to scrutinize what he names as “the ideological workings of language” (p. 2) in order to make people aware of exploitative relations.
Fairclough (2001) underscores that since language is a component of society, the connection between society and language is internal and dialectical: “Linguistic phenomena are social phenomena of a special sort, and social phenomena are (in part) linguistic phenomena” (p. 19). Fairclough uses the term discourse to refer to the process
of production and the process of interpretation in which a text is a component, in the
first case as the output and in the latter as the source. A textual analysis and an analysis of productive and interpretative processes constitute the whole of discourse analysis. Fairclough proposed a three-dimensional model of analysis in which language is treated as discourse and social practice. Fairclough distinguishes three aspects namely texts,
interactions and contexts. Corresponding to these aspects of discourse, the three levels
of critical discourse analysis that he discerns are description, interpretation and
explanation. The level of description is related to the formal properties of the text; the
level of interpretation deals with the relationship between text and interaction and the level of explanation refers to the relationship between interactions and social context. Figure 2 is a representation of the three-dimensional model, as outlined by Fairclough himself:
16 Figure 2 Discourse as text, interaction and context
Regarding the present research, on the level of description specific formal properties of the ads were identified; On the level of interpretation these properties were analyzed in terms of the ways they may affect the prospective consumer; and lastly on the level of explanation they were associated with the ideology of feminine beauty.
Fairclough suggests that when discourse types serve unequal power relations they are functioning ideologically. In other words, he underscores that ideological power is exercised in discourse, such as advertising discourse. Advertising is, for Fairclough, a major kind of discourse in which the embedded ideologies, more or less explicitly, legitimize societal relations and assign roles, such as the role of consumer. Fairclough underlines that “discourse is the favorite vehicle of ideology” (p. 30). “Social structures not only determine discourse but they are also a product of discourse” (p. 31).
By nature, media discourse, such as advertising discourse, is composed for mass audiences. Advertising practitioners though, when creating an advert, certainly have a group of narratees in mind and therefore they address to a presumed person-type. Fairclough refers to that as a constructed subject position and notes that the actual recipients of the advertising message “have to negotiate a relationship with the ideal subject” (p. 41). Fairclough underlines that there is a crucial distinction between the producers of the adverts and the recipients of their message because only the first have a say on the composition of the advert and therefore they exercise power over the recipients. Fairclough refers to the discourse of advertising as a type of strategic discourse that aims at certain goals, and he discusses the three aspects of its ideological function: building relations, building images, building the consumer. The first aspect is related to advertising as a one-way public discourse in which the roles of the undefined producer and the undefined recipient do not switch but both of them need to be methodically personalized. The second aspect concerns the way an image of the product is established through indications that induce a particular frame such as the frame of modern living. The third aspect is, according to Fairclough, the primary ideological action of advertising, that is “constructing subject positions for consumers as members of consumption communities” (p. 168).
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2.7 Discourse Analysis
Jones (2019) defined discourse analysis as “the study of the ways sentences and utterances are put together to make texts and interactions and how those texts and interactions fit into the social world.” (p. 2). He also notes that discourse analysis is not merely the study of language but rather a scrutiny on how people use language in their daily interactions thus revealing that that they belong to particular groups and that “they are certain kinds of people” (Jones, 2019, p. 2). This perspective on language is grounded, according to Jones, on four premises:
1. Language is ambiguous. 2. Language is always situated within the material world, within people’s
relationships, in history and in relation to other languages. 3. The use of language is inextricably intertwined with who we are; by speaking or
writing we enact our diverse and rather fluid identities. 4. Language is always connected with other communicative modes.
The social approach to discourse is concerned with the function of language in ‘social practice’. Language is regarded not only as a tool of communication but also as a component of broader systems through which people build social realities and identities. This approach to discourse can be largely attributed to Foucault (1972), who supported the idea that discourse is the most important instrument for the construction of knowledge as well as a tool for exercising power. Different people use language differently and therefore different types of discourse are related to various person-types and various ‘systems of knowledge’ which Foucault called ‘orders of discourse’. Gee (1996) uses the term ‘Discourses’ as “ways of being in the world” (p. 127). An essential assumption of this perspective on discourse is that it is, by definition, ideological, and always benefits certain people at the expense of others.
The way people create ‘versions of reality’ with their discourse or use it to exert power over people depends on the kinds of words they use to describe things and the grammatical structures they use to communicate ‘who is doing what to whom’, as well as the way they formulate their words to accomplish particular social actions and create particular relationships with other people. (Jones, 2019, p. 41).
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Jones (2019) rejects the idea that peoples’ words can be neutral because “they always represent the world in a certain way” (p. 11) and therefore people develop certain relationships with each other based on the words they use. Jones (2019) notes that texts inevitably promote ideologies which he defined as a “specific set of beliefs and assumptions that provide us with models of how the world is supposed to be” (p. 11). Ideologies are not utterly unfavorable since they build a common worldview among members of a specific group and a sense of shared purpose. Nevertheless, they restrict our perception of reality, therefore marginalizing anyone or anything that does not fit in the prescribed norms. Ultimately, according to Jones (2019) even the most ostensibly ‘innocent’ text in some way implicates “systems of inclusion and exclusion” (p. 12). Gee (1972, as cited in Jones 2019) suggested that ideological texts generate “frozen theories or generalizations about the world and how people should behave” (p. 17) which he called ‘cultural models’. Cultural models are frameworks founded on our interpretations of the world and are embedded in what was previously referred to as ‘Discourses’. Jones (2019) underscores the cultural aspect of those models, remarking that they manifest the values of a specific group in a specific place at a specific period of time. He also adds that texts do not just mirror those beliefs but enhance them as well. Cultural models are fundamental for our understanding and interpretation of advertisements.
2.8 Literature Review
The issue of the division between desirable and undesirable women as perpetuated by advertising discourse has been a focal point of discourse analysts. Advertisers presuppose that women wish for certain features construed as ‘desirable’ while the opposites of these are defined as ‘problems’ (Phakdeephasook, 2009). Phakdeephasook examined advertisements found in Thai health and beauty magazines and investigated the lexical selection of the ads, the rhetorical questions, as well as cases of overstatement and intertextuality. The researcher showed that advertisers claim that women can improve themselves without struggle, just by making use of the suitable products. Thus, the desirable woman is institutionally constructed, primarily through the media for the profit of the producers of the beauty commodities.
The promotion of products is also accompanied by the promotion of ideas regarding the notion of beauty. According to Nugrawidhanti (2016), advertisers prompt
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consumers to buy beauty products and ultimately communicate the ideology of feminine beauty. Nugrawidhanti critically analyzed the discourse of Oriflame cosmetic advertisements and found that each ad is composed of several linguistic features, such as repetition, alliteration, hyperbole, imperative and comparative sentences and the use of second person pronoun. By making use of these features, copywriters intrigue the readers and convince them of the importance of beauty.
Beauty norms are rigidly connected to gender stereotypes as illustrated by several cross-cultural studies (Frith, Shaw and Cheng, 2005; Del Saz-Rubio and Pennock-Speck, 2009; Chafai, 2010; Behnam and Zamanian, 2014). Magazine advertisements from different societies, such as English and Persian or English and Moroccan, despite their differences, present stereotypical and unrealistic images of women which conform to the cultural standards of each society and amplify existing stereotypes and beauty norms (Chafai, 2010; Behnam and Zamanian, 2014). Without doubt, stereotyping goes hand in hand with power relations of inequality and dominance. Chafai (2010) also found that ads related to beauty products are the most prevalent among all ad types found in magazines. Furthermore, women are expected to retain an appealing and flirtatious appearance not for themselves but for the sake of men’s gratification. Frith, Shaw and Cheng (2005) examined advertisements found in fashion and beauty magazines from the U.S and two Asian societies (Singapore and Taiwan). The analysis showed a universality of certain aspects of the female beauty ideal such as the preference for the ‘classic beauty type’. This beauty type was the same in different cultures and involved characteristics such as fair skin, feminine and delicate look, sophisticated style. The most salient difference, according to the researchers, is that in Singapore and Taiwan, the most prominent feature seems to be a beautiful face, while in the U.S more emphasis is given to the body. Repetition, imperatives, rhetorical questions and second person pronouns are the investigated linguistic features in a multimodal study of TV commercials by Del Saz-Rubio and Pennock-Speck (2009). The researchers found that the advertisers implemented strategies not only to inform women about the sanitary products but in a less explicit way to convey stereotypical assumptions about women.
Fairclough (2001) has suggested that when discourse types, such as advertising discourse, serve unequal power relations they are functioning ideologically, meaning that they serve unequal power relations. Fairclough proposed a framework in which
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language is treated as discourse and social practice. Literature on the discourse of female targeted cosmetic advertisements against the background of Fairclough’s model has been extensive (Baig 2013; Taras 2013; Kaur, Arumugam & Yunus (2013); González Ruiz, 2014; Lunyal 2015; Susanti, 2019). Baig (2013) drew on Fairclough’s three-Dimensional Model and analyzed four different kinds of advertisements (cosmetic, telecommunications service, banking, politics) to show that advertisers employ the discourse in their best interest so as to shape an ideal relationship with the target audience and consequently to enact power over it. In a similar vein, Susanti (2019) critically examined the use of language in beauty advertisements of Pantene and
Garnier in accordance with Fairclough’s 3D framework. The author examined the use
of second person pronouns, the use of repetition, imperatives and questions. By employing these features, advertisers are successful in constructing images that are appealing to the prospective consumers and therefore they exercise control over them by pursuing them to buy the product.
Advertisements arise from social realities and mirror the ideologies of the society that generates them (Lunyal, 2015). Lunyal conducted a CDA based on Fairclough’s model and examined in detail perfume adverts focusing on their linguistic and visual elements. Women are portrayed as having seductive powers with the use of a weapon, that is the advertised perfume. Yet, the author remarked that this weapon actually works against them as it amplifies prevailing ideologies and power relations. It is concluded that the advertising features are eventually treated in a way to communicate an image of mock empowerment that works towards the interest of men rather than women. Unequal power relations were also the central point of Taras (2013). Taras investigated cosmetic surgery advertisements in order to reveal the linguistic means that determine the power relations and ideologies that are constructed through this particular discourse. The study consisted of advertisements retrieved from twenty-five websites which were analyzed from a CDA standpoint merged with a corpus-based approach. Among others, Taras analyzed the use of personal pronouns and the use of adjectives related to beauty. The research showed that the ads placed particular emphasis on the physical attractiveness and by means of linguistic features constructed the female reader as the prospective client. The cosmetic surgeon (most often a man) has the power to decide for women what is beautiful and what is not. Therefore, an unequal relationship is established while external beauty is built up as a critical element in daily life.
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González Ruiz (2014) also drew on Fairclough’s three-dimensional model to conduct a CDA on printed advertisements of a particular brand, that is Max Factor. The researcher examined a corpus of ads from 1940 to 2000 and focused on their linguistic and visual features in order to make a comparison and to observe their evolution over the years. Similar to González Ruiz (2014), the present research is also a CDA with a diachronic perspective but on a different brand, Maybelline New York. González Ruiz investigated linguistic aspects such as word repetition, hyperbole, imperatives and personalization achieved with second person pronouns. The study by González Ruiz did not reveal any considerable changes in the strategies used by the advertisers. The most notable one was the shrinkage of the amount of the advertising text which was attributed by the author to the impact of the Internet and TV as the dominant media. The researcher observed that the ads, with the use of (para)linguistic devices, accomplish their goals which are to grasp readers’ attention, help them to memorize the ad and ultimately purchase the product. The present analysis of Maybelline ads aims to show whether there is consistency across different cosmetic brands concerning potential changes in the techniques employed by the advertisers over decades.
In advertising discourse, inventiveness that concerns aspects of language plays a key role on attracting the consumers’ interest and ultimately convincing them to buy the product. Among others, inventiveness is demonstrated with the use of poetic devices (Emodi, 2011; Kaur, Arumugam & Yunus 2013, Noor et al. 2015). Emodi (2011) examined the semantic features in a corpus of twenty English advertisements. Emodi focused on the connotative use of language, the use of adjectives, coined and misspelled words, the use of repetition, punning, metaphor and ambiguity and concluded that all these elements contribute to the originality of the advertising language. Kaur, Arumugam & Yunus (2013) agree that poetic devices such as alliteration and jingles facilitate consumers to remember the message of the ad and by extension the advertised product. Drawing on Emodi (2011) and Kaur, Arumugam & Yunus (2013), the method of the present study includes figures of speech such as alliteration and rhyme that contribute to the originality of the advertised text. Noor et al. (2015) showed that advertising slogans are creatively employed by copywriters to captivate the audience’s interest. This finding is in accordance with Kaur, Arumugam & Yunus (2013) who found that slogans and taglines are ‘catchy’ devices. In a slightly different fashion, the
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present research examines the changes in the slogo (tagline) overtime which is a more fixed entity than the slogan (Cook, 2001).
Novelty is considered as an essential quality of the product being sold and it is consistently emphasized by the advertisers (Melynda, 2017). Melynda examined eighteen Maybelline New York printed advertisements with a focus on the linguistic elements and the persuasion techniques employed by the copywriters. Melynda (2017) found that the pioneering persuasion stage proposed by Kleppner (1986), which highlights the innovative elements of the product was the most common stage. Like Melynda (2017), the present research also investigates Maybelline New York ads but from a diachronic perspective and with a quite different methodology. Nevertheless, it examines too the quality of novelty by looking into words that denote the element of originality and innovation of the advertised product. Additionally, like Melynda it investigates the elements of hyperbole, alliteration and rhyme, the use of second person pronoun and the use of imperative.
Celebrity endorsement is a common practice regarding the promotion of cosmetic products (Nugroho 2009; Kaur, Arumugam & Yunus 2013; Tehseem and Hameed, 2015). Nugroho (2009) examined a particular print ad of the Elizabeth Arden brand for a specific moisturizing cream product. The advertised product is endorsed by a celebrity, that is Catherine Zeta-Zones. The author found that celebrity endorsement is achieved with the use of linguistic and visual elements which function in a complementary way to convey a favorable image of the product that promises to make women look at least a bit younger. Like Nugroho, this research paper investigates the interplay of the linguistic aspect with the visual component of the ads with reference to O’Toole’s (1994) views and attempts to reveal in what ways a positive image of the advertised product is constructed.
2.9 The significance of this research
As Goddard (1998) states, even though each advert is short lived, the impact of advertisements is durable and accumulative because they form a corpus of messages about the society that produced them. Therefore, they are not merely a reflection of societal qualities, but they also contribute to the formation of those qualities. In other
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words, on a first level they may reflect the values of the advertisement producers and on a second level this mirroring of values crystalizes into standards addressed to everyone. Goddard notes that advertising is a relatively recent type of discourse, but it is old enough to have a record; therefore, contemporary copywriters can adopt the practices of past advertisers and imitate preceding ads. Freitas (2012) affirms that adverts from past decades may give the impression of being outdated and bizarre in the eyes of the modern consumer, but the nature of their discourse has not changed considerably. Therefore, a diachronic examination of ads can be a valuable focus of study for discourse analysis because they are enduringly dynamic and updated and they provide an unceasing flow of data in regard to previous and current social values and ideologies. Goddard argues that examining the way a kind of product has been advertised over time is enlightening regarding cultural changes. Also, a comparison of adverts over the years can illustrate how public beliefs towards issues have altered and how these changes are manifested in the language used since “advertising is an index of attitudes” (Goddard, 1998, p. 90). As Goddard (1998) puts it, advertising discourse contributes to the way we “construct our ideas about the world around us” (p. 91). Those ideas are guided by the advertisers’ expectations regarding what kind of ideas the potential group of purchasers needs to have about itself in order to make the decision to buy a specific product. Advertisements resist thorough examination because of their vagueness and their equivocal nature which serve marketing purposes but they are significant material if one wishes to look into the way society develops and what people regard as acceptable (Freitas, 2012).
3. Research Question and Hypotheses
On the basis of the theoretical background discussed in section 2, this research project is guided by the following question:
How is the ideology of femininity and beauty discursively constructed and reproduced in makeup print advertisements of Maybelline New York over the course of eight decades (1940s-2010s)?
It is hypothesized that Maybelline New York cosmetic ads function ideologically over the years at the expense of women. A set of ideas about the quality of beauty and femininity is discursively constructed and women are judged against socially
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constructed standards that dictate what is considered desirable in physical appearance and what is not. Advertising professionals employ strategies of manipulation to exercise control over women and female empowerment is appropriated by copywriters in order to function for the benefit of the dominant group.
What is more, based on background research (González Ruiz, 2014), it is hypothesized that Maybelline New York advertisers will be consistent over the years in their use of advertising strategies. It is expected that language and images remain rather unchanged with the exception of the amount and length of the advertising text that will most likely decrease. A consistency across different brands of cosmetic products in the ways advertising professionals choose to present the product under reference can be very enlightening regarding the ways notions of femininity and beauty are constructed in discourse.
4. Methodology
This section provides the method applied in this research in order to either confirm or reject the hypotheses made in section 3. The methodology includes three subsections which are: 4.1 Rationale which provides the reasoning of the chosen method, namely Critical Discourse Analysis, 4.2 Source of data which refers to the archive and the cosmetic brand used for the study and also gives a justification of the way advertisements were selected, 4.3 Data Collection & Categorization which gives an account of the aspects based on which data were collected, examined and compared.
4.1 Rationale
For the purposes of this study, a qualitative research design was employed. Given that words and pictures instead of numbers are employed to describe what the scholar has observed about the phenomenon in question, the findings of a qualitative study, such as this one, are amply descriptive (Merriam, 2009). A Critical Discourse Analysis was implemented on the selected ads as an approach of examining text that highlights relations of power, and inequality and the way these are enacted or resisted (Van Dijk, 1996). Van Dijk enumerates certain characteristics that are indicative of what Critical Discourse Analysis (hereafter CDA) actually is. He clarifies that CDA is a problem- or issue-oriented approach, position or stance of studying text and talk. It is part of a wider
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classification of critical studies and may focus on all levels and dimensions of discourse not necessarily verbal but on other semiotic dimensions as well. The relations between society and discourse are the center of attention for CDA. Van Dijk (1996) further explains that CDA spotlights “the relations of power, dominance and inequality and the way these are reproduced or resisted by social group members through text and talk” (p. 18). In this process of either reproduction or resistance, ideologies are of great importance. Scholars that undertake a CDA endeavor to expose what is tacit and less evident with regard to relations of dominance and inequality as enacted in discourse as well with their concealed ideologies. Therefore, strategies of manipulation and legitimization that concern the ways that the powerful control people’s minds and by extension their actions, are central in CDA (Van Dijk, 1996).
CDA has been criticized as an approach for its weakness, namely for its lack of clear-cut theoretical frameworks and for the absence of systematic scrutiny (Schegloff, 1997). Widdowson (1995) accuses the CDA paradigm as being contradictory in itself: even though the ‘critical’ aspect implies subjectivity, CDA scholars claim to offer objective interpretations of the discourse in question. He also argues that “discourse is something everybody is talking about but without knowing with any certainty just what it is: in vogue and vague” (p. 158). Despite its weaknesses, a CDA is a very suitable approach for this study since it can unveil strategies of manipulation in the advertising discourse and expose the ideologies of femininity and beauty that preserve unequal gender norms.
4.2 Source of data
A corpus of 56 Maybelline New York print ads was retrieved from the website of The
Advertising Archives. According to the website, The Advertising Archives, founded in
1990, is a picture library located in London and it is the largest resource of advertising material in Europe. Maybelline New York is a suitable brand for the purposes of this research, owing to its long history which permits a diachronic examination of the advertisements. In addition, according to the official website of Maybelline New York, ("Maybelline About Us - Company Information, History, & Mission Statement for Maybelline", 2020), the company is the leading make-up brand worldwide since it offers approximately 200 products which are distributed in almost 130 countries. A simple search with the keyword Maybelline in the search box of The Advertising
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Archives can provide up to 87 images which are classified by decades from 1930s until
2000s.
For the decade of 1930, only one ad was found in The Advertising Archives and its linguistic features were illegible. For that reason, the starting point of the research was set on the decade of 1940 similar to González Ruiz (2014). For the decades from 1940 to 1960, only 2 adverts from each decade were available. Therefore, those adverts were treated as a whole, representing the period of three decades (1940s-1960s). For the 1970s, 12 ads were found but two pairs were almost identical and for that reason 1 ad from each pair was selected. An example of what counts as almost identical is given in figure 2. The difference in the intensity of colors is almost imperceptible and choosing one ad over the other would not affect the results of the study.
Figure 3 A pair of two almost identical ads
For the 1980s, 11 ads in total were found in The Advertising Archives. 1 add was exclusively about nail polish and was discarded as irrelevant to makeup. For the next decade, 10 advertisements in total were found, all of them relevant to makeup. Regarding the 2000s, 18 ads were available in the archive. 4 ads about nail polish were discarded, 1 pair of ads was found to be exactly identical and the rest were selected so that there would be a balanced data sample of 10 ads for the two halves of each decade for every product (mascara, foundation, lipstick, lip-gloss). Lastly, concerning the 2010s, 29 adverts were found. 2 ads were screenshots of TV commercials and two more were exactly the same. The rest were selected so that there would be a balanced data sample of 10 ads for the two halves of each decade for every product. Overall, for the
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initial period of 1940s-1960s, 6 advertisements were examined and all subsequent decades included 10 adverts each.
4.3 Data Collection & Categorization
56 Maybelline New York print advertisements were thoroughly examined, and the data were collected, investigated and compared on the basis of the following aspects: 4.3.1 Images, 4.3.2 Slogo, 4.3.3 Synthetic personalization, 4.3.4 Lexical selection, 4.3.5 Repetition of words in the same advertisement, 4.3.6 (Elliptical) Comparisons and 4.3.7 Poetic devices.
4.3.1 Images
As discussed in section 2.3, adverts are comprised of many diverse and interdependent parts: Images play a fundamental role and according to Kress and Van Leeuwen (2006) they have their own way to be ‘read’. Cook (2001) has suggested that language and visuals interact with each other. Sometimes visuals overshadow language and especially in adverts meaning is conveyed to a great extent through pictures. Previous research on the visual aspects of advertisements (Nugroho, 2009; Chafai, 2010; Tehseem and Hameed, 2015; González Ruiz 2014; Lunyal, 2015) has shown that they can be illuminative in regard to the ways advertisers promote cosmetic products. The investigated aspects of images in this study are: perspective, proximity, foreground - background, center - margins, left side - right side, upper part - lower part, facial expressions and particularly gaze.
4.3.2 Slogo
According to Cook (2001), slogo (commonly known as tagline) is a long-lasting catchphrase that accompanies the products on all the advertising campaigns. The slogo is a relatively fixed index of the entire company while slogan refers to ephemeral phrases that accompany specific lines of products and change with the various campaigns. Kaur, Arumugam & Yunus (2013) examined how slogans and taglines in ads found in women’s magazines are resourcefully employed by copywriters. Examining how the slogo of a specific brand changes overtime can reveal potential shifts in the brand’s core message and character. This research examines the slogo itself as well as the placement of the slogo in the advertisements.
28 4.3.3 Synthetic personalization
Second Person Pronouns
Fairclough (2001) has defined synthetic personalization as “a compensatory tendency to give the impression of treating each of the people handled en masse as an individual” (p. 52). Synthetic personalization in adverts is mostly achieved with the use of second person pronouns (Jones, 2019) and it has been systematically investigated as a persuasion technique (Del Saz-Rubio and Pennock-Speck, 2009; Taras, 2013 González Ruiz, 2014; Nugrawidhanti, 2016; Melynda, 2017; Susanti, 2019). In this way, the advertising text is composed in an interactive manner attempting to build an intimate relation between the copywriter and the narratee.
Imperatives and Rhetorical Questions
Synthetic personalization can also be achieved with the use of imperatives and rhetorical questions. Previous research (Phakdeephasook, 2009; Del Saz-Rubio and Pennock-Speck, 2009; González Ruiz, 2014; Nugrawidhanti, 2016; Melynda, 2017; Susanti 2019) has shown that the use of these two grammatical structures can create a sense of closeness between the advertiser and the reader. Narratees may feel as if they were personally addressed, thus encouraged to obtain the advertised product.
4.3.4 Lexical selection
Words that denote innovation
According to background research (Melynda, 2017), emphasizing the innovative features of the product is a recurring technique employed by the advertisers. Some words that fall under this category are the following: ‘new’, ‘introduce’, ‘patent’, ‘revolutionary’, ‘breakthrough’.
Words that denote the quality of beauty and perfection
According to Taras (2013) analyzing beauty related lexical items can disclose the various ways in which beauty is conceptualized in advertising discourse. Similar to Taras, words related to beauty and perfection were examined. In particular, the words ‘beauty’ and ‘perfect’ and their derivatives, the words ‘gorgeous’ ‘flawless’, ‘captivating’ ‘stunning’, ‘attractive’, ‘allure’.
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4.3.5 Repetition of words in the same advertisement
A lot of researchers have examined word repetition in the discourse of advertising (Del Saz-Rubio and Pennock-Speck, 2009; Emodi, 2011; Behnam and Zamanian, 2014; González Ruiz, 2014; Nugrawidhanti, 2016; Susanti, 2019). By repeating lexical items, advertisers highlight particular aspects of the product and enhance narattees’ memory that potentially increase the chances of growth in sales. Examining this aspect diachronically can show whether there is consistency in the copywriting practices over the years.
4.3.6 (Elliptical) Comparisons
Background research (Nugrawidhanti, 2016) has shown that advertisers make frequent use of comparison and especially elliptical comparison in which the second comparandum is absent. For example, ‘lashes look longer’ and ‘Crisper, richer color’ compared to what? It is interesting to see whether this grammatical structure is used by
Maybelline advertisers too.
4.3.7 Poetic devices
Alliteration and Rhyme
According to Grey (2008, as cited in Melynda 2017) alliteration, which is also called head or initial rhyme, is the repetition of initial consonant sounds in two or more adjacent words or syllables. Rhyme is a pattern of correspondence in sounds between words which extend from the end to the last fully stressed vowel (Grey 2008). Alliteration and rhyme create a poetic effect that is very likely to catch the reader’s attention. Emodi (2011) and Kaur, Arumugam & Yunus (2013) observed that poetic devices such as alliteration and rhyme are systematically used by copywriters to intrigue prospective consumers.
Hyperbole
Hyperbole is an exaggerated statement used by advertisers to emphasize the superiority and effectiveness of the cosmetic product. González Ruiz (2014), Nugrawidhanti (2016) and Melynda (2017) showed that hyperbole is a figure of speech used very frequently in advertisements. Most instances of hyperbole include one of the words:
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‘ultra’, ‘ultimate’, ‘hyper’, ‘super’, ‘extreme’, ‘express’, ‘instantly’, ‘immediately’, ‘incredible’, ‘unbelievable’. Also, there are cases of exaggerated comparisons.
5. Results
This section gives the results of the present study. Advertisements from 1940s to 2010s are scrutinized on the basis of the aspects discussed in the aforementioned methodology.
5.1 Adverts from 1940s to 1960s
This section includes 6 adverts from the period 1940s to 1960s which are thoroughly investigated on the basis of the chosen aspects. Figure 4 is a collection of the examined ads.
31 5.1.1 Images
All 6 advertisements have a close up of a young woman’s face and the camera angle positions the narratee on the same level with her. Additionally, in all cases the woman gazes directly into the camera and by extension the narratee, therefore a sense of intimacy is established. In 2 ads there is a ‘before vs after’ comparison; the woman’s face before the eye products have been applied to is backgrounded at the upper part while her face after the application of the product is foregrounded at the lower part of the ad. It is expected that the narratee will notice the difference between the two pictures and therefore be convinced of the products’ effectiveness. In one of these two pictures there is a case of celebrity endorsement. According to the caption, the woman depicted is Norman Christopher, Queen of the 1947 Tournament of Roses. 2 adverts are not photographs but illustrations; one is colored and the other is black and white. These 2 ads are quite similar in terms of the illustration but they differ considerably in their text. In the last ad the woman holds a gun and aims directly at the direction of the viewer. It is probably suggested that thanks to Maybelline mascara the woman acquires seductive powers. Nevertheless, one may wonder whether ultimately this empowerment is deceiving and works at the expense of women.
5.1.2 The slogo
a. WORLD’S FAVOURITE EYE MAKE-UP
b. Maybelline…devoted exclusively to the art of eye beauty! c. Maybelline-always the purest and best in eye beauty d. The finest in eye make-up, yet sensibly priced.
In all cases of this time period, the slogo accompanies the logo and it is placed at the bottom of the ads. In addition, emphasis is placed particularly on eye-makeup since
Maybelline cosmetics of that period concerned exclusively eye products. The quality
of the products is also emphasized along with their reasonable price as revealed by the fourth slogo.
5.1.3 Synthetic Personalization a. Second Person Pronouns
Synthetic personalization achieved with the use of second person pronouns (you, your, yours) is used systematically by Maybelline copywriter as it occurs in 5 out of 6 ads.
