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A comparison of language devices in 1950s and modern men's advertisements
- 1. A C O M P A R I S O N B E T W E E N 1 9 5 0 S A N D M O D E R N T E X T S ADVERTS AIMED AT MEN
- 2. ORIGINAL TEXT Cataphoric referencePotential pun? (‘Breaking news’) Neologism Stage structure, instructions for simplicity Synthetic Personalisation Alliteration Graphology; focuses on ‘handsome look’
- 4. Imperative Alliteration Sibilance (Similar to ‘New tech’) Synthetic personalisation Rhyme Specialist lexis Repetition Imperative Expert opinion Graphology – Illustration
- 5. Graphology – Illustration Order of precedence Elevated lexis Elevated lexis
- 6. SIMILARITIES TO MODERN TEXTS • Synthetic personalisation (use of 2nd person pronoun ‘your’) • ‘Shaving News’ technique – ‘new technology’ • Jargon (pos. neologism) ‘COROSHAVE’ • Instructions, imperative structure ‘Wash- wet face’ • Influential power, convincing that this product is the best • Cataphoric references – ‘shaving news’ • In the second text, elevated lexis (‘Exhilarating’)
- 7. DIFFERENCES TO MODERN TEXTS • Alliteration often seen as cliché (‘Superwhipped for super shaves!’) • Modern focus on ‘sexy’ look – not on ‘handsome’ • Exclamative sentences likely to be interpreted as patronizing in modern adverts (‘SHAVE…!’) • In the second text, high focus on language rather than image.
- 8. HYPOTHESIS •Advertisements aimed at men will have changed language devices over time.
- 9. COMPARATIVE TEXT (1) Modern advert, taken from Men’s Health magazine
- 10. List of 3 (cadence) Simple sentences Percentage Authenticity, modern advertising ‘A place’ - Metaphor Alliteration Abstract Noun Active verbs Repetition Elevated lexis Colloquial
- 11. COMPARATIVE TEXT (2) Imperative Imperative List of three - cadence Expert opinion Heavier focus on image, possible sexist as using women to sell product Rhetorical Question
- 12. METHODOLOGY • We used Google images and http://www.advertisingarchives.co.uk/en/category/ show_list_page.html provided us with a wide variety of advertisements aimed at men throughout different time periods. • Men’s Health magazine provided us with the comparative text we chose, though many of the ads consisted of vary little language and were mostly just images with a logo. This in itself could show how advertisement language has evolved.
- 13. LEXIS 1950s Texts • Text 2 uses much elevated lexis (e.g. exhilarating’ ect) and specialist lexis (e.g. ‘abdominal’)in order to sell their product. This is because they wish to convince the audience (Influential power) that this product is new, proven and high tech. Modern Texts • Both texts use ‘expert opinion’ to convince their audience. They use elevated lexis (such as ‘clinically proven’) though less than the earlier texts.
- 14. GRAMMAR 1950s Texts • The second text in particular uses long, complex sentences in order to descriptively sell their product. E.g. ‘Massage is the key - massage of the vital muscles of the abdomen, on whose strength and tone your figure, carriage and digestion depend.’ Modern Texts • The first test uses very simple, short sentences as though written in note form. E.g. ‘Helps minimise the look of fine lines, helps firm up the skin’.
- 15. SEMANTICS Some words relating specifically to women or men
- 16. SEMANTICS Due to lack of text this didn’t work so well…
- 17. DISCOURSE STRUCTURE 1950s Texts • The second text uses a lot more text to convince it’s audience. It is also similar to modern day texts which use ‘expert opinions’. It may be significant that over time, we have changed who these people are; we are more likely to be attracted to products which are used by celebrities. Modern Texts
- 18. GRAPHOLOGY 1950s Texts • These have less complex graphological features due to the time period – they use illustrations though rely more on their language choices to sell their product. Modern texts • Often have very little writing and rely more heavily on an image to sell their product.
- 19. PRAGMATICS 1950s Texts • In this time period it is likely that it was more unacceptable for men to act feminine, and therefore invest in grooming products. They therefore sell their products as more masculine and necessary, though the second text uses ‘men and women’ as the order of precedence. There is, however, less of a focus on female attraction than the modern texts. Modern Texts • In recent times advertisements aimed at men encourage grooming products. The second is somewhat sexist as it used graphology as its main influential feature, advertising female attraction.
- 20. CONCLUSION • We found that our non-directional hypothesis that adverts aimed at men will have changed language devices over time was correct, though we also found that some devices remained the same. • One major feature of change was the amount of text used. • There were possible indications of sexism, though not enough evidence in the 4 short advertisements analysed.
- 21. EVALUATION • If we were to conduct the research again, we would refine our hypothesis to be more specific to allow for more detailed research. • We would also choose advertisements which include much more text, though it may be best to avoid adverts altogether due to the modern focus on image.
- 22. OTHER TEXTS
- 23. OTHER TEXTS
- 24. OTHER TEXTS
- 25. BIBLIOGRAPHY • Google images • Bing images • http://www.advertisingarchives.co.uk/en/category/ show_list_page.html • The Times Digital Archive
Editor's Notes
- This advertisement didn’t, similarly to most modern texts, make extensive use of language. The primary features of this ad are image, neologisms and ‘new tech’.
- This advertisement used much more language in order to convince its audience. It appeared in The Times which indicates its target audience being upper-class and highly evaluative. In this way the use of language and ‘expert opinion’ seen at the bottom on the left-hand side, would have been useful in providing enough evidence that this product is worth buying.
- There are numerous linguistic devices used which enhances the influential power of this text.
- These are some of the guesses we made without looking at any examples of modern advertisements – we merely based them on our memory of advertisements such as ‘Gillette Fusion’ which, similar to our first 1950s text, uses the ‘new tech’ and ‘expert opinion’ devices.
- We believed that some rhetoric techniques are less frequently used in modern texts, such as alliteration and exclamatives which may be seen as cliché or over-the-top. In this way we devised our hypothesis…
- We chose this first advert for comparison as it was had a similar semantic field to the other two – a male grooming product. It was instantly apparent that advertisements had changed over time as it proved difficult to find an ad with as much text as this. In the 4 magazines we looked thorough, and extensive research online, we failed to find many modern ads which didn’t use image as their primary selling point. Even in this ad, image was clearly a primary concern of the promoter due to the complexity of the image used – something which would not have been possible to include in the old texts.
- Despite the little language used, there were still some language devises used. Some of these contradicted some of our earlier predictions, such as the use of alliteration. We concluded that perhaps the use of rhetoric devices such as alliteration are so over-used that they are often left unnoticed.
- This text we found to be somewhat sexist, using women as a selling point. Again, image is the primary selling point and there is little language used. It makes strong use of Synthetic personalisation and seems to talk directly to the audience, aiming to make them feel self-conscious even as it suggests that you SHOULD, if not, be worried about your image. This ties in with the developing social standard that, as was not before, it is more acceptable for men to take interest in their image (it may before have been considered feminine).
- The most useful sources were the magazines, as they helped us to establish how adverts have changed so dramatically to rely heavily on image, and the advertising archives website. This included a range of advertisements from a range of time periods, and allowed us to identify those clearly aimed at men and how some have changed and remained the same.
- We used concordle to make a visual indication of the frequency of words used. We used this only on the two ads with the most text as we believed that it wouldn’t work with those with little text. Here we see that repetition was a primary feature of this ad, ‘massage’ being used far above every other word.
- Even this text didn’t work so well with the visualisation. It still held too little text to work properly.
- We decided against the first due to the lack of text – and its overall creepyness. The second we also believed to have too little language, though shows the still continued use of the ‘new/high tech’ technique, as well as using highly specialist lexis in order to convince its audience that this product is ‘special’.
- We found these ads interesting also – they showed clear comparison to modern texts, and the contextual advancement in medicine. Clearly smoking isn’t good for you, though advertisements seemed perfectly content in displaying ‘health benefits’ and blatantly lying to their audience about the effects of smoking.
- We also found this ad interesting – this advertisement clearly evolved to exploit the image of women for selling products in a much more revealing way – i.e. their boobs, as shown by the ads that had to be removed by public outcry – this respectable lady may be the origin of the ‘cocacola girls’.