KADVED Advertising Discourse

Prague City University
winter 2024
Extent and Intensity
0/0/0. 2 credit(s). Type of Completion: z (credit).
Teacher(s)
Mgr. Martin Kräussl (lecturer)
Course Enrolment Limitations
The course is offered to students of any study field.
Course objectives (in Czech)
The aim of the course is to teach students to analyse advertising discourse from different perspectives and points of view. Students will be introduced to various forms of online, print, and television advertising, which they will analyse using the tools of critical discourse analysis. Emphasis is placed on deepening analytical skills in the English language, the use of critical thinking, and the ability to sort sources effectively. The course content includes the presentation of the theory that develops a more in-depth approach to the topics and the latest findings on advertising discourse, drawing not only from critical discourse analysis but also from, e.g., pragmatics, visual grammar, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, and marketing.
Learning outcomes (in Czech)
Upon successful completion of this course, students will: - be familiar with the principles and procedures of critical analysis of advertising discourse, - be able to analyse individual aspects of the context of a given advertisement, - be able to assess and evaluate the reasons and appropriateness of code-switching and code-mixing within a single advertisement, - be able to categorise humour and its processes in advertising discourse, - be able to perform a detailed multimodal analysis of written text, visuals, and all other modes of advertising, - deepen their knowledge of identity patterns and their thematisation in advertising, - will be able to accurately describe the narrative structure of an advert, advertising appeals, executions, and strategies, - deepen their language skills in professional and academic English.
Syllabus (in Czech)
Course contents: 1. Introduction to critical discourse analysis (allowance 0/4) a. Hierarchy of analysis, text v. discourse, three-dimensional model of discourse. b. Power, ideology, and hegemony as main concepts in critical discourse analysis. c. Aspects of context, multimodal analysis in advertising. d. Advertising objectives, advertising media, and advertising strategies. 2. Semiotics in advertising (allowance 0/2) a. Semiotic triangle. Signs and their typology. b. Syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations between signs. c. Analysis of paralinguistic features of advertising. The written part of the advertising message. d. Denotation and connotation in advertising. e. Writenness v. spokenness, and their typical features in advertising texts. 3. Visual grammar (allowance 0/2) a. The essentials of visual mode, the relationship between the written and visual components of an advertising message. b. Importance of visual social semiotics to the analysis of advertising. Narrative and conceptual visuals. c. The representational, compositional, and interactional meta-functions of visual mode. d. Information value and its distribution across advertising visuals. 4. Brand semiosis (allowance 0/2) a. Semiotic process of turning a product into a brand. b. Typology of name, logo, and other aspects of brand rhetoric. c. Colours and their connotations in branding. Connotative osmosis. 5. Figurative language in advertising (allowance 0/2) a. Tropes, figures of speech and rhetorical effect in advertising. b. Conceptual metaphors we live by. Metaphor structure, mapping. Metaphors in advertising. c. Visual metaphor and its categorisation. 6. Humour (allowance 0/2) a. Three major theories concerning the processes of humour. b. Combinational humour types, and other categorisations of humour for its further research. c. Humour in advertising and its effect on the audience. 7. Code-switching (allowance 0/2) a. The difference between code-switching and code-mixing. b. The connotative component of code-switching in advertisements. c. Reasons for code-switching and code-mixing in advertising. Adapted advertisements. 8. Gender (allowance 0/2) a. Us v. Them, the distribution of power in society. Gender as a social construct. b. Representations of femininity and masculinity in advertising discourse. c. Gendered marketing v. non-gendered marketing. Pink tax. d. Gender and its anchoring and embedding in English grammar. Cooperative v. competitive styles of gendered speech. 9. Controversy and taboo (allowance 0/2) a. Advantages and disadvantages of controversial marketing. b. Ways of portraying taboo in advertising. c. Reasons why advertisements may potentially fail due to the use of controversial marketing and taboo. The shock value. 10. Identity construction (allowance 0/2) a. Personal identity and group identity. First impression and identity paradox. b. Performative identities constructed in advertising discourse. c. Commodification in advertising, consumer femininity, targeted advertising. 11. Narrativity (allowance 0/2) a. Narrative structure, plot, and focalisation. b. Representation of real and fictional worlds in advertising. c. Narrative voices in advertising. 12. Advertising design (allowance 0/2) a. Cognitive, affective, and conative strategies in advertising. b. Typology of advertising appeals. c. Music and its use and significance in advertising. d. Executional frameworks in advertising and their analysis.
Assessment methods (in Czech)
Active class participation. Submission of written assignments during the term, in which students apply the theoretical concepts presented in the twelve topics of the course.
Language of instruction
English
The course is also listed under the following terms winter term 2022.
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