Implicature in Different Forms of Advertisement

By: Ashley Wegener

Introduction:

Advertising can be found anywhere from your browsing page to YouTube to television and even Netflix. My research questions are how does language and non language come together in media advertisement? How do metaphors work in advertisement? How do puns work in advertisement? What is some implicature in advertisement? In this paper I will be discovering how different types of ads work together with implicature and how language works even if there is no language.

Methods:

First, find the ads that provide context to my research questions. Secondly I will use data analyses to answer the question about implicature in advertisement. Third, I will then use the presentation on advertisement to build a deeper understanding of puns in advertisement. Fourth I will use articles to answer my questions regarding metaphors in advertisement language use. Last, I will use more articles to answer any questions that are remaining.

Analysis:

The first one “and there’s your beautiful baby any day now” The nurse says. [Gary eats Doritos loudly] the unnamed pregnant woman, who is annoyed says “really, Gary eating Doritos.” “He’s eating Doritos at my ultrasound. Do you see what I have to deal with?” She asks the nurse. “I know” the nurse says. [Gary, who sees the baby on the monitor is waving a chip around the pregnant woman’s uterus and the baby seems like it wants one.] [This startles the nurse and makes Gary laugh. The baby bumps the uterine lining and hurts the pregnant woman she throws the Dorito across the room causing the baby to be delivered early because it wants the Doritos.] [They all scream because no one was prepared for a birth that day.] [The final message is just the Doritos logo with the slogan “for the bold.” “For the bold” is implicature because it implies that the unborn child is bold because the child is being taunted by the chips which is why the child is being born in the first one. “the advertising language uses all kinds of deixis, but the Person Deixis—I, We, You, He, She, It, and They—which refer to the contextual meaning of the personal pronouns are more widely used.” (Shinde 7) The person deixis here is indirect, however it is “for the bold” pointing to both the father and the child. The peculiar humor is a flout of the Gricean maxim of manner because it does not avoid ambiguity.

The second one is a website based off of an advertisement on my web-browsing page. “Indirect persuasion attempts thus rely on consumer inference, in the sense of going beyond what is explicitly stated in an ad (Johar 1995). The rhetorical figure of metaphor, specifically, invites a comparison of two objects by suggesting that one object is like another, even though they come from different domains. “(Stern 1990; Ward and Gaidis 1990). Found on my web-browsing page this indirect ad scrolls automatically to your attention. I have been planning a vacation for the end of the semester, so this advertisement relies on my previous searches. This one flouts the Gricean maxim of relevance because it is not relevant to my web browsing page.

The third one “mm rich chocolate and creamy caramel that’s how you Rolo. Rolo is a pun because it is supposed to be roll. “First, a pun is a humorous device. A humorous message can give the audience a pleasant experience. Second, a pun can be considered as a riddle. Solving a riddle is a pleasant experience, because it flatters the audience’s intellectual capabilities by showing them that they have the relevant knowledge to solve the problem.” (Mulken 2) Rolo is a humorous device because it is not supposed to be there. The message flatters the listeners because chocolate and creamy caramel is the best way to Rolo. This is one flouting the Gricean maxim of manner because of the odd humor.

The fourth one [music plays] “on the beach and in the sun the real thing is so much fun for the times in your life in things that you do coke is right there with you” [the music and advertisement fades out as Eleven {one of the main characters} is sitting with a coke using her powers to easily crush it.] “Due to the lack of retention value, the audio-visual media is more repetitive than any other media. Such repetition is used to highlight and reinforce the information to be remembered for a longer time.” (Stern 1990; Ward and Gaidis 1990) The repetition of product placement in Netflix is unique because they do not have ad spaces at all. Repetitive use of Coca-Cola is used as a flashback for Eleven to show the viewer her connection to the product is unusual at best. This flouts the Gricean maxim of quantity because the latter half of the product placement has no language.

Bibliographical References

McQuarrie, Edward F., and Barbara J. Phillips. “Indirect Persuasion in Advertising.” Journal of Advertising, vol. 34, no. 2, Summer 2005, pp. 7–20. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/00913367.2005.10639188.

“Puns, Relevance and Appreciation in Advertisements.” Journal of Pragmatics, vol. 37, no. 5, May 2005, pp. 707–21. www.sciencedirect.com, doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2004.09.008.

Shinde, Vaishali Jayaprakash. “Media Language: A Study of Audio-Visual Advertisements.” IUP Journal of English Studies, vol. 11, no. 3, Sept. 2016, pp. 102–09.