Introduction to Language Investigation

An investigation into how the Persuasive Language of Fashion Advertisements has changed from Overt to Covert between the years 1959 and 2013.

Introduction:

For my investigation, I will be exploring the use of implicatures within advertisements from 2013 in comparison with similar advertisements in 1959. I have decided to investigate this as I find the relating aspects of social history very interesting.

Hypotheses

·       Fashion Advertisements from 2013 will be less direct in the way they use language to persuade in comparison to advertisements from 1959.

·       Fashion advertisements from 2013 will be sexist through the use of implicatures, whereas 1959 will be explicitly sexist.

·       From Fairclough’s theory 2013 advertisements will be more dependent upon graphology*¹, which I have considered to be a convert form of persuasion, as the audience must interpret the implied meaning behind the images.

I expect to find that advertisements from 1959 will be more explicit with persuasive techniques. My hypotheses are based around Norman Fairclough’s theory about the informalisation of language, in which he looks at how we, as a society, have moved away from formal language use. I have interpreted this theory to mean that over the 54 years my investigation ranges between, language will be used to imply in 2013, rather than to make formal, explicit statements, which I expect to find in advertisements from 1959.

Contextually, since 1959, women have made significant progress to gain a position of equal opportunity with men and this would coincide with one area of language change I expect find, concerning explicit and implicit forms of sexism. I think that 2013 advertisements will still have sexist undertones, but these will be implied not formally stated. This is because it has become socially unacceptable to be outwardly sexist, but our society is still fundamentally founded upon patriarchal ideology.

^*1 Discourse and Social Change in Society – Norman Fairclough