1. A Critical Discourse Analysis of
Advertisements in Malaysia
Advanced Discourse Analysis
ENGL 6106
IhsanIbadurrahman (G1025429)
Mohd. Ridzuan Mat Zin (G1126649)

2. I. Introduction
Advertising is very common in our daily lives nowadays. In Malaysia, advertising abounds; it
could be found almost everywhere such as in mass media, buses, LRT, handrails of escalators,
billboards, and wallpapers. However, given this ubiquity, it is strangethat most of us do not
realize that advertising is a form of discourse by the means of languagethat would consciously
orunconsciously influence our behaviors and thoughts in our daily lives. The use of word
play, puns, rhymes, pictures, colors and other elements in advertising somehow has its own
role in order to catch our attention towards it. Thispretty much explains the meaning of the
word „advertising‟ itself, derived from the Medieval Latin verb advertere which means to
direct one‟s attention to. According to El-daly (2011), advertising is “any type of form of
public announcement intended to direct people‟s attention to the availability, qualities, and/or
cost of specific commodities or services” (p. 25).
It is essential that a critical look to advertising be done so that we, as consumers, are
not fooled by its persuasive power and end up buying the products not because we need it, but
we want it, a process known as commodification (Govindasamy&Hasan Khan, 2007). One
such tool to investigate it is Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). CDA is defined as is a multi-
disciplinary, problem-oriented approach in investigating the enactment of power abuse,
dominance, and inequality that is present in text and talk and thus in its stand, try to
understand and resist social imbalance (Dijk, 2001). Through CDA, it is possible to examine
the strategies of manipulation and persuasive power that are often implicitly and carefully
used in advertisements. However, not much study has been undertaken to explore critical
discourse analysis of advertisements especially in the Malaysian context.
This paper attempts to cast some light intoa critical look of the advertisements found
in Malaysian media such as newspaper and TV by using a three-level approach of critical
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3. discourse analysis: linguistic, social, and cultural analysis. The present study is an extension
tothe studyof adverts in Japan conducted by Esposito (2011) by applying the same approach
to critical discourse analysis in a different context, which is in Malaysia.
II. Literature Review
Before going through a brief survey of literature, it would be imperative to discuss first some
of the theoretical underpinnings of critical discourse analysis of advertisements. Unlike the
conventional discourse analysis which merely looks at the forms and features of texts, critical
discourse analysis delves deeper in that it seeks to reveal the ideological assumption of
language use (Esposito, 2011). Van Dijk (1998) defines ideology as a system of ideas, beliefs,
and values which provides a limited view of the world. Ideology is rendered effective only
when a majority of people deem it to be common sense (Gramsci, 1971 as cited in Esposito,
2011). Once things have become a common sense, shared by many people, we would tend to
regard it as normal and therefore would never tend to look at them critically. It is therefore
crucial to look back and open ourmind to critically examine how language creates such shared
ideologies.
It is generally understood that in the discussion of discourse, text and context are
closely intertwined.In the discourse of advertising, text refers to the language itself. Context,
on the other hand, is the setting in which the language is used, such as substance or the
physical material of the text, music and pictures, paralanguage, situation, and co-text.
Because CDA largely concerns language as social practice, it must take into consideration the
context of language use (Wodak, 2001). This is supported by Cook (2001), who asserts that a
study of language should always take context into account. He goes on to argue that language
without context is like a „journey without destination‟ (p. 5). Text and context are inextricably
woven together to interact in a meaningful way with the observers or participants who see the
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4. ads.It could be said that discourse of advertisements is inter-discursive and inter-textual in
nature (Fairclough, 2001). It is inter-discursive because in order to make sense, it needs to
relate to other context or features specific to a given culture. It is inter-textual because each
separate text is at play with other texts in the ad to create meaning. Having outlined some
theories that underpin critical discourse analysis on advertisements, we shall now look briefly
at some of the studies done in the field.
There has not been much literature that can be found specifically on critical discourse
of advertisement in Malaysian context. However, one study that is closely related to this paper
is one that is led by Govindasamy and Hasan Khan (2007) who investigate advertisements on
global popular culture such as movies, music, reality shows and soap operas using a critical
discourse analysis from various electronic, as well as print media that are prevalent in
Malaysia. Although the present study focuses more on everyday commodities, the study
conducted by Govindasamy and Hasan Khan hasnevertheless put forward aninteresting fact
about advertising in Malaysia. It is revealed that global texts of popular culture thrive in
Malaysia and is disseminated rapidly due to the accessibility of media by consumers. One of
the ways in which the media is disseminated is generally through the growing number of
available TV stations in Malaysia since 1970, and specifically the Malaysian‟s thriving
satellite TV named ASTRO, in 1996. Another means of how global popular culture is
advertised generously is through the ubiquity of press media industry particularly The Star
and New Strait Times, where they include a special section in their paper dedicated to news
related to movie celebrities or western pop music entitled. New Strait Timesand the Life &
Timessection available in both newspapers particularly deal with reviews of recent movies
shown in TV and Cinemas. The study concludes that the language use in advertising is mostly
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5. direct and to the point. The lexical choices are simple and comprehensible to those who read
the reviews or watch the show.
Another study that is closely related, but done in a different context, is one that is
carried out byEl-Daly (2011) who examines the nature of the discourse of advertising,
specifically on consumer advertising which is directed towards the promotion of some
product or service to the general public in Egypt. By referring to the advertising from the
Egyptian media, El-Daly attempts to examine advertising persuasive strategies by looking at
three linguistic theories:pragmatic, psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic. It discusses the
relationship between culture or what he called “schemas” and the advertising discourse, which
cannot be separated from each other. El-Daly also explains rhetorical devices used in Arabic
advertising such as parallelism, rhyme and rhythm and alliteration, all of which areabsolutely
crucial in order to analyze the discourse of advertising as it is inseparable from the culture of
the advertising text.
Another recent study on the critical discourse of analysis of advertisements is
undertaken by Esposito (2001) who utilizes CDA as a pedagogical means of enhancing
critical thinking skills in a Japanese EFL classroom. Using a multidimensional approach to
the discourse of advertising, the study involves 37 university students taking an elective
course of Critical Discourse Analysis in their third or fourth year of study. Students are asked
to bring their own ads from magazines and analyze them using a three dimensional approach:
linguistic analysis, social analysis, and cultural analysis. Linguistic analysis primarily deals
with a careful description of how the language is used in the advertisements. During this stage
of analysis, elements such as text and imagery are identified. The social analysis deals with a
thorough explanation of how ads might appeal to specific audiences. The researcher believes
that because they are part of the target audience, they could relate best to the ad‟s messages.
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6. The last part of analysis, the cultural analysis, specifically aims to examine how advertising
influences modern life. The findings reveal that Japanese ads convey their messages primarily
through a clever combination of language and imagery. For example, in an advertisement for
Kewpie Mayonese, the word „SUGAO‟, also translated as sugar, is boldly written in red
capital letters against a white background denoting naturalness for working women wearing
no make-up, which are their intended target-audience. Other common features found in
Japanese ads are the use of allusions, puns, and metaphors.
This research paper extendsEsposito‟s (2010) study mentioned above by using the
same three dimensional approaches to investigate advertisements found in Malaysia. The next
section shall briefly outline how the present study is conducted.
III. Methodology
The present study employed a qualitative approach as it relies mostly on text and image data,
and the focus is on learning the meaning that the participants have on the ads (Creswell,
2009). The participants involved in this study were ten post graduate International Islamic
University Students majoring in English who are currently taking a course on Critical
Discourse Analysis (ENGL 6106). The ten students comprised of 3 male participants, and 7
female participants. Due to the constraints of selecting samples randomly, the sampling
strategy used for this study was non-probability sampling. In particular, the researchers
utilized convenience sampling where the samples were selected as we came across. We chose
the ten participants as they were our classmates and were readily available. This strategy of
sampling granted the researchers an easy and quick way to obtain samples (Neuman, 2011).
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7. For the purpose of this study, an open-ended 3-page questionnaire was utilized. As
pointed out by Nunan (1992), questionnaires are convenient and thus popular means of
collecting data. Although it might have been much easier to analyze the data using closed
questions, open-ended ones were chosen instead due to the fact that they may be able to
provide more useful information that would otherwise be inaccessible in closed question
formats. The questionnaire includes the three dimensional approach to critical discourse
analysis of advertisements proposed by Esposito (2011):linguistic analysis, social analysis,
and cultural analysis (see Appendix A). Each ten participant were asked toclosely look at the
ad, and analyze it using the three aforementioned analyses. It roughly took 15 minutes to
complete the questionnaires, so that participants would not have to deal with unwarranted
intrusion to regular class activities.
The tenselected ads were taken from three different sources: newspapers, magazines,
and YouTube. For newspapers sources, two ads were taken from Sunday and one from The
Star. Magazines that were used in this study included ads from Men’s Fitness, Galaxie,
Digital camera, and Cleo, where one ad from each was taken except Galaxie where we took
two samples. Additionally, two short video clips were downloaded directly from high-quality
YouTube videos; this is to ensure that the quality of the ads that were shown in TV
commercials was captured in their glory. It is feared that the use of our conventional digital
cameras would result in loss of quality and may hamper the analysis of these ads where
detailed use of colors and symbols are of paramount concern. The selections of the ads were
carefully weighed to ensure that they represent a wide variety of products. The following
chart illustrates the variety of products presented in the ads in this study:
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8. Various types of ads used
11% 11% Camera Digital (Nikon 1)
Beauty Products (Oxy clearing wash
and Maybelline ColorSensational)
Watch (Oris ProDiver Col Moschin)
22% 23%
Food and Drink (Marigold Juice and
McDonald Fillet O Fish)
Housing (Menara 238)
Car (Hyndai Elantra and New Honda
Jazz)
11% 11%
Event Celebration (Guinness St.
Patrick Day 2010)
11%
Chart 1: Variety of advertisements used in this study.
After gathering the data, each response from the questionnaires were carefully
analyzed to see if there were any emerging patterns from the three different dimensional
approaches.It is to be noted that only the most salient points from the responses were taken
into consideration. The answers were then cross-checked with the information gathered from
the book specifically Cook‟s (2001) book entitled The Discourse of Advertising, sources from
the internet, and researchers‟ own opinion about the product. The next section shall elaborate
the findings of the study.
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9. IV. Results and Discussion
The first ad is the new Nikon 1 compact digital camera. In the ad, there‟s a picture of a young
girl standing in the middle of the jungle while holding the Nikon camera with the capital word
“I AM YOUR SMART PARTNER”. Based on that picture, it infers that the product (Nikon
camera) can be a person‟s best friend as it can be taken anywhere, anytime. This is due to the
fact that the camera is a compact digital camera which is compatible, small, lightweight, and
can be used to take pictures in order to preserve good memories. . The ad is also smart in a
sense that the idea of “I am your partner” might also imply the girl in the picture herself.
Either way, the ad strongly represents the idea that those who buy the camera do not need to
have other friends, implying that the camera (or the girl) would never disappoint you. That is
why in the ad of the new Nikon 1, there is only a picture of a beautiful girl holding the camera
and no one else. Thus, it‟s also promoting individuality and promoting people to engage in the
use of new technology, in this case, a compact digital camera.
The second ad is the Oxy Blackhead Clearing Wash, a facial cleansing gel to get rid of
blackheads. The ad uses an image of a young couple of teenagers who are holding the product
and the skin of both of them are so fair and clean, without blackheads. Thus, due to the use of
image of a young couple of holding the product, the ad is targeted for young adults and
adolescences. This is because young adults and adolescences are the one who typically have
problems with blackheads. In the ad, it uses a strong parallelism in order to distinguish
between the product and the blackhead problem; “Say NO to BLACKHEADS, Say YES to
OXY”. With this parallelism, it somehow also gives the idea that if you did not use the
product, you cannot encounter you blackhead problem and if you use the product (Oxy), you
will get rid of the blackhead and get a fair skin. It is also worth mentioning that the overall
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10. background for the ad is extremely white in order to show a contrasting theme with the
„black‟ background, which is the very idea of the ad, that is to say no and get rid of blackhead.
Our next ad is OrisProdiver Col Moschin watch. In the ad, the watch is presented in a
beautifully colored and enlarged image to emphasize the watch and to show that the watch is
so beautiful and elegant. It also promotes the product by selling the name of the country
„Swiss‟ which is known for its high quality watches. By mentioning that the watch is a Swiss-
made watch, the product automatically gains its own credibility as an exceptional quality and
beautiful watch. Swiss are known for its quality watches and people are willing to pay
thousands of Ringgit for its quality and precision. The choice of word that are used in the ad,
“Real watches for Real people” signifies that the product is meant for people who strive for
perfection in life just like the watch itself. Besides that, the word “For” in the slogan “Real
watches for Real people” is printed in red color to further signify an equation or equal to.
Thus, real watch = real people.
The fourth ad is Marigold 100% Juice. It can be argued that the capital word “PURE”
used in the ad correlates with the name of the product which is 100% juice without any other
artificial ingredients are added into the juice. The image of freshly peeled Orange surrounding
the product connotes the idea that the drink was freshlysqueezed from the orange itself. Based
on that, the ad is trying to connote the idea that the drink is healthier and „purer‟ than any
other products because it contains no added sugar and artificial coloring like other products.
However, the info that is given regarding the juice can be quite deceiving as it is impossible
that such delicious and sweet juice do not contain any sugar or artificial coloring and
ingredients in order to make it more delicious, or to evenmake the color of the juice brighter
and look more natural, and most importantly to preserve it so that people can enjoy it from
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11. time to time by keeping the juice in their fridge. This is when costumers need to be judicious
in carefully selecting a product based solely on its ad.
The fifth ad is Menara 238, a building designed for company to run their business that
is situated at the heart of Kuala Lumpur. The ad also makes use of parallelism to sell the
product: “BIG BOYS NEED BIG SPACE FOR BIG PRESENCE”. The words „Big Boys‟,
„Big Space‟, and „Big Presence‟ are emphasized through the use capitalization. Only „FOR‟
and „NEED‟ words are not enlarged in order to give prominence to the aforementioned
parallelism. This parallelism is an instance of rhetorical device that is particularly effective in
order to reinforce the quality of the product (El-Daly, 2011). The rhetorical device that is used
also catches the attention of anyone who catches a glimpse of the ad and they might stop and
read the ad as a whole in order to find out what the rhetorical words really mean. Another
interesting point to discuss here is the beautiful view of Kuala Lumpur at night seen from the
window of the room. The use of this beautiful image is used to attract the potential buyer and
can be quite deceiving because sometimes the view in the ad only shows the best part of the
building and does not truly represent all the views seen from the room in the building. The use
of scenic views are often used in the advertising of property such as houses and buildings in
order to attract buyers and to make it look more beautiful, whereas the reality is that the view
is not that beautiful and breath-taking compared to what being portrayed in the ad. Lastly, in
the ad, it says „Make your move, space is limited‟ which is a very smart choice of word to
push people to buy the property immediately.
The next ad is Hyundai Elantra, a car that is manufactured by Hyundai. In the ad, only
positive words are used in order to project the good image of the car; “Small car fuel
efficiency, spaciousness, premium touch, dynamic design” enhanced with the word
“IMPOSSIBLE”. As is understood, it is almost impossible to have a small car with fuel
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12. efficiency that is spacious, with a premium touch and dynamic design. That‟s why the ad uses
the phrase “Hello Impossible!” to indicate that the dream car has become a reality and is
available now, and that car is the brand new Hyundai Elantra. Analyzing at all the words used
in the ad, there are all together 28 words used in the ads, but there‟s only one verb: Imagine.
The use of only one verb in the ad makes the reader to ponder and to visualize about all the
almost impossible characteristics that can be found in the only one car, the new Hyundai
Elantra, thus attempts to catch people‟s interest with the car and to buy it. The inclusion of
awards in the ad also further promotes the good quality of the car. The ad mentions that the
Hyundai Elantrais the winner of forty-two renowned awards and accolades and that Hyundai
Elantra won the 2012 North America Car of The Year and also the ALG‟s 2012 Residual
Value Awards for the best compact car. By adding more information regarding all the awards
that the car has won, it will simply make the potential buyers to feel excited and eager to own
the car as the car has proven to be of high quality and remarkable performance by winning all
those awards mentioned in the ad.
The seventh ad under our scope of analysis is the ad for Maybelline ColorSensational
lipstick. In the Maybelline ad, there is a clever use of very strong words printed in bold;
SEXY, SOFT, SENSUOUS and STRIKING. All these four words are alliterations of the
initial „S‟ and each corresponds to the name of the product itself,which is Sensational. At the
top of the ad, there are four rose petals with honey oozing from them to depict the perfect lips
that are bright in color while at the same timethey are fresh and moisturized. All of those
petals have been neatly arranged in order, with the honey each trickling down to the words it
corresponds to. By doing this, the ad somehow attempts to emphasize all of the four words
printed in bold which is also alliterations of the initial „S‟.
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13. The eight ad is about Guinness, a brand of a beer inits attempt to promote two things:
the beer itself and also the St. Patrick Festival 2010. In trying to accomplish these two goals,
it uses many symbols such as the smiley, the St. Patrick flower symbol and also fireworks to
resemble the fiesta, which is going to be fun and full of laughter from diverse group of people.
The use of green background color conforms that of St. Patrick‟s celebration, which is
culturally known to symbolize the greenery of the country Ireland. Based on the images of
people that can be seen from the ad, the ad somehow promises to bring laughter and joy to the
life of people regardless of their race. This enhances the idea that the festival is for everyone,
not just for one particular group of people or race.
The next ad is a short clip of video on McDonalds Fillet-O-fish burger that was taken
from the YouTube. This video was once advertised through the television by McDonalds in
order to promote their product, which is Fillet-O-fish burger. In the ad, there is an emphasis
on the word “EASY” as it is used repeatedly throughout the ad as a parallelism in order to
reinforce the quality and efficiency of getting the product regardless of who you are, where
you are, and how much money you earn. This can be seen from the text that appears in the ad;
“Easy to enjoy, Easy on the wallet, Easy on the go, Easy happiness and Easy fishing from
RM4”. The same also applies to the fish symbol which is used to portray the product, the
Fillet-O-fish burger whereas the patty is made from fresh fish. In the ad, people who eat the
burgers are portrayed as happy people, smiling, enjoying life and are content with what they
have. It somehow connotes the idea that if you eat the burger, you will be happy, laughing,
smiling and content with your life. The fast-paced music that are used as the music
background for the ad resembles busy urban people living in a bustling city, wanting to have
something that is „easy‟ and quick so that it doesn‟t disturb the pace of their hecticlife.
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14. The last ad that is analyzed in this research is a short clip on the brand new Honda Jazz
Hybrid. In the ad, the green car is used to contrast with the white background color of the
overall video of the ad conveying the „environmental friendly‟ car that itpurports to sell. Other
than that, the images of birds and clouds that as seen reflected on the car and also the
blooming flowers are used to further illustrate the „naturalness‟ of the product. This is due to
the fact a hybrid car is an environmental friendly car that does not use normal fuel as its main
combustion energy and do not release harmful gas to the environment. All the words in the
ads are presented in question format using parallelism: “Who says green can‟t be the color of
passion? Who says you can‟t make angry birds happy? Who says saving the planet is only for
superheroes?”.The use of parallelism, especially the last question in the ad, is a brilliant way
of selling the product. It simply means that because it is an environmental friendly car, anyone
can save the planet by buying and using the car, not just superheroes. Interestingly, the use of
superheroes is another smart way of catching the attention of urban people, the targeted
audience of this ad.
Based on the findings of all the ten ads that were analyzed for this research, one of the
most salient feature of language used in the ten ads is parallelism which specifically serves to
foreground the linguistic units, and thus render the quality of the product more effective
(Cook, 2001; El-Daly, 2011). This suggests thatads in Malaysia tendto use of parallelism to
sell their products. The use of parallelism can also make the wordingpresented in the ads
sound catchier. For instance, in the McDonald ad, the repeated use of the word „EASY‟
emphasizes that the burger is „easy‟ on every aspect; easy to enjoy, easy on your wallet, easy
on the go as you can just grab it even if you are in a hurry, easy happiness as you can make
yourself and someone else happy by eating and enjoying the burger and easy fishing from
RM4 to indicate that the price is reasonable for such delicious burger.
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15. The analysis of the ads also entails not only human cognitive process but also features
specific to a given culture. Culture is very important in order for us to understand the way
society lives, in order for us to fully understand a certain group of people, on how they think,
react and so on. Cook (2001) mentions that culture is inseparable component in the task of
discourse analysis in advertisement because it is needed to describe the phenomenon
thatoccurs in the text and context of a discourse. A prime example of this would be Guinness
St. Patrick‟s ad which uses the green color and the symbol of the leaf in promoting the event.
In the Guinness St. Patrick‟s ad, the use of a specific color is very significant and cultural-
related because the green color is a trademark for the St. Patrick‟s celebration whereas during
the St. Patrick Day, people from all around the world will wear green clothes and decorate
their houses or buildings in green. The same goes with the use of the symbol of the leaf. The
symbol of the leaf are also related with the celebration of St. Patrick Day as we can see that
leaf symbol everywhere whenever there is a celebration of St. Patrick Day. In other words, if
we did not know the Irish culture and about their celebration of St. Patrick day, the leaf
symbol and the color green will means nothing and there‟s nothing unusual or significant
about it.
It their valiant attempt to promote the products, ads tends to have certain impact
towards the people or towards the audience who see these ads. As pointed by Cook (2001),
ads can make people feel dissatisfied with what they have and thus consume more. By
looking at the ads, people will think that what they have now are inferior to what they have
now and thus would be tempted to buy more or buy a new one. This is done by the use of
clever words or pictures such as picturesque view of Petronas Twin Tower building of the
Menara 238‟s advertisement, which as we have suggested, can be deceiving. In the ads of
Oris‟s watch for example, the use of clever words, “Real watch for real people”, may suggest
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16. that other watches are phony, and those who do not buy Oris‟s watch are not real people. And
as such,it is deceiving in a sense that it merely persuades people to buy the watch for the sake
of wanting to be called „real‟, and it also makes other watches inferior thusit tempts people to
buy these watches.
V. Conclusion
From the 10 analyzed ads, it can be concluded that in discussing adverts, we cannot separate
text with its context. This means that in order to critically analyze adverts, one must look into
the substance, pictures, music, paralanguage (font color and size), intertextuality and inter-
discursivity that prevail in the text (Fairclough, 2001). Such complexity means that
“advertising always holds more to be analyzed, leaves more to be said”. (Cook, 2001: 5). The
study also suggests that we should be vigilant of the persuasive power of ads which results in
commodification, where we buy the product not because we need it but want it
(Govindasamy& Khan, 2007). Costumers should be judicious in buying the products from the
ads they see. By critically analyzing the discourse in adverts using the three dimensional
approach proposed by Esposito (2011), these persuasive power in creative language use could
be demystified.
Due to the paucity of research done in the area, similar studies should be conducted
more. Future studies may address some of the limitations found in this study by having more
samples, or by using a more robust research instrument. A more specific research topic could
also be conducted for future studies, as our research scope of ads is quite broad. This could be
done by narrowing the area down only to newspaper ads, or TV ads.
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17. References
Cook, G. (2001). The Discourse of Advertising (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.
Creswell, J. (2009). Research Design. California: SAGE Publication.
El-daly, H. M. (2011). Towards an Understanding of the Discourse of Advertising: Review of
Research with Special Reference to Egyptian Media. African Nebula, Issue 3, pp. 25-47.
Esposito, J. (2011). A Critical Approach to the Analysis of Advertisements.The Linguistics
Journal, Vol. 5, pp. 197-219.
Fairclough, N. (2001). Critical discourse analysis as a method in social scientific research.In
R. Wodak.& M. Meyer, Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis (pp. 121-138). London:
Sage.
Govindasamy, S. & Khan, M. H. (2007).Selling the Global Popular: Reading Adverts in
Malaysia. In P. Krish, Discourses on culture and identity: an interdisciplinary
perspective (pp. 47-70). Selangor: Pearson Malaysia.
Neuman, L. (2011) Social Research Methods, Boston: Pearson.
Van Dijk, T.A. (2001). Multidisciplinary CDA: a plea for diversity. In R. Wodak.& M.
Meyer, Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis (pp. 121-138). London: Sage.
Wodak, R. (2001). What CDA is about – a summary of its history, important concepts and its
developments. In R. Wodak.& M. Meyer, Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis (pp. 1-
13). London: Sage.
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18. Appendix A: Open-Ended Questionnaire
Critical Discourse Analysis of Advertisement: A Mini Survey
Following are three approaches to the analysis of Advertisement taken from a study by Esposito
(2011). Please kindly answer the following questions based on the product advertisement that has
been chosen for you. Thank you for your time and kind help in filling up the survey.
Name of the product : _________________________________________________
Level One (Linguistic Analysis)
1. What information is given about the product?
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
2. How is the product presented in terms of words and images?
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
3. What symbols are used to promote the product?
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
4. What associations are made with the product?
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
5. What is the relationship between the product and people?
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
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19. Level Two (Social Analysis)
1. Who is the main audience for the product?
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
2. Why should the product be purchased?
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
3. What evidence is given to support the ad‟s claims?
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
4. What values does the ad reflect and/or promote?
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
5. How is the ad designed to make one feel?
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
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20. Level Three (Cultural Analysis)
1. What are the most salient messages found in advertising?
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
2. How does advertising create particular identities?
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
3. What stories do advertisements tell about the world?
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
4. What influence does advertising have on cultural behavior?
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
5. What type of lifestyle(s) does advertising promote?
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
Adopted from Esposito (2011).„A critical approach to the analysis of advertisement‟, the
linguistics Journal, Vol. 5, pp.197-219.
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21. Appendix B: Samples of the Advertisement
The following CD as attached to this paper contains all the ten advertisements used in this
study, including the two short video clips of The New Honda Jazz and McDonalds Fillet-O-
Fish, which would otherwise be difficult to include as a printed appendix.
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