A critical review of Perucha (2009), On the narrative discourse in advertising:

Hybridity, textual voices and gender identities.

Typically, adverts contain images, descriptive language, imperatives and slogans that
address the reader to buy or request information about the advertised product (Verstergaard &
Schroder, 1985). The way adverts are written however, has been evolving from this typical
form to another type of discourse that may have more powerful persuasive effect to the
readers. The language of advertising may combine with the language of social and political
engagement in which Chouliaraki and Fairclough (1999) mentioned as hybrid texts.
Similarly, adverts that contain narratives can also be classified as hybrid.
Generally, this article seeks to explain the use of narrative discourse in advertising
through structure analysis and its effects on the ideological construction of gender identities.
The researcher had noticed a gap in the analysis of narrative discourse in advertising in which
less attention has been given to the effects of using first or third person narratives in the way
readers construct meaning and interact with the advert. Hence, by focusing on the narrative
advertisements that contain first and third person narratives, this article examines narrative
advertisements to investigate the structural organizations of these narratives and its purpose
in advertising. This article also explores the issues of textual voices (i.e. the voices of the
narrator, the advertising company, and the charity organizations) and reader positioning by
analyzing how the narrator and the advertising company address the readers. Lastly, through
the critical discourse analysis perspective, this article also examines how these voices and
reader positioning construct gender identities for the readers.
This article employed Labovs (1972) analysis of oral narratives of personal
experience in identifying the structural organization of these narratives advertisements. There
are six-part structures of oral narratives: abstract, orientation complicating action, evaluation,
result or resolution and coda. Using this framework, the researcher is trying to identify
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whether the narratives that appear in advertising show a similar type to those found in
Labovs (1972) or show glaring differences. It is found that there are differences regarding
the structure of first and third person narratives, where the first person narratives emphasized
the characters rewarding experience and the latter tend to present the commodity as the
solution to a problem. Other than that, the analysis of the narrative voices reveals both a
persuasive and an ideological function as it invites readers to enter the narrators fictional
world as well as represent gender identities.
This research is useful as it addresses the issue of how narrative discourse is being
used in advertisement. It is beneficial as well as interesting to examine how narrative
discourse works to invite people into the fictional world and its effect to persuade people to
purchase the products or services. Through the analysis of the narrative structure using Labov
(1972) narrative structures, we could identify the advertised element placed in this discourse
and how each structure may have its own function in persuading people. In this article for
example, the advertised elements in first person narratives tend to be portrayed within the
Complicating Action or Evaluation which serve to emphasize the characters satisfying
experience with the product. The narrative structure proposed by Labov (1972) can be said to
be the ideal model or framework for this study as it specifically analyzed the oral narratives
of personal experience.
The researcher also made a thorough analysis of textual voices and the ideological
representations of gender identities. Each data were clearly described with relevant examples
and supported by related scholars such as Cooks (1994) and Goddard (1998) where these
scholars specifically worked in the discourse of advertising. The researcher has explained in
great detail about the transitional role of the narrative voices and how it combines with
features of the persuasive nature of advertising language in order to positioned readers as
characters of the narratives. Other than that, the researcher also discussed the gendered voices
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which draw on gender ideological assumptions that assign men and women in different social
roles. These add insight to the depth of the study as these two issues related closely to the
narrative discourse in advertisements.
Although this study only analyzed small number of advertisements (four containing
first person narratives and four third person narratives), the role of narrative discourse in
construction of advertisement has been discussed comprehensively. The findings from the
data analysis answered all the objectives of the study. The researcher meticulously discussed
both first person narratives and third person narratives as to fill in the gap in the study of
narrative discourse in advertising. Overall, this article had provided the readers with good
amount of information to further understand the various types of advertising discourse and
how the hybridity works as an influential mechanism to persuade potential customers to buy
or get information about the advertised commodity.
References
Chouliarki, L., & Fairclough, N. (1999). Discourse in late modernity. Rethinking critical
discourse analysis. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Verstegaard, T., & Schroder, K. (1985). The language of advertising. Oxford and New York:
Basil Blackwell.
**Perucha, B. N. (2009). On the use of narrative discourse in advertising: hybridity, textual
voices and gender identities.Revista Espaola de Lingstica Aplicada (RESLA
(Revista Espanola de Linguistica Aplicada)), 22.

A critical review of Fuertes-Olivera, Velasco-Sacristn, Arribas-Bao & SamaniegoFernndez, 2001, Persuasion and advertising English: Metadiscourse in slogans
and headlines

Metadiscourse, as defined by Hyland (1998), is those aspects of the text which

explicitly refer to the organization of the discourse of the writers stance towards either its
content or the reader (p.438). Metadiscourse is viewed as an important aspect especially in
3

persuasive writing because it marks the direction and purpose of a text as well as to engage
the audience with the text. Hence, this article, mainly studies the metadiscourse devices used
by copywriters to convey persuasive message in their slogans and/or headlines.
Many studies have suggested the importance of metadiscourse in variety of genres
and settings (i.e. casual conversation (Schiffrin, 1980), school text (Crismore, 1989) and
academic articles (Hyland, 1998). Therefore, the researchers conducted this study with the
purpose to broaden the scope of metadiscourse analysis in the genre of advertising.
Specifically, this study seeks to demonstrate the importance of metadiscourse in this genre
and to examine the metadiscourse devices used in slogans and headlines of advertisements.
This study had employed two distinct approaches: interpersonal metafunction and
textual metadiscourse. Both approaches were adapted from Hylland (1998) where distinctions
were made between textual metadiscourse (logical connectives, frame markers, endophoric
markers, evidential, code glosses) and interpersonal metadiscourse (hedges, emphatics
attitude markers, relational markers, person markers). In this study however, only few
strategies were studied, for example in textual metadiscourse, the researcher only interested
in looking at endophoric markers and evidential as these were the typical strategies used by
copywriters. Meanwhile in interpersonal metadiscourse, the researcher claimed that
copywriters rely on person markers, hedges and emphatic to be used in advertisements. Apart
from these two frameworks, the researcher also adapted Jakobsonian communication model
to the discourse of advertising to see the correspondences between the function of language
and the pragmatics elements of advertising.
This study reveals that the function of person markers, hedges and emphatics of
interpersonal metadiscourse are to adopt a kind of balance between informing and persuading
which will prevent addressees (target audience) from distrusting addresser (advertiser).
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Meanwhile, endophoric markers and evidentials of textual metadiscourse used to form

coherent texts and establish intertextuality. The researcher concluded that both textual and
interpersonal metadiscourse help copywriters to convey persuasive message under an
informative mask.
This research is valuable as it broaden the literature of metadiscourse analysis studies
in which it had been discussed in various genres except advertisements. Since advertisements
deal with persuasion, it is important to examine how copywriters use metadiscourse strategies
to attain their objectives. This study also is beneficial for those who work in the advertising
industry as it will help them to carefully design their slogans and headlines for their products
or services. The analysis for this study had shown that metadiscourse help copywriters to
convey persuasive message rather than pushing the consumers to buy.
This article, at first, may merely looks like a regular pragmatics study, but the
researchers had adapted the Jakobsonian communication model which is normally used to
explain the relationship between aesthetic aspects of discourse and its other aspects
(Johnstone, 2008). In this study, this model is used to show that there is a high degree of
correspondence between the participants of an ideal communication model and the
participants in the genre of advertising. Advertisements are also viewed as a form of
communication, although it is rather artificial (as mentioned by the researcher). Hence, this
article does not merely identify the types of metadicourse used in slogans and headlines, but
it also emphasized on the particular functions of language and the pragmatics elements of
advertising.
Other than that, both Hylands (1998) textual and interpersonal metadiscourse
strategies have been explained extensively in this article. All the strategies were equipped
with sound examples from the samples of data and were supported with clear explanations
5

about its functions to persuade potential consumers. For instance, hedges were categorized
into four criteria and each was discussed thoroughly. Hence, it can be said that findings in this
article are convincing and can be used as one of the main references if one wishes to further
examine the use of metadiscourse in this genre. Generally, this article had provided the
readers with valuable information in understanding the functions of metadiscourse strategies
used in slogans and headlines as means of persuasion in English advertisements.
References
**Fuertes-Olivera, P. A., Velasco-Sacristn, M., Arribas-Bao, A., & Samaniego-Fernndez,
E. (2001). Persuasion and advertising English: Metadiscourse in slogans and
headlines. Journal of Pragmatics, 33(8), 1291-1307.
Hyland, K. (1998). Persuasion and context: The
metadiscourse. Journal of pragmatics, 30(4), 437-455.

pragmatics

Johnstone, B. (2008). Discourse analysis (2th ed). Malden, MA: Blackwell.

of

academic