A Critical Discourse Analysis of Feminism in Advertisements_英语论文

摘要

女性主义对广告产生重要影响。它对营销策略中的性别本质及其隐含的权力关系有所启发。因此，越来越多品牌以“赋权予女性”为营销手段来吸引消费者，并传递符合社会价值的品牌理念。

本文从批评性话语分析的视角，对商业广告中的女性主义进行分析。本文采用Fairclough的三维分析模式为理论基础，Halliday的系统功能语法及Kress和Van Leeuwen的视觉语法为分析工具。通过分析广告语篇的及物性系统及再现意义，本文揭示了广告中存在的性别歧视现象，女性主义的发展。此外，为了理解广告中隐含的女性主义，需考虑经济、社会及文化因素。

目前，大多数国内外对广告中女性主义的研究局限于广告的语言分析，很少关注广告的多模态分析。因此本文将从从批评性话语分析角度，运用系统功能语言学与多模态话语分析的方法来分析女性主义，帮助读者理解广告中的意识形态。

关键词：女性主义  批评话语分析  广告

Abstract

Feminism plays a noticeable role in advertising. It has given insights into the gendered nature of marketing, and the underpinning power relations embedded therein. Therefore, more and more brands market “women empowerment” to attract consumers and deliver the ideology fitting the social values.

From the standpoint of Critical Discourse Analysis, this thesis will focus on analyzing feminism in commercial advertisings. Adopting Fairclough’s Three-Dimensional Model as the theoretical framework, this paper will apply Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar and Visual Grammar by Kress and Van Leeuwen as supplementary analysis tools. Through analyzing the transitivity system of the texts and the representational meaning of the visual images, it will indicate the sexist stereotypes and the development of feminism. Furthermore, to understand the hidden feminism of the advertising discourse, the economic, social and cultural factors will be considered.

Currently, the analysis on feminism mainly focus on the textual mode, but pay little attention to the multimodal mode. Therefore, this research will focus on both textual and multimodal analysis, which helps better understand the implicit relations between feminism and social factors.

Key words: feminism  Critical Discourse Analysis  advertisements

Contents

Chapter One  Introduction 1

1.1  Research Background 1

1.2  Research Objectives 1

1.3  Research Questions 2

1.4  Research Methodology 2

1.5  Data 3

1.6  Research Significance 4

1.7  Structure of the Thesis 4

Chapter Two  Literature Review 6

2.1  Previous Studies of Critical Discourse Analysis 6

2.2  Previous Studies of Multimodal Discourse Analysis 7

2.3  Previous Studies on Advertisement 8

2.3.1 CDA to Advertisements Abroad 8

2.3.2 CDA to Advertisements in China 9

2.4  Previous Studies on Feminism 9

2.4.1 Previous Studies on Feminism in Advertisings Abroad 10

2.4.2 Previous Studies on Feminism in Advertisings in China 11

2.4.3 Feminist CDA 11

2.5  Summary 12

Chapter Three  Theoretical Framework 13

3.1  Defining Discourse 13

3.2  Fairclough’s Three-Dimensional Model 14

3.3  Transitivity System of Systemic Functional Grammar 15

3.4  Representational Meaning of Visual Grammar 17

3.5  Summary 18

Chapter Four  The Analysis of Feminism in Advertisements 19

4.1  Describing and Interpreting of Textual Features 19

4.1.1 Material Process 20

4.1.2 Relation Process 22

4.1.3 Mental Process 24

4.1.4 Summary 25

4.2  Describing and Interpreting of Visual Image 25

4.2.1 Participants 26

4.2.2 Circumstance 31

4.3 Explanation and Discussion 32

Chapter Five  Conclusion 34

5.1  Major Findings 34

5.2  Limitations of Current Study 35

5.3  Suggestions for Future Research 35

Bibliography

Appendices

Acknowledgements