Signum: Estudos da Linguagem (Dec 2016)
BRAZILIANS AND ITALIANS IN THE ADVERTISING LEXICON IN VEJA AND L’ESPRESSO MAGAZINES: SIGNS OF A STEREOTYPICAL CULTURE
Abstract
By means of an inventory of printed advertising transmitted by the Brazilian magazine Veja and the Italian magazine L’Espresso, published from November 2012 to April 2013, in which men are the target audience, we aim at investigating whether the lexical items existing in these written texts carry semantic aspects that can point to relationships that characterize the stereotypes of masculinity in both countries investigated, i.e., Brazil and Italy. To the description and appraisal of such items we employ the methodology of Corpus Linguistics, making use of the program Wordsmith Tools. From this perspective, we utilize the WordList tool, in order to provide lists of lexical items to be studied, and the Concord tool, to understand their co-text/context. We ascertained from this methodology in our research that the advertising copy writing, using lexical units with specific semantic load, reveals and tends to perpetuate these stereotypes in society in both nations.
