Visual Rhetoric Analysis of Print Commercial Advertising Discourse: a Case of some Food and Fashion Advertisements

Abstract

Abstract: The function of visuals in media, particularly images in commercial advertising discourse seem to manifest functions beyond embellishment. Visuals signs in advertisements are able to impact the target consumers or the whole society. From this observation, some linguists wonder to what extent visuals in commercial advertising are able to reproduce, change and re-construct social opinions instead of focusing on only selling. In this research, the goal is to harness the different implicit (ideologies) concepts constructed in advertising visuals and how these images are framed to reproduce the society and impact or manipulate audience. In fact, print commercial advertisements are generally constructed with dominating images rather than texts. This extensive use of images in advertising discourse makes believe that images embody an advantageous function able to transcend the selling sphere. Based on a semiotic approach, the study of visual discourse of commercial advertisements permits to uncover the other side of meanings and effects of visual signs in advertising discourse. The focus is put on food and fashion advertisements to reveal how far images are rhetorically used in order to express various ideologies such as culture, beauty, gender issues only to quote these. Keywords: Advertising, Ideology, Manipulation, Visual Rhetoric, Semiotics.