THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES DUONG HONG YEN A MULTIMODAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF FAST FOOD ADVERTISEMENTS IN ENGLISH (Phân tích diễn ngôn đa phương thức những quảng cáo đồ ăn nhanh bằng tiếng Anh) M.A THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201 THAI NGUYEN - 2019 THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES DUONG HONG YEN A MULTIMODAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF FAST FOOD ADVERTISEMENTS IN ENGLISH (Phân tích diễn ngôn đa phương thức những quảng cáo đồ ăn nhanh bằng tiếng Anh) M.A THESIS (APPLICATION ORIENTATION) Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201 Supervisor 1: Prof. Hoang Van Van Supervisor 2: Dr. Nguyen Trong Du THAI NGUYEN - 2019 DECLARATION I hereby warrant and declare that the thesis entitled “A multimodal discourse analysis of fast food advertisements in English” is the outcome of my own work except elsewhere states otherwise by the references or acknowledgment. It has not been submitted previously, in whole or in part, for the award of any other academic degree or diploma.
SUPERVISORS’ SIGNATURE STUDENT’S SIGNATURE Supervisor 1 Duong Hong Yen Prof. Hoang Van Van Supervisor 2 Dr. Nguyen Trong Du i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish, first of all, to show my sincere gratitude to my supervisors, Prof. Hoang Van Van and Dr.
Nguyen Trong Du for their wholehearted assistance. Without their invaluable comments, advice, and corrections, this thesis would not have been possible. My special thanks also go to all of my lecturers at the Department of Post- graduate Studies, School of Foreign Languages, Thai Nguyen University for their precious lectures and suggestions that have inspired me and helped me very much in the completion of my study. Furthermore, I am grateful to all authors of books listed in the bibliography, whose ideas are good references for my research to be conducted and developed.
Last but not least, I am indebted to my family and my friends who encouraged and supported me a lot. ii ABSTRACT Online advertisement is one of the various kinds of media advertisement which unavoidably surrounds people‟s life these days. Over the recent decades, many people of all ages have been into fast food products because of their undeniable advantages. There are also, however, some health problems that can be caused by fast food but a majority of people cannot stop themselves purchasing and eating this type of food.
A lot of individuals buy certain products might be due to effective marketing strategies of the company. This study aims at figuring out which verbal and non-verbal elements have been used in fast food advertisements in English and their persuasive effects on the consumption of the audience by having been placed within the multimodal discourse analysis perspective of Norris (2004). Explicitly, three video advertisements of the three most well-known fast food chains in the world (Kentucky Fried Chicken, McDonald‟s, and Burger King) were analyzed. The findings of the study reveal that apart from language, there are many other communicative modes influencing people to consume fast food products like proxemics, posture, gesture, gaze, head movement, music, print, and layout.
Among those, each mode weighs differently in advertisements and has certain effects in persuading advertisement viewers. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION .iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. vi LIST OF FIGURES .vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION. Aims of the study.
Significance of the study. Scope of the study. Design of the study. 3 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW.
Discourse and discourse analysis. Multimodal interactional analysis. Review of related studies. Context of the study.
Data collection procedure. Collecting and logging data. 22 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. Print and layout.
The combination of various communicative modes. Gesture, head movement and gaze. The combination of various communicative modes. Burger King advertisement.
Posture, gesture, gaze, and head movement. The combination of various communicative modes. Summary of the findings. Limitations of the study.
Suggestions for further research. 51 v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS KFC: Kentucky Fried Chicken BK: Burger King vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Proxemics in KFC advertisement. Posture in KFC advertisement.
Gesture in KFC advertisement. Head movement in KFC advertisement. Gaze in KFC advertisement. Print and layout in KFC advertisement.
Full multimodal transcript of KFC advertisement. Proxemics in McDonald‟s advertisement. Gesture, head movement, and gaze in McDonald‟s advertisement. Print in McDonald‟s advertisement.
Layout in McDonald‟s advertisement. Full multimodal transcript of McDonald‟s advertisement. Proxemics in BK advertisement. Posture, gesture, gaze, and head movement in BK advertisement.
Print in BK advertisement. Layout in BK advertisement. Full multimodal transcript of BK advertisement. 46 vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.
Rationale There is little doubt that advertising plays a crucial role in all kinds of business. Individuals can easily find advertisements anywhere. Over the last few decades, advertising has become extremely popular with a wide diversity in its forms. These days, advertising and promotion have exceeded their popularity beyond traditional media dominating last century like newspaper, magazines, radio or television.
In accordance with the rapid development of information technology, online advertisements seem to be more preferred due to its merits such as time saving, convenient. Advertisement is a powerful tool of communication to persuade people to buy the product advertised (Dyer, 1996) because it plays an important role in expressing and sending message of the product. Advertisement, in a simple word, means drawing attention to something or notifying something to somebody (Dyer, 1996). As a result, manufacturers take advertisements into consideration as a key tool to bring their products to reach the customers and spread them worldwide.
Most fast food companies are generally very successful although the quality of their food is questioned every day in many research works and documentaries. It seems that they are willing to spend a lot of their budgets on advertising. In order to make their fast food products appeal to the viewers, the corporations should find the best ways to advertise. Interestingly, other semiotic resources besides language begin to be used more frequently and widely.
There might have been some research on fast food advertisements all over the world; however, virtually no attention has been paid to multimodal analysis of fast food advertisements. Hence, a multimodal discourse analysis study of videos of fast food advertisements will probably bring about a comprehensive look at discourse analysis of fast food products. This study will attempt to look at fast food advertisements in terms of linguistic and non- linguistic elements so as to see why they are so persuasive to the citizens. It may not only enrich the application study of multimodal discourse analysis but also fill in a gap in discourse analysis of fast food.
Aims of the study Firstly, the study aimed at analyzing discourse features of fast food advertisements in the perspective of multiple modes of communication including both linguistic and non-linguistic symbol resources to achieve the best persuasion effects. Secondly, this study attempted to see how different modes of communication are combined together in the advertisements to achieve the purposes of the fast food corporations. Research questions The study sought answers for the following questions: 1) What are some linguistic and non-linguistic features used in fast food advertisements in English? 2) What effects can these features bring to the advert viewers to persuade them to buy the products? 1. Significance of the study Due to the popularity of fast food advertisements, the research is expected to provide some interesting analysis to figure out the reasons behind fast food success.
In addition, this paper will hopefully provide those who teach and study English language with some insights into mastering this kind of language. It is important for them to recognize that in order to fully understand a language in interactions, other communicative modes rather than linguistic component should also be taken into account. Finally, this research will definitely contribute to enriching the literature of multimodal discourse analysis in the world in general and in Vietnam in particular. Scope of the study The study focuses on some videos of fast food advertisements in English which could be found on www.
The data of the study include three advertisements in English of three world-wide famous fast food corporations 2 namely KFC, McDonald‟s, and BK. Each video lasts from 15 to 30 seconds. Analyzing video data in the perspective of multimodal analysis is a complicated process. That is the reason why only some short and outstanding advertisements were used for the study.
For each fast food brand, the video with a big number of viewers found on YouTube was chosen as the data for analysis. Design of the study The study is divided into in five chapters: Chapter 1: Introduction This chapter presents the rationale, aims, significance and scope of the study are presented. Chapter 2: Literature review This chapter provides the theoretical background, specifically the terms related to discourse, discourse analysis, advertisement, fast food are included. Also, some previous studies that most relate to the theme of the research are reviewed.
Chapter 3: Methodology This chapter presents research approach and research methodology. The information about data analysis, and data collection procedure, including type of data and data analytical framework are also shown. Chapter 4: Findings and Discussion In this chapter, the findings of the research are highlighted and followed by significant discussions. Chapter 5: Conclusion This chapter summarizes the significant findings of the research.
After that, the limitations of the research, some implications and the suggestions for further research are included. 3 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter includes background knowledge of discourse and discourse analysis, multimodal interactional analysis, advertising, fast food and reviews some previous research related to the topic of the study. Discourse and discourse analysis There is the fact that discourse has been defined differently by different linguists. In this study, the term discourse is generally understood as human language in use for communication.
According to Brown & Yule (1983): The analysis of discourse is, necessarily, the analysis of language in use. As such, it cannot be restricted to the description of linguistic forms independent of the purposes or functions which these forms are designed to serve in human affairs (p.1) However, it can be argued that discourse is not only the use of language but there are also other things involved. Macdonnell (1986) defined: “whatever signifies or has meaning can be considered part of discourse. Discourse is not only about language itself but there are some other related aspects as well.
It is also concerned with who used it and why and in which situation – all are included in discourse. With the text, the context is of the same importance. Cook (1992) claimed that: Although the main focus of discourse analysis is on language, it is not concerned with language alone. It also examines the context of communication: who is communicating with whom and why; in what kind of society and situation; through what medium; how different types and acts of communication evolved, and their relationship to each other.3) Cook also added if other modes of communication rather than language are used in the discourse such as music or pictures, they cannot be omitted when analyzing.
Otherwise, the acts of communication or the internal mechanism hardly 4 can be understood correctly (p. Jones (2012) believed that discourse analysis cannot be considered the study of language as other studies mentioned, it is the real life use of language by people in order to express different feelings such as to make fun, to argue, to persuade and in various other purposes. Discourse can be classified in many different ways, one of which is the classification of discourse into spoken and written forms, which are distinguished from each other by the means of paralinguistic and extra linguistic factors as well as distinctive linguistic features. Nevertheless, the differences between them are not very clear, and the characteristics that we tend to associate with written language can sometimes occur in spoken language and vice versa.