FACTORS BEHIND SOCIOPRAGMATIC CHANGE IN 19 TH -CENTURY BRITISH NEWSPAPER ADVERTISEMENTS MINNA PALANDER-COLLIN IPRA, ANTWERP JULY 2015

THEMES 19TH-CENTURY CHANGE IN ADVERTISEMENTS: DECREASING PERSON-MENTION ADVERTISEMENTS IN SOCIO-CULTURAL CONTEXT: DOMAIN THEORY ADVERTISEMENTS AND 19TH-CENTURY DEVELOPMENTS IN POLITENESS

ADVERTISEMENTS The Times Aug 1805 The Times Jan 1880

ADVERTISEMENTS The Times, Aug 1805 The Times, Jan 1880 Advertiser Other people Audience

DECREASING PERSON- MENTION IN ADS 5

AUDIENCE-MENTION 6

ADVERTISER 7

ADVERTISER + AUDIENCE 8

The advertiser’s deferential politeness towards the audience especially in the opening phrases of the advertisement but also later in the body text, intentions to inform, serve, thank customers for their support, make them promises of good service in the future the advertiser most respectfully informs, begs leave to inform or acquaint the audience the advertiser has an informative purpose in the communication and needs to ask permission to approach the audience a narrative structure with verbs in the past to describe actions performed in the acquisition or making of the commodity being sold -> quarantee of quality INTERPERSONAL WORK IN ADS WITH PERSON- MENTION 9

“Advertising depends on the social acceptance of its products by various stakeholder groups, such as consumers, business partners and critics in media and civil society. The acceptance of an entire industry and its social consequences is greatly facilitated if the main proponents of the industry in question are seen to come from respected social backgrounds and are socially connected to other individuals with ‘trusted biographies’. These inter-personal connections are a form of social capital accumulated through a process whereby social assets such as respect, confidence and loyalty are imparted through institutions including family, schooling and official organisations.” (Schwarzkopf 2008: 182) SOCIAL RELATIONS AS SOCIAL CAPITAL IN ADS 10

SOCIOCULTURAL CONTEXT OF ADS Advertisement Contextual resources dominant values, distribution of wealth, education Settings Practices of advertising and newspaper business Situated activity Advertiser- Audience;Genre styles and models; local circumstances and practices Psychobiography Purpose of advertiser Based on Layder’s (1997: 78) social domains Social relations – power – practices 11

SOCIOCULTURAL CONTEXT OF ADS Advertisement Contextual resources Population growth, industrialization, urbanization, democratization, individualism, increasing literacy, widening readership, changing commercial market and commodity culture Settings Increase in newspaper production; financial importance of ads; Mid-19th century abolition of taxes on newspapers and advertisements Situated activity Needs and attitudes of discourse communities; textual models available; regulation vs innovation Psychobiography (1) Attract attention, (2) arouse interest, (3) stimulate desire, (4) create conviction, (5) get action Social relations – power – practices 12

18th-century politeness as compliment culture (Jucker 2012) non-imposition negative politeness in English developed in the 19th century in the framework of broader ideological and societal developments (Culpeper & Demmen 2012) Emergence of indirect directives can you, could you… Do the 19 th -century developments in advertising styles tell the same story of developing non-imposition negative politeness? Advertising discourses: 19TH-CENTURY ENGLISH POLITENESS Relation between the advertiser and the consumer (in third person) No (overt) personal relation (YOU) 13

idea of self; individual vs. society power of middle classes; emergence of working classes population growth and urbanization social and geographical mobility These developments favoured the emergence of non-imposition negative politeness strategies As well as the absence of (networks of) persons in advertisements (e.g. Baumeister 1987, Cannadine 1998, Culpeper & Demmen 2012, Jucker 2012, Woods 1995) 19TH-CENTURY SOCIO- CULTURAL-PRAGMATIC DEVELOPMENTS LOOSE-KNIT NETWORKS 14

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FACEWORK IN INTERACTION Social (verbal) interaction Interaction order Politeness (in excess) (Politic) facework Impoliteness (below bar) (Bax & Kádár 2012: 16)