1. Rhetoric and Advertising
Text and Culture 2

2. Efficient advertising:
makes the content seem important
stands out from other ads
seems part of a greater whole –advertises a brand as much as a product

3. What is this ad trying to persuade us of?
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4. Remember
All cultural artifacts come with a symbolic dimension, over and above their functional one, and for that reason can be read as signs.

5. Signs have two sides: Signifier Signified Sign tomato (English)
pomodoro (Italian)
rajče (Czech)

6. In a sign the relation between signifier and signified is arbitrary
to connect a certain signifier with a certain signified, we need to learn that they are connected
the relation is not natural, but cultural

7. Signs have a surplus of sense
”tomato”
denotation connotation
(precise association) (imprecise associations)
kitchen,
vegetable,
ketchup,
red,
blood, etc.

8. Connotations are culturally coded.
In rhetoric, such culturally coded connotations are called doxa,

9. Doxa is ”belief” or ”opinion” that which goes without saying
a cultural and historical phenomenon which is misread as a natural one

10. Roland Barthes, ”The Rhetoric of the Image”
Connotations:
”Italienicity”
freshness
completeness
beauty

11. Rhetoric can help us analyze ads by drawing on
Inventio
Dispositio
Elocutio

12. Inventio The seven questions What is the message? Who is the audience?
Why are they targeted? How is message adapted to audience and medium?
Where is the ad published? How is message adapted to audience and medium?
When is the ad published?
How does the ad try to persuade? Logos, ethos, pathos?
With what arguments does it try to persuade? Head? Heart?

13. Dispositio Deals less with temporal order than with functional order.
Compare to the AIDA model

14. AIDA
Attention
Interest
Desire
Action

15. AIDA A - Attention (Awareness): attract the attention of the customer.
I - Interest: raise customer interest by focusing on and demonstrating advantages and benefits (instead of focusing on features, as in traditional advertising).
D - Desire: convince customers that they want and desire the product or service and that it will satisfy their needs.
A - Action: lead customers towards taking action and/or purchasing.

16. Elocutio
What is the style of the ad? Serious? Comical? Ironical? How can you tell? In what way does the chosen stylistic mode strengthen the thesis of the ad?
What stylistic devices does the ad use to persuade? Slogans, punchlines, puns? Other verbal effects? What are their functions?
Remember that images and pictures can function like tropes and figures just as words can!
What is depicted? The product and its functional use?
The effects of using the product? (Beauty, pleasure, community, fame, status.)
People or things associated with the product?

17. Canon ad analysis Attention / exordium: Welcome to the playground
Interest / narratio:
The image as an enigma, directing our attention to the copy to find an explanation of it.
/ propositio: Picture and name of product
Desire / argumentatio:
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Action
We are directed to a website, which demonstrates the product.
/ peroratio:
Slogan/logotype.

18. Gender as doxa

20. What is the doxa behind H&M selling underwear to women showing women;
and JBS selling underwear to men showing women?

21. doxa ”Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.”
John Berger, Ways of Seeing (1972)

22. Remember doxa are cultural, not natural
exposing doxa helps us see how we have been taught to see the world
rhetorical analysis can help us expose cultural myths

23. Homework for session 3 Read:
The Sample Analysis of Churchill’s speech (posted at Kurstorget)
Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address
Curie’s speech
Thatcher’s speech
The five wikipedia articles on the rhetorical parts (links in course outline).

24. Homework for session 3 Analyze
Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address (group 1-2),
Marie Curie’s On the Discovery of Radium (group 3-4)
Margaret Thatcher’s Remarks on becoming Prime Minister (group 5-6).

25. Homework for session 3 Present: A discussion of Inventio
A discussion of Dispositio
A discussion of Elocutio
Each group presents on Inventio & Elocutio, OR Dispositio and Elocutio!
10-15 minutes per group.

26. Homework for session 4:
Work in groups. Find an ad in an English newspaper or magazine, and
analyze it from a rhetorical perspective
present your analysis in class.
If possible, mail me an electronic copy of the ad before class!
Further details, p. 16 of course outline.