Abstract

With the rapid advancement of the world economy and the process of globalization, advertising is playing a more and more essential role in global business world. The main purpose of advertising is to draw customers’ attention, arouse their interests and stimulate their purchasing desire. As language is an important tool in creating advertisements, it is necessary to make an analysis of the language use in advertising field. Pragmatics is a science to study the use of language and its rule pattern. It is the study of meaning in context, so the context theory is a crucial research aspect. The use of context in advertising not only can make it more attractive, but also evoke the purchasing desire of the target audience. Advertising in America reached its peak through the 1960s and lots of classic advertising works have high study value. This essay, in combination of the 1960’s background in America, mainly makes a pragmatic analysis of four classic advertising works in the hit American drama Mad Men on the basis of the context theory in advertising and Halliday’s register theory. To begin with, this essay makes a basis introduction of the advertising context theory. Next, three important level, namely, field of discourse, mode of discourse, and tenor of discourse are elaborated separately. Based on the context theory, the linguistic characteristics of advertising cases are analyzed at the last part. This paper is aimed at making the contextual analysis of classic advertising works in 1960’s America in order to have an overall understanding of America’s advertising culture. What’s more, it can expand the research perspectives of pragmatics and the context theory and foster the development of advertising. Provided with theoretical support, Chinese advertising business will have stronger creativity and competitiveness. 

Key words: context theory; register; American advertising; Mad Men

Contents

Abstract

中文摘要

1 Introduction-1

2 The Theory of Context in Advertising-3

2.1 The definitions of context in Advertising-3

2.2 The category of context in Advertising-4

3 Halliday’s register theory in Advertising-5

3.1 Field of discourse—Belle Jolie & Pond’s-5

3.2 Mode of discourse—Lucky Strike-7

3.3 Tenor of discourse—Kodak Carousel-8

4 The Contextual Analysis of American Advertising Works-9

4.1 The development of American advertising-10

4.2 Advertising in 1960’s America-11

5 Conclusion-13

References-15