zahra rajabi fard; Bahram Modarresi; foroogh kazemi
Abstract
This research has investigated the topic in commercial advertising from the perspective of Lambrecht information structure framework by a descriptive -analytic method. 282 commercial advertisements have been collected from TV, radio, internet, commercial posters and street billboards. The main question ...
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This research has investigated the topic in commercial advertising from the perspective of Lambrecht information structure framework by a descriptive -analytic method. 282 commercial advertisements have been collected from TV, radio, internet, commercial posters and street billboards. The main question of this research is how the Lambercht’s framework accounts for the representation of topic in advertising. Results showed that from 288 advertisements, 155 appeared as topic in form of nouns or pronouns, 86 in zero form, and 41 as antitopic. In terms of function, content and statistics there was no significant difference between television and internet advertisement. On the other hand, in posters and billboards advertising, no difference was found. That is to say, in both of them audio-verbal factors are not involved and only the visual factor has an effective role on the addressee.IntroductionThe present research investigated the topic of commercial advertisements on television, radio, internet, promotional posters, and street billboards from Lambrecht's Framework perspective. The question that the research wants to reply to is how the topic is represented in advertising based on Lambrecht's approach. Lambrecht (1994) believes that the formal structure of the language is related to the communication situation and the words in which they appear, and this structure is established by grammatical principles and information structure. The components of information structure from Lambert's point of view include three categories: 1- Proposition information 2- discourse reference, and 3- topic and focus pragmatic recall and each of these factors plays an independent role. Literature ReviewIn the Persian language, many studies on information structures and topics have been carried out. Dabirmoghadam (1990) has investigated two types of topics in Persian as primary and secondary. In some languages the topic has a phonetic aspect, for example in English primary topic is always separated from other parts of the sentence in terms of tone of speech. He believes that in order to justify the element «ra» in the Persian language, we should abandon purely formal explanations and explain this issue in a syntactic discursive framework.Christa and Aprina (2012) have researched syntactic patterns in advertising slogans on the internet and in magazines (Prepositional, verbal, nominal, adverbial, and adjective phrases). The result shows that the most appropriate phrases for advertising are verbal phrases.MethodologyThe research data was collected by the library method and the research was descriptive-analytical. The volume of data is 282 commercial ads from television, radio, internet, promotional posters, and street billboards.ResultsThe results show that out of a total of 282 ads, in 155 ads, the topic was seen as a noun or pronoun, in 86 ads it was seen as zero, and in 41 ads it was seen as an anti-topic as follows: from the fields of industry (24), health and beauty (31), culture and education (14), insurance (15), mobile phones and home appliances (30), automobiles and accessories (14), clothes and shoes (18), food (108). Moreover, the topic is divided into three forms: 1- nominal and pronominal topical, 2- anti-topic, and 3- zero topic. The research shows a high frequency of using topics as nouns and pronouns in commercial ads.Table 1The frequency of different types of topicsZero topicAnti topicNominal and pronominal topicTotal ad8641155282*Here is a note on the table.Out of 282 ads, 155 ads have been seen as nouns or pronouns, 86 ads have been seen as zero, and 41 ads have been seen as anti-topic.ConclusionThe results indicated that the topic has more frequency as a noun or pronoun and after that the topic is seen as absent or the same as zero also at the end the topic is seen as the anti-topic. In terms of type of work, content, statistics, and results, there are many similarities in Internet TV ads. Also, there are similarities in the type and form of work and content in advertising posters and urban billboards. Speech and hearing do not play a role in the use of this type of advertising, and only the image attracts the attention of the consumers.
