Monday, 22 June 2015

Mini investigation

For my investigation i have chosen to look at how Asda and Tesco use language in order to persuade the consumer to shop at their supermarket. I chose to look at this because we are constantly being exposed to advertising whether it be from watching television,watching videos on youtube, listening to the radio and on billboards etc. My hypothesis is that each supermarket builds the consumer in different ways to target their own specific audience.



Methodology- I chose the first two adverts from each supermarket  both from 2015, this makes it more reliable and shows that i didn't cherry pick the adverts.



Asda's predominant technique is the use of verbs, from both of asda's adverts there is a total of 37 verbs used. The verbs are used as they will have different meanings to each of the target audience members, the words can be interpreted in many ways in which could persuade a certain person to shop in their supermarket and purchase one of their products. Both of the asda adverts share a similarity as they rhyme " mopping,chopping,topping, popping" a polyzygotic is used here as it has a longer lasting effect on the audience, and to make the advert catchy and flow better. The connotations of the specific words will have an effect on the target audience too "steaming" the adjective has many different connotations as it could refer to ironing, cooking and cleaning which could appeal to both men and women.



Asda also uses synthetic personalisation by using second person pronouns "you", "you're" this is used to make the audience feel as though the advert is targeted specifically towards them and to build a relationship with them, it addresses the audience personally and could persuade them to shop at the supermarket and to buy their products. Asda's uses informal language in order to appeal to their target audience which is more likely to be families "roll back", "low prices", this would appeal to families as the recession has meant major cutbacks on the amount that families are spending, they are aware about the prices of products and would much rather shop in a supermarket where they can get more for their money.



Tesco's techniques are using nouns over both of the adverts i only found 5 nouns, the nouns are used to modify the meaning of the words "trusty","finest","carefully" this creates a different target audience compared to that of Asda. Whilst tesco does cater for 'regular' families which is demonstrated in the adverts it appears to be for the more affluent consumer. There is a slight lexical field of the word expensive "finest","ladyship","trusty","carefully","amazing" when these are placed with the product is creates an image of a finer lifestyle.



Another thing that is interesting from the Tesco advert was on the audio of the advert the voice over copies the tone and pitch of the other actors voices this appeals to the target audience as they feel as though that particular moment the advert is talking to them.

In conclusion my hypothesis has been proven and i believe that the evidence that i have collected supports this.

Wednesday, 17 June 2015

Alan sugar transcript

I chose to look at the apprentice extract as i was interesting in looking for language and power theories. i transcribed a short extract of the clip:

LS(lord sugar): Could've, would've, should've (1) yeah could've but you didn't (.) yeah (.) right (.) no (.)but you didn't yeah. I think i've heard enough(.) for me to make a very very difficult decision here today.

Claire: Sir Alan may i say one more thing please?

LS: (3) if you insist.


The theory that I chose to link this text to was Norman Fairclough's theory of unequal encounters, and Wareing's types of power.


Before I began to annotate I knew that we would see an unequal encounter because it is a clip from the apprentice whereby Lord Sugar has the most power as he can choose to fire contestants. As Lord Sugar is more dominant he doesn't have to worry about using standard English as he isn't trying to impress anyone. On the other hand the contestants need to use standard English and be polite as they are trying to gain respect and ultimately win the show.


Lord Sugar has both influential and instrumental power, this is because he is the authoritative figure and has the power to fire the contestants if they do not follow his instructions and complete the tasks that he had set. Ultimately the contestants want to please lord sugar to gain power over the other contestants in the hope that they will win the show.

The part of the transcript that interested me the most was the line spoken by claire, firstly she addresses him by the name "Sir Alan" the use of the proper noun "Sir" is used to benefit Lord Sugar's status. She is also using politeness forms in order to protect herself from a face threatening act "may", "please" here she is demonstrating Brown and Levinson's politness strategies. Her politeness has the desired affect as Lord Sugar allows her to speak. Although he makes her wait for what seems like a long pause in order to make her feel more nervous and to make the tension in the boardroom higher to create an atmosphere and a feeling that anyone could be fired, the three second pause that he makes her wait is yet again another example of how he is using his authority over the contestants. 

Tuesday, 16 June 2015

investigating language on twitter- A2 lesson

For three lessons we have been investigating language on twitter, we looked at various different tweets and annotated them to look for theories and other things that might have told us something interesting; for example:



This tweet showed multimodality and the fact that it is written in capitals means that you don't necessarily have to read the tweet as the capitals attract your attention and show that it is important. The emojis are used  to show his emotion- the 3 party images are used for celebration which we know means that something good/successful has happened.


For my investigation I decided to look at gender theories as I think there is more to talk about and it is relevant and interesting to find in most conversations. My hypothesis was 'Men are more dominant as they are straight to the point whereas women waffle', I was also looking for emotive language between the two genders I was doing this by looking at the length of the tweets.


For my methodology I chose to look at every third tweet to ensure that there were no anomalies and to make it more reliable as I wouldn't be cherry picking the tweets. The two people that I chose to look at were Ed Miliband and Amy Childs.


I made a chart which showed the different features and what I found in both of the genders over a total of 10 tweets for men and 10 tweets for women totalling to 20 tweets altogether.




Feature
Men
Women
Emojis
0
12
Emotive language
13
7
Sentence length
Average: 20.1
Range: 16-27
Average: 9.2
Range: 3-17
Hashtags
1
10


In my analysis I found that my findings do not support my hypothesis. This is primarily because of the choice of people that I chose to look at. Ed Miliband is an mp whereas Amy Childs is from a reality television show. It is interesting though in the fact that Ed uses more emotive language where we would expect Amy to as she is the woman, although this is because at the time when the tweets were posted it was nearing the general election where Ed needed to gain votes from the public whereas Amy does not.


Reflecting on the data sources I have found that they were ill judged as they are from different backgrounds, therefore this meant that I was a constraint and disproved my hypothesis.


In the next investigation I will make sure that I chose my sources from similar/ the same backgrounds, similar ages, same status and same profession to ensure that the data will support my hypothesis