Dialogic Approach To The Analysis Of English And Chinese Food Advertisements

As a key concept in Bakhtin School's theory of utterance, dialogism has drawn much attention from the circles of both linguistics and literature since the late 1960s. Although it is claimed that any language use is of dialogism, the dialogic nature of discourse is primarily based on the analysis of literary texts. Recent studies have shown that dialogism is also an essential feature of non-literary texts. Xin Bin's contribution to the investigation of the dialogic (intertextual) property of public discourse, i.e. news reports is a good demonstration. This thesis intends to present the theory of dialogism in another public discourse, i.e. food advertising, with an aim to reveal that our life has been corroded by the pervasive influence of advertising, which is ideologically oriented and that advertisements are indispensable to our life is merely an illusion. The exploration of linguistic and rhetorical devices in food advertising can serve as a reminder for consumers to be alert to attractive ads since food is of first importance to health. Supporting examples of Chinese and English food ads manifest the universality of dialogism in the register of advertising.The whole thesis is made up of five parts. Chapter 1 presents a brief introduction to the general framework of the study. Then a historical review of previous studies on advertising is demonstrated in Chapter 2. Chapter 3 offers an exposition of the dialogism of language and its development as well as the evaluation of the theory. Chapter 4 is devoted to the detailed analysis of linguistic and rhetorical devices employed in the English and Chinese food advertisements. The dialogic nature of the texts is exemplified in the forms of ostensive dialogism and covert dialogism. The former can be realized by questions and imperatives and the latter can be actuated by quotations, presuppositions, negations and contrastive prominences, and parodies. The remaining part is reserved for a discussion oriented towards the concealment of ideologies hidden behind the devices used by the advertiser. Chapter 5 provides a brief summary and a tentative conclusion of the thesis.