Differences In Diction Between Ads Targeting Males And Ads Targeting Females As A Reflection Of Social Views Toward Different Gender Roles

With TV entering every household and the widespread use of the Internet, advertisements surround us every day and everywhere. People are constantly bombarded by the slogans of manufactured products. This inevitably draws people's attention to the language used in the advertisements. Against this background, the current research endeavors to explore gender issues in the language of cosmetic and auto ads by way of synchronic and diachronic comparisons. It is a sociolinguistic study focusing on advertisements to show the existence of gender bias in the language of ads and to call for some changes in social attitudes toward gender roles.This thesis starts out by surveying existing studies on the topic of gender bias in language of cosmetic and auto ads, and thereby sets down three hypotheses. After the introductory part, follows a definition of advertising by clarifying some vague concepts and highlighting its major functions. Next the thesis briefly presents the sociological, sociolinguistic and marketing theories essential to this research, which are the division of labor by sex theory and the theoretical proposition that language is an embodiment of social attitudes to gender roles, plus some marketing concepts. Following this is a brief account of the research methods adopted, which include a comparative/synchronic study and a diachronic study of ads, plus examinations of ads from the lexical and pragmatic perspectives. Then the thesis conducts a detailed analysis of cosmetic and auto ads in relation to the three hypotheses and reveals differences in social attitudes toward different genders and some changes in social attitudes. Finally the concluding part winds up the thesis by reexamining the three hypotheses in light of the major findings and summarizing the major subsections of the thesis.