A Critical Multimodal Analysis On Ideological Infiltration In English Real Estate Advertisement

As we enter the social media age, we are being surrounded by more and more visuals from Internet toadvertisement. We can see visual images everywhere and they play a crucial role in the advertising. Visualimages in advertising have arrested wide attention and the language in it also has aroused great interest oflinguistics for its unique charm. Advertising, as a common method of conveying information, transmits itspurpose through not only the verbal texts, but also other non-verbal semiotic modes, such as images, color,sound, etc., which demonstrates the multimodal nature of communication. Advertising is not only thecarrier of information, but an instrument for advertisers to control the consumers and achieve theirparticular purposes. At present, producers delicately designed a great number of influential real estateadvertisements to exert great impact on people s consumption ideology and values. Hence, consumers havethe necessity to improve their multimodal discourse literacy so as to better distinguish the advertisedhouses.This thesis chooses20RE advertisements in New York Times as its data sources. And the thesisfollows the general guidelines of Critical Discourse Analysis and extends the research scope of CDA fromtraditional text-bound discourse analysis to critical analysis for multimodal discourse. The analysis ofimages in RE advertisements adheres to Kress and van Leeuwen s Visual Grammar, adopting amethodology of qualitative study, while the analysis of texts is carried out from the perspective oftransitivity system in line with the Three-dimensional Framework of Critical Discourse Analysis developedby Norman Fairclough, adopting the quantitative methodology. To probe into the social meanings and theideological attitudes of the two semiotic modes, RE advertisements have great value and realisticsignificance.In visual analysis, it is undertaken from the perspectives of representative meanings, interactivemeanings and compositional meanings in visual grammar. It reveals that the advertisers employ actionprocess, reactional process, and classificational process to fulfill the represented function. Visual contact,social distance and perspective are the main ways employed by advertisers to realize the interactivefunction, which also play an essential role in ideological infiltration. In RE ads, offer images are widelyused to build a seemingly equal and friendly relationship with potential consumers and make theiradvertisements more truthful and convincible. Close up and medium shot are frequently represented in REads to entail intimate relations with viewers, stirring up their strong desire for the houses and fulfill themanipulative. However, in some RE ads, long shot is employed by advertisers to foreground a uniqueness and nobility and to promote the status of the houses. The composition function of images is mainlyachieved by information value, salience and framing. The layout of different semiotic resources in an imageis by no means organized at random, because every element must function ideologically. Top and down islargely used to enhance the authoritative and noble image of the houses and make the language informationfor the houses more authentic and practical. Some other means, such as color, size, sharpness of focus areused to attract viewer s attention.In textual analysis, the thesis employs transitivity system. The study shows that material process,relational process, existential process and mental process are the four widely used processes. In REadvertisements, producers focus on material process to illustrate the particular service or the unexpectedexperience the house can offer. Through the pattern of relational process and existential process, advertisersexpect readers to attach great importance to attributes to the house. Because, for an RE advertisement, ahealthy and high-end living environment is very important for a house. It can promote the status of theresidents. Mental process is employed to arouse emotional needs of the readers, in order to make emotionalcommunication with them and to shorten the emotional distance and at the same time, strengthen the effectof persuasion. Therefore, language texts in RE ads also make contributions to the realization of ideologicalinfiltration.In a word, this thesis throws light on the means by which images and texts of RE advertisements inNew York Times work together to manipulate people s attitude and values in particular social-culturalcontexts. The results show that in RE advertisements producers try to cater for the readers needs ofbelongingness, love and harmonious life and to arouse consumers pursuit of celebrities, social status andself-worth. Advertisers attempt to combine luxury and nobility with individual value and social status. Inthis way, they indirectly advertise their ideology of promoting high consumption.