On Types Of Signs Applied In Advertising From The Perspective Of Peircean Semiotics

In today’s highly developed commodity society, the advertising phenomenon can be seen anywhere at any time. In people’s life, advertising is an indispensable part. However, advertising can be troublesome to people sometimes. The reason of this paradox lies in the different interpretations of advertising information. Therefore, it is necessary to have a specific analysis on advertising.Nowadays, the study of semiotics keeps developing. With its combination of different fields, semiotics provides them with a new perspective and direction, thus has a greater and greater influence on them. The study of signs in advertising is also a research field of semiotics. In advertising, signs are fully made use of. It can be said that when people read advertisements, they actually read signs. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze the semiotic phenomenon behind advertising; it can provide some guidance on how to establish effective advertisements by analyzing the application of types of signs in advertising.Therefore, there are more and more scholars applying semiotics to study advertising, with their research results gaining more and more public attention. For example, Roland Barthes is the first scholar to apply semiotics to the study of advertising abroad. At home, Gou Zhixiao is the first one to apply semiotic approach to study the design of advertising language. According to Peircean semiotics, signs can be classified in to three types:icon, index and symbol. The different combination of types of signs in advertising will have a direct influence on the actual effectiveness of advertising. However, there are few studies on types of signs in advertising from the perspective of Peircean semiotics abroad. At home, some scholars, such as Li Jingwei, Li Yaoliang, etc., have studied the application of types of signs in advertising, but they focus more on the successful advertisements and seldom study the controversial ones.In view of this, the thesis, from the perspective of Peircean semiotics, choosing some typical advertisements from certain foreign brands, intends to unveil the hidden phenomenon in advertising by analyzing the application of icon, index, and symbol and their combination in these typical advertisements; it also intends to enhance people’ understanding of the nature of signs and types of signs as well as provide some enlightenments for domestic advertising how to choose appropriate signs in advertising, and some ideas for consumers how to understand advertisements appropriately by unveiling why some signs take effect in advertisements and gain popularity while others fail and cause a great controversy; what’s more, it intends to provide some suggestions for domestic advertising how to choose the signs that are widely understood and accepted by the audience by analyzing the factors of culture and individual difference which should be paid attention to in the choice of signs.