Phân tích diễn ngôn đa phương thức những quảng cáo đồ ăn nhanh bằng tiếng anh

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES DUONG HONG YEN A MULTIMODAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF FAST FOOD ADVERTISEMENTS IN ENGLISH (Phân tích diễn ngơn đa phương thức quảng cáo đồ ăn nhanh tiếng Anh) M.A THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201 THAI NGUYEN - 2019 THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES DUONG HONG YEN A MULTIMODAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF FAST FOOD ADVERTISEMENTS IN ENGLISH (Phân tích diễn ngôn đa phương thức quảng cáo đồ ăn nhanh tiếng Anh) M.A THESIS (APPLICATION ORIENTATION) Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201 Supervisor 1: Prof Dr Hoang Van Van Supervisor 2: Dr Nguyen Trong Du THAI NGUYEN - 2019 DECLARATION I hereby warrant and declare that the thesis entitled “A multimodal discourse analysis of fast food advertisements in English” is the outcome of my own work except elsewhere states otherwise by the references or acknowledgment It has not been submitted previously, in whole or in part, for the award of any other academic degree or diploma SUPERVISORS’ SIGNATURE STUDENT’S SIGNATURE Supervisor Duong Hong Yen Prof Dr Hoang Van Van Supervisor Dr Nguyen Trong Du i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish, first of all, to show my sincere gratitude to my supervisors, Prof Dr Hoang Van Van and Dr Nguyen Trong Du for their wholehearted assistance Without their invaluable comments, advice, and corrections, this thesis would not have been possible My special thanks also go to all of my lecturers at the Department of Postgraduate Studies, School of Foreign Languages, Thai Nguyen University for their precious lectures and suggestions that have inspired me and helped me very much in the completion of my study Furthermore, I am grateful to all authors of books listed in the bibliography, whose ideas are good references for my research to be conducted and developed Last but not least, I am indebted to my family and my friends who encouraged and supported me a lot ii ABSTRACT Online advertisement is one of the various kinds of media advertisement which unavoidably surrounds people‟s life these days Over the recent decades, many people of all ages have been into fast food products because of their undeniable advantages There are also, however, some health problems that can be caused by fast food but a majority of people cannot stop themselves purchasing and eating this type of food A lot of individuals buy certain products might be due to effective marketing strategies of the company This study aims at figuring out which verbal and non-verbal elements have been used in fast food advertisements in English and their persuasive effects on the consumption of the audience by having been placed within the multimodal discourse analysis perspective of Norris (2004) Explicitly, three video advertisements of the three most well-known fast food chains in the world (Kentucky Fried Chicken, McDonald‟s, and Burger King) were analyzed The findings of the study reveal that apart from language, there are many other communicative modes influencing people to consume fast food products like proxemics, posture, gesture, gaze, head movement, music, print, and layout Among those, each mode weighs differently in advertisements and has certain effects in persuading advertisement viewers iii TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vi LIST OF FIGURES vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale 1.2 Aims of the study 1.3 Research questions 1.4 Significance of the study 1.5 Scope of the study 1.6 Design of the study CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Theoretical background 2.1.1 Discourse and discourse analysis 2.1.2 Multimodal interactional analysis 2.1.3 Advertising 12 2.1.4 Fast food 14 2.2 Review of related studies 15 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 18 3.1 Context of the study 18 3.2 Research approach 19 3.3 Research methods 19 3.4 Data collection procedure 20 3.4.1 Collecting and logging data 20 3.4.2 Viewing data 20 3.4.3 Transcribing 20 3.4.4 Analyzing data 22 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 23 4.1 KFC advertisement 23 iv 4.1.1 Spoken language 23 4.1.2 Proxemics 24 4.1.3 Posture 25 4.1.4 Gesture 26 4.1.5 Head movement 27 4.1.6 Gaze 27 4.1.7 Music 28 4.1.8 Print and layout 28 4.1.9 The combination of various communicative modes 29 4.2 McDonald‟s advertisement 32 4.2.1 Spoken language 32 4.2.2 Proxemics 33 4.2.3 Posture 34 4.2.4 Gesture, head movement and gaze 34 4.2.5 Music 36 4.2.6 Print 36 4.2.7 Layout 36 4.2.8 The combination of various communicative modes 38 4.3 Burger King advertisement 40 4.3.1 Spoken language 40 4.3.2 Proxemics 41 4.3.3 Posture, gesture, gaze, and head movement 42 4.3.4 Music 43 4.3.5 Print 43 4.3.6 Layout 43 4.3.7 The combination of various communicative modes 45 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 48 5.1 Summary of the findings 48 5.2 Implications 49 5.3 Limitations of the study 49 5.4 Suggestions for further research 50 REFERENCES 51 v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS KFC: Kentucky Fried Chicken BK: Burger King vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure Proxemics in KFC advertisement 25 Figure Posture in KFC advertisement 25 Figure Gesture in KFC advertisement 26 Figure Head movement in KFC advertisement 27 Figure Gaze in KFC advertisement 28 Figure Print and layout in KFC advertisement 29 Figure Full multimodal transcript of KFC advertisement 31 Figure Proxemics in McDonald‟s advertisement 33 Figure Gesture, head movement, and gaze in McDonald‟s advertisement 35 Figure 10 Print in McDonald‟s advertisement 36 Figure 11 Layout in McDonald‟s advertisement 37 Figure 12 Full multimodal transcript of McDonald‟s advertisement 39 Figure 13 Proxemics in BK advertisement 42 Figure 14 Posture, gesture, gaze, and head movement in BK advertisement 42 Figure 15 Print in BK advertisement 43 Figure 16 Layout in BK advertisement 44 Figure 17 Full multimodal transcript of BK advertisement 46 vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale There is little doubt that advertising plays a crucial role in all kinds of business Individuals can easily find advertisements anywhere Over the last few decades, advertising has become extremely popular with a wide diversity in its forms These days, advertising and promotion have exceeded their popularity beyond traditional media dominating last century like newspaper, magazines, radio or television In accordance with the rapid development of information technology, online advertisements seem to be more preferred due to its merits such as time saving, convenient Advertisement is a powerful tool of communication to persuade people to buy the product advertised (Dyer, 1996) because it plays an important role in expressing and sending message of the product Advertisement, in a simple word, means drawing attention to something or notifying something to somebody (Dyer, 1996) As a result, manufacturers take advertisements into consideration as a key tool to bring their products to reach the customers and spread them worldwide Most fast food companies are generally very successful although the quality of their food is questioned every day in many research works and documentaries It seems that they are willing to spend a lot of their budgets on advertising In order to make their fast food products appeal to the viewers, the corporations should find the best ways to advertise Interestingly, other semiotic resources besides language begin to be used more frequently and widely There might have been some research on fast food advertisements all over the world; however, virtually no attention has been paid to multimodal analysis of fast food advertisements Hence, a multimodal discourse analysis study of videos of fast food advertisements will probably bring about a comprehensive look at discourse analysis of fast food products This study will attempt to look at fast food advertisements in terms of linguistic and nonlinguistic elements so as to see why they are so persuasive to the citizens It may not only enrich the application study of multimodal discourse analysis but also fill in a gap in discourse analysis of fast food 0:01.16 0:05.29 0:07.52 0:10.04 0:12.15 0:13.88 0:16.35 0:17.60 0:18.51 0:19.90 0:20.75 0:23.40 gazing at his dad Figure 12 Full multimodal transcript of McDonald’s advertisement 39 Among these modes, gaze is a very necessary component for the son, which follows his action of passing the burger and observes his dad‟s reaction For the dad, gaze is also crucial because he cannot know what is going on without seeing in his own eyes Therefore, gaze takes on high intensity in the interaction In addition to all the modes above, facial expression should not be missed to mention It helps express the participants‟ feelings, which in this advert possibly are love and satisfaction, without language In short, it could be implied from the ad that giving McDonald‟s chicken sandwich to someone you adore is one of the ways to express how much you love them As a result, McDonald‟s would attract more customers come to buy their fast food 4.3 Burger King advertisement Name of video advert: Burger King Commercial 2016 Flame Grilled Chicken Burger "Getting old" Published on January 2016 Length: 15 seconds Interaction: Having a meal Participants: an elderly couple, one woman and one man Food: Flamed grilled chicken burger Description: An elderly couple wearing crowns - the symbol of BK company sit in a place which is perhaps a BK‟s sale branch They hold two burgers in their hands and comically talk about the new item of the BK corporation and getting old Then there is a short introduction of the ingredients and the way how the burger is made In the end, the full image of the food is shown with its price 4.3.1 Spoken language Language in spoken form in the video is transcribed as follows: 40 (1) 0:00 The man: I‟ve been coming here over FORTY YEARS for the BURGERS (2) 0:02 Now they make a NEW CHICKEN BURGER (3) 0:03 Look at that (4) 0:04 The woman: Oh, I ATE it ALREADY (5) 0:05 I‟m GETTING OLD OVER HERE (6) 0:06 The man: You got old LONG TIME AGO, believe me (7) 0:08 Voice: Introducing the Burger King plain grilled chicken burger (8) 0:11 Now get to the flame grilled chicken burgers for just dollars only at Burger King The advert begins with a funny short conversation between two old people The man says he has eaten burgers of the company for a very long time - “over forty years” - and indirectly introduces the new chicken burger (as in lines (1) and (2)) to the woman Surprisingly, she replies that she “ate it already” (line (4)) and adds that she is also “getting old over here” (line (5)) “Here” refers to the place where they are sitting – a Burger King restaurant It means that the old female has also been a fan of Burger King for a long time Then, the man pokes fun at her age “you got old long time ago-believe me” Their conversation emphasizes their old age getting along with the food brand and the new kind of chicken burger They used simple and short sentences so that the viewers can get the message in the mean time of the advertisement 4.3.2 Proxemics The image in Figure 13 visualizes the distance that the two old people take up with regard to one another and other objects Basically, this proxemics does not change during the interaction so this capture can be generalized for the whole clip Two of them sit next to each other which could be inferred that they may have quite close relationship, probably friends for many years or married couple This proximity allows them to communicate with each other more comfortably while they eat They both hold a burger in their hands and having two glasses of Burger drinks on the table The distance between them and these objects is very short so that they can perform the action of having meal They take longer distance with 41 respect to other customers around and not communicate with them even though they are somehow aware of their presence Figure 13 Proxemics in BK advertisement 4.3.3 Posture, gesture, gaze, and head movement The modes of posture, gesture, gaze and head movement in the interaction could be seen in Figure 14 below The first image in the first row depicts the old couple wearing crowns sitting at a table with their heads lower down to the burgers in their hands The next image in the row shows the lady shifting in postural direction and moving her head to gaze at and talk to the man on her right The man gazes at the burger while talking with her In the first image of the second row, the man is shifting his body closer to the lady and showing her his burger The last image of the figure illustrates two of them continue eating the burgers while talking Figure 14 Posture, gesture, gaze, and head movement in BK advertisement 42 4.3.4 Music Background music without lyrics is played from 0:08 to the end of the ad This recorded music is a disembodied mode and plays a subordinate role to spoken language and other modes when advertiser introduces the fast food product “Introducing the Burger King plain grilled chicken burger Now get to the flame grilled chicken burgers for just dollars, only at Burger King” As people watch the advert, they may be attracted by the music and feel relaxed when listening to it 4.3.5 Print Right in the beginning, the brand name Burger King printed on the man‟s crown is shown closely by the cameraman and this is very important because it introduces the brand name to viewers (customers) as visualized in the first image of Figure 15 Then in the end, the price, the name of the product, and the logo of BK are shown to the viewers as in the second image of the figure At this moment, the mode of print is combined with spoken language to transmit the information to the viewers If the mode of print is removed, the audiences may find bored to get the information via audio only Figure 15 Print in BK advertisement 4.3.6 Layout The first image of the first row in Figure 16 shows the general setting of the advert with two old people wearing crowns – symbols of Burger King company, eating burger and chatting with each other in a BK restaurant There are also some other people sitting at other tables around them This layout not only helps spread the BK brand but also urge people to go to BK to eat Viewers can be perceived that 43 instead of having meal at home, they can go to BK restaurants to enjoy the food and drinks there as well as meeting their beloved relatives and friends The video ends with a short introduction by vivid demonstration of the ingredients to make the flamed grilled chicken burger: lettuce, tomato, flamed grilled chicken, potato, and onion as can be seen in the images from the second row to the fifth row in the figure Figure 16 Layout in BK advertisement 44 4.3.7 The combination of various communicative modes The snapshots at 0:01.25 to 0.50.60 of Figure 17 visualize the interaction of having a meal of an old couple inside a BK restaurant In this interaction, they perform two higher level actions which are chatting and eating They are positioned to sit quite close to each other so that they can implement both actions easily If the proximity is longer, for example sitting across each other at a big dining table, it would be harder for them to talk to each other The image at 0:01.25 below shows that both of them are holding a burger in their hands in a short distance to their mouths It means they are highly aware of the action of eating from the beginning of the interaction Before they eat, the man starts their conversation by mentioning that he has been a fan of Burger King for many years “over forty years” This utterance not only emphasizes the long history of BK company but also gives a trust in the fast food brand for other customers The woman moves her head and looks at him as visible in image at 0:02.19, which signals that she is getting involved in the conversation Then, the man introduces the new BK burger and shows it to her but she said she ate that one already (image at 0:02.15) The last two utterances of their conversation could bring some laughs for the audience when the man makes fun of her old age (image at 0:05.60) The images from 0:08.05 to 0:12.87 reveal briefly about the ingredients to make the new BK burger and its price There is some back ground music as disembodied mode to construct the ad At this moment, if the spoken language is removed, people still get the information through the objects illustrated and information on screen via the mode of print Thus, in this last part of the ad, spoken language takes on less intensity in interaction than in the first part when the two actors talk to each other In summary, the two participants employ the modes of spoken language, proxemics, posture, gesture, gaze, head movement, and layout to construct two foregrounded higher level actions of having a conversation and eating and the modes of print and music are contributed to make the ad more appealed to the viewers By applying these modes in advertising, the viewers might feel interested in the comedy Also, the advẻtisement enables the audiences to believe that people can obviously live long if they eat BK food Here, high modal 45 density is developed through the complexity of interdependent and interplaying communicative modes Among these modes, spoken language, proxemics, print, and layout are more intense than others in the interaction If one of them disappears or changes, the higher level actions are impossible to perform properly or the purpose of the advertisers may not be achieved It should be noted that spoken language proves to take on high intensity when it is in conversation rather than introducing the product as in the latter part of this advertisement 0:01.25 0:02.19 0:02.95 0:05.60 0:08.05 0:09.34 0:11.22 0:12.87 Figure 17 Full multimodal transcript of BK advertisement 46 In summary, there were a number of communicative modes utilized in the three video advertisements and they are firmly connected to convey the messages of the producers to the customers Among the modes, music, gaze, print and layout seem to be more outstanding in attracting the advertisement viewers than spoken language and other modes 47 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION In this final chapter, a brief summary of the findings is given Besides, some implications for language learners, the limitations of the study and suggestions for further research are also figured out 5.1 Summary of the findings The findings of the research have basically highlighted the answers for the research questions that are mentioned in the first part of the study By analyzing three advert videos of the three well-known fast food brands KFC, McDonald‟s and BK, the linguistic and non-linguistic features utilized have been pointed out: spoken language, proxemics, posture, gesture, gaze, head movement, music, print and layout These modes are interconnected to one another to convey messages from the producers to the customers, and the employment of one mode is not possible without at least some others Their roles, however, could be at different levels of significance In other words, as Norris defined, they take different levels of intensity in interactions However, it could be some modes, not all of the modes appeared in one advertisement By looking closely at the sample videos, it could be interpreted that language in fast food advertisements, unlike in other situations, generally is not always the only and primary communicative means meanwhile, music, gaze, print and layout are also shown to play crucial roles in transferring meanings as well as attracting the audiences Regarding effects that linguistic and nonlinguistic features in fast food advert videos, it could be concluded from the findings that all communicative modes emerged in the advertisements support one another in order to reach the audiences‟ eyes, ears and emotions This is a lot different from advertisements on radio or newspaper in which one mode may dominate other modes By combining various communicative modes in advert videos, the producers could express the best of their products in interesting and entertaining ways 48 5.2 Implications In the first place, the researcher believe that the study contributes to enriching the existing literature of discourse analysis on fast food advertisements, especially basing on multimodal interactional discourse analysis which has not seen in the majority of studies on advertising so far Hence, this research is expected to serve as a helpful reference for students majoring in English language as well as English language researchers when they study fast food advertisements Furthermore, the results of the study could be beneficial in teaching and learning English language In order to understand English conversation, getting to know the language itself only might be not enough Therefore, English learners who desire to master English language, especially English conversations, should not only pay attention to learn the language only Similarly, teachers of English should be reminded to combine considering other communicative features such as proxemics, posture, gesture, gaze, head movement, music, print, and layout rather than linguistic feature only in teaching and understanding conversational English 5.3 Limitations of the study First of all, despite the fact that this is a qualitative research, more fast food advertisements from other brands should be studied to get more interesting insights for analysis Secondly, a lot of explanations and interpretations in this thesis are derived from the author‟s subjective opinion through her research on the topic Thirdly, due to time limitation, limited reference materials as well as the author‟s limited linguistic knowledge and researching experience, mistakes are inevitable Finally, it may be more gripping if the researcher combined comparison between Vietnamese and English fast food video advertisements in her study although figuring out the similarities and differences between them is not the focus of this study These limitations should be considered for improvement in further related research All comments and suggestions from teachers and students who are fond of this topic are recommended and highly appreciated 49 5.4 Suggestions for further research This research is an attempt of analyzing fast food advertisements in English according to multimodal interactional discourse theory Nonetheless, because of the limitations mentioned above, some suggestions could be given for more exhaustive research in the future Firstly, further research should involve a bigger number of food brand names and be studied in a longer period of time for more comprehensive results Secondly, the author suggests further studies on the following areas: A contrastive analysis on English and Vietnamese fast food advertisements; an investigation into persuasive devices employed in fast food advertisements in Vietnamese and English 50 REFERENCES Arens, W F (2006) Contemporary Advertising New York: McGrawHill/Irwin Baldry, A., & Thibault, P (2006) Multimodal 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MULTIMODAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF FAST FOOD ADVERTISEMENTS IN ENGLISH (Phân tích diễn ngơn đa phương thức quảng cáo đồ ăn nhanh tiếng Anh) M.A THESIS (APPLICATION ORIENTATION) Field: English Linguistics