Critical Discourse Analysis of Beauty Product Advertisements

Abstract

The present study entitled Critical Discourse Analysis of Beauty Product Advertisements is an effort to identify and analyze the linguistic features of beauty product advertisement critically in terms of lexical and syntactic features and to investigate discursive strategies used in beauty product ads to manipulate women. Fairclough’s three dimensional CDA framework was use to achieve the objectives of the study. This study covers hundred beauty product ads as samples of different beauty products meant for women. I used purposive sampling procedure and data were collected using observation guidelines as the tools of data collection. The data were analyzed and interpreted descriptively. The study found that the advertisers employ their ideology and maintain power through the use of different linguistic features. Personal pronouns, adjectives, compound words are used as lexical features as well as questions, imperatives, short phrase; verb less sentences are used as syntactic features. The study also found advertisers used scientific evidence, celebrity endorsement, use of numbers, partition of picture, use of emotive words, self-representation and so on to represent the identity of women. The study shows still women are taken as a symbol of representation in media discourse. This research consists of five chapters. The first chapter deals with background information of the study, statement of the study, objectives of the study, research questions, significance of the study, delimitations of the study and operational definitions of the study. The second chapter deals with related theoretical literature review, empirical literature review, implications of the reviewed literature and conceptual framework. The third chapter deals with methodological part of the study. It consists of research design, sample and sampling strategies, sources of data, data collection tools, data collection procedures and analysis and interpretation of the data. The fourth chapter deals with analysis and interpretation of the data. Finally, the last chapter consists of findings, conclusions and recommendations of the study.