A comparative critical discourse analysis of selected commercial banking advertisements published in the press during a decade of transition and socio-political transformation in South Africa (March to May 1994 and March to May 2004)

[摘要] ABSTRACTThis study compared selected commercial bank advertisements published in 1994 withthose published in 2004.Its purpose was to establish whether advertising discourses foundin these texts reflect the socio-political changes that occurred in South Africa between1994 and 2004.It further sought to identify the features of the advertisements thatappeared during these periods in order to determine if there have been any shifts indiscourses during this time. This qualitative research relied heavily on Fairclough’stheory and method of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) for both its theoreticalframework and data analysis. In the data analysis section, a need arose to employ some ofthe tools of semiotic analysis as provided by Kress and Van Leeuwen’s (1996) 'grammarof visual analysis’ as well as a limited form of Thematic Content Analysis. Data analysisbegan with a thematic content analysis of all 36 advertisements collected for this study inorder to gain a broader perspective of the range of themes covered by theseadvertisements. This was followed by a comparative detailed Critical Discourse Analysisof two representative pairs of advertisements from 1994 and 2004 to illustrate thebehaviour of advertising discourses at these two distinctly different historical junctures.While the research has found some reproductions of discourses from the 1994 period inthe 2004 advertisements, it has also revealed that there have been shifts in the discoursesbetween 1994 and 2004.There is also evidence to suggest that in some instances the shiftshave more to do with the ways in which the discourses are communicated rather thanclear changes in the discourses as such. In the main, the study found that advertisingdiscourses, because of their hybridism and social embeddedness, tend to mirror the sociopoliticalcontext in which they are produced and distributed. As a result, they can be saidto reflect the changes and challenges faced by society at the time of their production.

[发布机构] University of the Witwatersrand