408B W20 Forrester

ENGL 408B - The Discourse of Advertising

Instructor: Dr. Clive Forrester

Term: Winter 2020

Class times: Mon. & Wed. 1:00pm-2:20pm

Classroom: ML 349

Office hours: Room HH141, Mon & Wed. 2:30pm-3:30pm (or by appointment)

Email: clive.forrester@uwaterloo.ca ext: 37905

Course Description

This course examines the linguistic and rhetorical tools involved in the language of advertising. Participants are introduced to a brief history of the discourse of advertising and how the rhetoric in that communicative genre has evolved across space and time (focusing primarily on the mid 20th century to the present). Additionally, the course utilizes various analytical methods grounded in rhetorical theory and applied linguistics in exploring the principles of advertising language. Finally, participants are engaged in the dissection and creation of original advertising copy.

Learning Outcomes:

At the end of this course participants should be able to:

  1. Understand the complex relationship between language, society and advertising
  2. Explain how advertising rhetoric is adapted to and influenced by time, ethnicity, gender and other aspects of culture
  3. Critically analyze peer reviewed publications on advertising discourse
  4. Conceptualize and design original advertising copy
  5. Compile a professional portfolio of original material

Week

Date

Module

Topic

Readings

Jan 6

Course Introduction

  • Course structure
  • Assessment types
  • Expectations
  • Why do we advertise?

Go Figure! - Ch. 1,

“Advertising

Rhetoric: An

introduction” pp

3-15

1

Course Intro. & Foundations

&

Ad Land - Ch. 1, “Pioneers of

Jan 8

Brief history of advertising discourse

  • Is “ad language” a distinct genre?
  • Evolution of ad rhetoric

Persuasion”

2

Jan 13

Analyzing advertising discourse

  • The “rhetorical situation” & rhetorical analysis
  • Discourse analytical methods

Go Figure - Ch. 5, “A Model of the Cognitive and Emotional Processing of Rhetorical Works in Advertising”

Jan 15

Workshop - Template

Jan 20

Advertising across platforms

  • The role of mass media
  • Which rhetorical strategies work best for different kinds of media?

Multimodal

Metaphor - Ch. 2,

“Theoretical

Models…”

3

Jan 22

Branding

  • What kinds of discursive practices make a successful brand?
  • The role of visual rhetoric

Go Figure! - Ch. 11,

The Ad Campaign

“Classifying Visual Rhetoric…”

Jan 27

Virality

  • The interplay between rhetoric and viral ads
  • A linguistic analysis of memes

Jenkins (2014) “The

4

Modes of Visual Rhetoric Circulating

Memes as

Expressions”

Jan 29

Workshop - Group 1

5

Feb 3

Sub- vertism

“Mock-vertism” in pop culture

  • The role of parody in advertising

Advertising Shits in Your Head Ch. 6: “Subvertising”

Feb 5

Subvertism & Activism

  • Do activists use rhetoric in the same way as ad agencies?

Advertising Shits in Your Head Ch. Part 3: “The Subvertisers - Resistance is Female”

6

Feb 10

Unintentional subversion

  • What kinds of rhetorical choices lead to an ad flop or backlash?

Thomas & Jones (2019) “Critical Reflexivity: Teaching about race & racism in the advertising classroom”

Feb 12

Workshop - Group 2

7

Feb 17

Reading Week No Classes

Feb 19

8

Feb 24

Gendering language

  • Linguistic approaches to

Talbot (2014) “Language, Gender,

Sex, Gender, & Ads

discourse and gender

and Popular Culture”

Feb 26

Ads for Women

  • Rhetorical strategies used in ads for women

Obar (2011) “Sex and Advertising”

9

Mar 2

Ads for Men

  • Rhetorical strategies used in ads for men

Mar 4

Workshop - Group 3

10

Mar 9

Political Ads

Political slogans

  • Discourse analysis of sloganism in politics

Holtz-Bacha & Kaid (2006) “Political Advertising in International Comparison”

&

Johnston (2006) “Methodologies for the Study of Political Advertising”

Mar 11

Personality Rhetoric

  • How is language used to promote or even create a desirable politician?

11

Mar 16

Policy Rhetoric

  • Rhetorical strategies for passing unfavourable policy positions

Mar 18

Workshop - Group 4

12

Mar 23

Conclusion

Portfolio Displays & Group 5 workshop

Mar 25

Portfolio Displays

13

Mar 30

Course Wrap-up

Assessment Breakdown: [Additional instructions are located on LEARN]

  1. Class Exercises (15%): Each week an in-class exercise will be posted related to the topic or reading for that week. These are short exercises which are graded cumulatively; the final mark is dependent on how many you completed, how accurately it was done, and whether it was turned in on time.
  2. Workshop [leading] (30%): Each class participant is placed in a group of 3 and at the designated time on the syllabus, will lead a workshop in their groups.
  3. Workshop attendance (25% - 5% x 5): You will earn 5% for attendance and participation at each workshop.
  4. Major Portfolio: (30%): Each participant will compile a portfolio of originally created ad copy in each of the 4 areas explored throughout the course.

Readings:

To make the most of this course, it is important to read ALL the assigned readings each week, as well as the readings assigned for the workshops. To facilitate this, all the readings are added to LEARN. You heard that correctly - you won’t have to buy a single book. A provisional reading list for the course is attached below:

Bitzer, Lloyd. 1968. The Rhetorical Situation. Philosophy and Rhetoric 1. 1–14.

Holtz-Bacha, Christina & Lynda Lee Kaid. 2006. Political Advertising in International Comparison. In Lynda Lee Kaid & Christina Holtz-Bacha (eds.), The Sage Handbook of Political Advertising, 3–14. California, USA: Sage Publications.

Jenkins, Eric S. 2014. The Modes of Visual Rhetoric: Circulating Memes as Expressions. Quarterly Journal of Speech 100(4). 442–466. doi:10.1080/00335630.2014.989258 (2 November, 2019).

Johnston, Ann. 2006. Methodologies for the Study of Political Advertising. In Lynda Lee Kaid & Christina Holtz-Bach (eds.), The Sage Handbook of Political Advertising, 15–34. California, USA: Sage Publications.

Mcquarrie, Edward F. 2010. Go figure : new directions in advertising rhetoric. Reference Press.

O’Barr, William M. 2011. Sex and Advertising. Advertising & Society Review 12(2). doi:10.1353/asr.2011.0019 (9 April, 2019).

Paula Pérez Sobrino. 2017. Multimodal metaphor and metonymy in advertising. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Talbot, Mary. 2014. Language, Gender, and Popular Culture. In Susan Ehrlich, Miriam Myerhoff & Janet Holmes (eds.), The Handbook of Language, Gender, and Sexuality, 604–624. UK: Wiley Blackwell.

Thomas, Kevin D. & Naya Jones. 2019. Critical Reflexivity: Teaching About Race and Racism in the Advertising Classroom. Advertising & Society Quarterly 20(2). doi:10.1353/asr.2019.0013 (14 August, 2019).

Timke, Edward. 2017. Social Media and Advertising. Advertising & Society Quarterly 18(2). doi:10.1353/asr.2017.0019 (2 April, 2019).

Tungate, Mark. 2013. Adland : A Global History of Advertising. London: Kogan Page.

*Vyvian Raoul & Matt Bonner. 2019. Advertising shits in your head : strategies for resistance. Oakland: Pm Press.

*This reading is not on LEARN, Kindle edition costs $9.99

Keeping in Touch With Me

Feel free to stop by during office hours and have a chat about your work. If for some reason you can’t come to the scheduled office hours, we can make an appointment to meet virtually via Skype or Facetime. Most importantly, do not wait until you feel completely overwhelmed to seek help. Let’s start talking as early as possible.

Academic Integrity

In order to maintain a culture of academic integrity, members of the University of

Waterloo community are expected to promote honesty, trust, fairness, respect and responsibility. See the UWaterloo Academic Integrity Webpage (https://uwaterloo.ca/academic-integrity/) and the Arts Academic Integrity Office Webpage

(http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/current-undergraduates/academic-responsibility) for more information.

​​​​​​​Discipline

A student is expected to know what constitutes academic integrity to avoid committing academic offenses and to take responsibility for his/her actions. A student who is unsure whether an action constitutes an offense, or who needs help in learning how to avoid offenses (e.g., plagiarism, cheating) or about “rules” for group work/collaboration should seek guidance from the course professor, academic advisor, or the undergraduate associate dean. For information on categories of offenses and types of penalties, students should refer to Policy 71, Student Discipline (http://www.adm.uwaterloo.ca/infosec/Policies/policy71.htm). For typical penalties check Guidelines for the Assessment of Penalties (http://www.adm.uwaterloo.ca/infosec/guidelines/penaltyguidelines.htm).