Information on the thesis

The immense role of advertising in modern world can hardly be limited
only to persuading the addressee to buy a certain product. Its functions extend far
beyond  informing,  influencing  or  stimulating  and  reach  the  level  of  cognition
and conceptualization. The fact is advertising manipulates language to achieve
its  ends  and  the  strategies  at  its  disposal  are  manifold.  Moreover,  it  creates
substitute reality, thus realizing its manipulative potential.
The integrative pragmatic, discourse-analysis and cognitive approach has
served as the theoretical framework for the research. It has been demonstrated
that  advertising  discourse  is  a  strategic  process  aimed  at  persuading  the
addressee. The study proves that it is a kind of manipulative discourse since it
possesses the following features: it is one-way communication (from the sender
to  the  recipient),  its  main  goal  (modification  of  aims,  aspirations,  desires,
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attitudes,  tastes  of  the recipient)  is  hidden,  the  recipient is  unable  to  exert  the
reverse  coercion  and  may  only  either  submit  to  the  suggested  communicative
strategy  or  ignore  it.  Implying  concrete  and  unconcealed  from  the  recipient
goals,  advertising  discourse  is  predetermined  by  a  number  of  communication
strategies, whose ultimate goal is the correction of the recipient’s picture of the
world,  respectively,  they  are  subject  to  manipulative  macrostrategy.
Manipulation is exerted at the level of cognition.
Manipulation  as  a  specific  form  of  hidden  psychological  persuasion
involves  two  participants  (a  manipulator  and  a  manipulatee)  and  is  aimed  at
psychological categories of targets and social stereotypes. When extrapolated to
the  realm  of  cognitive  linguistics,  the  above  mentioned  notions  correspond  to
those  of  the  frame  of  the  addresser,  the  frame  of  the  addressee  and  the  basic
concepts of advertising discourse.
The application of the content-analysis has resulted in singling out six key
concepts  profiled  in  the  advertising  discourse.  They  are  SUCCESS,  FAMILY,
BEAUTY, ECONOMY, HEALTH, DANGER. Their notional, figurative and evaluative
constituents have been analyzed. Likewise, their conceptual features have been
identified  and  described.  The  procedure  has  been  conducted  in  two  temporal
segments  (1950-s,  the  «golden  age»  of  advertising  and  2000-s),  which  has
offered  the  possibility  for  modelling  the  structures  of  the  concepts  and
comparing them diachronically. Thus, the picture of the world generated by two
different time segments and reflected in two different historical periods has been
presented.
The similar strategy has been applied for the description of the structures
of  the  frame  of  an  addresser  and  the  frame  of  an  addressee.  The  verbal
representation of frame slots has been compared. The frame of an addresser is
comprised  of  four  subframes,  namely  ADVERTISER,  NARRATOR,  CHARACTER,
MASK.  The  slots  AGE,  GENDER,  RACE,  MARITAL  STATUS,  SOCIAL  STATUS,
OCCUPATION constitute the frame of an addressee.
The  findings  suggest  that,  by  adding  supplementary  attributes  to  the
structure of the key concepts, the addresser can modify the receivers’ picture of
the  world.  By  employing  certain  linguistic  markers,  the  corresponding
conceptual markers are explicated, which leads to evocation of the concept in the
addressee’s mind. The procedure can similarly be conducted in the reverse order.
Consequently, advertising discourse is a tool for interpretation of the reality and
constructs the ready-made patterns of behaviour for an addressee.
The obtained results demonstrate that the elements of the picture of the
world  represented  in  different  chronological  periods  differ  considerably.  The
structures of the key concepts of advertising discourse, together with the frames
of an addresser and an addressee, have been proved to vary significantly and to
be  activated dissimilarly.  The  main  conclusion  to  be drawn  is  that  advertising
discourse reflects as well as moulds the addressee’s picture of the world.
Keywords: advertising discourse, persuasion, manipulation, picture of the
world, concept, frame, slot, addressee, addresser.