C103 - The Semiotics of Advertising
Week 12 Lecture Notes
Monday 11/10/2025

For next Monday's lecture

• Please read Chandler, Chapter 6 "Interactions", 225-62.

For the rest of this week

• We have three bundles of asynchronous work and assignments for the week.
• The due date for the all three assignments is Friday 11/14, 11:59 pm.
  
  • Bundle 10 Explore rhetorical tropes in advertising, focusing on metaphor and metonymy
  • Bundle 11 Extend our exploration of rhetorical tropes in advertising to synecdoche and irony
  • Bundle 12 Explore ads which combine multiple rhetorical tropes in the same text
• I also put up assignments in Canvas for the term paper and the term paper proposal required before you do the term paper itself. We will talk about this toward the end of lecture today. And the written information about the term paper and associated proposal is available here (just below this line), and is also linked from the course homepage.

Term paper and proposal

• A lot of information is presented here.

Ways of Meaning (Chapter 5 of Chandler, 195-224: Rhetorical Tropes)

• Chandler concentrates on four of the major rhetorical tropes: metaphor (surely familiar to all of you), metonymy, synecdoche, and irony (also should be familiar)
• The goal of tonight's lecture is to survey those four "master" rhetorical tropes, illustrating them primarily with print ads.
• The three bundles will explore them in more depth, using quite a range of video ads.
  • Metaphor - the most universal and broad of the tropes
    • Structure: Metaphor is based on substitution of one thing for another based on implicit similarity
      • We can always depend on the pig metaphor
      • Trojan's "Evolve" ad campaign: Example 1, Example 2
      • Here's a Trojan video ad from the same time period, exploiting the same metaphor
      • A simile is a metaphor expressed more directly using "like" or "as" (e.g., he kicks like a mule), but it still counts as a metaphor.
      • So consider this ad for a Chrysler Sebring convertible, which I like to think of something like a visual simile.
    • We must distinguish between "live" and "frozen" metaphors
      • In a live metaphor, we still feel the connection to the original object (the original literal meaning). Examples: pig
        • In this kind of live metaphor, some characteristics of the literal meaning apply to the metaphorical target of the word (a pig is dirty, wallows in its own filth, eats a lot, etc.)
      • In a frozen metaphor, we no longer go through the literal meaning, but associate the final meaning (interpretant) directly with the original representamen. Example: bitch (a bitch is a female breeding dog, which has little or no obvious connection to the way we use the word with respect to women).
  • Metonymy - suggestion of something by illustrating something associated with it (in many possible ways)
    • Simple examples
      • "September 11 will never be forgotten"
      • "she made a career out of the stage"
    • Chandler enumerates types of metonymy
      • effect for cause ('Don't get hot under the collar!' for 'Don't get angry!');
      • object for user (or associated institution) ('the Crown' for the monarchy, 'the stage' for the theatre and 'the press' for journalists);
      • substance for form ('plastic' for 'credit card', 'lead' for 'bullet');
      • place for event: ('Chernobyl changed attitudes to nuclear power');
      • place for person ('No. 10 Downing Street' for the British prime minister);
      • place for institution ('The White House isn't saying anything');
      • institution for people ('The government is not backing down').
    • Lakoff & Johnson add some specific classes as well:
      • producer for product ('She owns a Picasso');
      • object for user ('The ham sandwich wants his check [bill]');
      • controller for controlled ('Bush invaded Iraq in 2003').
    • Examples for discussion:
      • Abbey National
      • Got Milk
      • The French Open
      • No one grows ketchup like Heinz
      • Burger King - Open over Easter --
      • Kielo Travel - Dreaming of a holiday?
      • Tabasco - Popcorn
      • Ambi Pur - Now that's an eau de toilette
      • Durex - Baby carrier
      • Red Bull gives you wings
      • Barilla - Celebrate spring
      • Bed & Breakfast Hotels
      • Tropicana - It's more than orange juice
      • Any number of Christmas-themed ads suggesting the holiday via metonymy
        • Starbucks
        • McDonalds - reindeer
      • Or this Barilla pasta ad for New Year's Eve
• Synecdoche: substitution of part for whole (or vice versa), or species for genus (or vice versa)
  • Part represents whole
    • Get your ass in gear
    • All hands on deck!
  • Whole represents part
    • England and the US played to a scoreless tie in the World Cup.
    • St. Louis edged Atlanta 4-3 in extra innings.
  • Species [very specific] represents genus [larger class of items]
    • May I borrow a Kleenex?
    • Let's go get a coke.
  • Genus represents species
    • Mister, you've sure got a fine animal there.
    • When he wanted a new cell phone, he bought the most expensive device available.
  • Sample ads
    • Jordan Insurance Company (motorcycle helmet ad)
    • McDonalds "Directions" ads
    • Mitsubishi - A simple screw
    • Vermont Department of Health - When you smoke
    • Cell Computing
    • RealHipHop "black music" --
    • Starbucks packaging
    • Cuttie cut (children's hairdresser)
  • This is about my all-time favorite video ad featuring synechdoche, and I think it is important that we talk about it in lecture before you tackle this week's homework assignments.
  • Hewlitt-Packard "You" ad
  • The "synecdochic fallacy": the part (or the particular) is taken as accurately reflecting the whole
    • The great French actress and model Catherine Deneuve taken as reflecting all French women (a 1978 Chanel ad)
    • There is no logical implication, but the association makes this a powerful tool
  • Synecdoche can be regarded as a special case, or subset, of metonymy, since for example, a Kleenex represents a specimen of a facial tissues, and therefore can be viewed as a characteristic of it (an example). Conversely, the class of facial tissues represents a characteristic generalization about the nature of a Kleenex. But if you are presented with an image and asked, is this a metonymy or a synecdoche, pick the more specific one if it is both (i.e., if it is a synecdoche, say so).
• Irony: signifier says one thing, but we know that it means something completely different (usually the opposite)
  • Double sign (signifier signifies one thing literally, quite another figuratively)
  • Most frequently humorous (at least in ads)
  • Here's a joke that illustrates irony:
    •  A linguistics professor was lecturing his class. "In English," he said, "a double negative forms a positive. However, in some languages, such as Russian, a double negative remains a negative. But there isn't a single language, not one, in which a double positive can express a negative."
    •  A voice from the back of the room piped up, "Yeah, right."
  • Sample ads
    • Pepsi Max with Ginseng
    • College for Creative Studies (art school)
    • IKEA - One Night Stand
    • IKEA blue bag campaign. Side-by-side comparison
      • IKEA's ad exploiting this similarity --
    • Homeless vs animals
    • Nova Schin non-alcoholic beer
    • Nissan 2
    • Dress to Kill 1
    • Dress to Kill 2
    • Dress to Kill 3
    • Smirnoff Dates
  • How one advertiser says irony works to make an effective ad
  • Interpretations change with time. What once was meant seriously becomes impossible to take without irony.
    • Union Carbide
    • Union Carbide 2
    • Camel cigarettes
    • Dutch Boy lead paint
    • Bayer heroin (cough syrup ad, 1897)
      • Here's a whole series of Bayer Heroin ads in Spanish (maybe from Costa Rica?)
    • Thalidomide and child safety (!!)
      • Here's a link to a CNN slideshow with pictures of Thalidomide-caused birth defects in children
    • DuPont cellophane
• Chandler's summary of the 4 rhetorical tropes we are considering

• Trope	Basis	Linguistic example	Intended meaning
  Metaphor	Similarity despite difference (explicit in the case of simile)	I work my tail off	I do the hard work here
  Metonymy	Relatedness through direct association	I'm one of the suits	I'm one of the managers
  Synecdoche	Relatedness through categorical hierarchy	I deal with the general public	I deal with customers
  Irony	Inexplicit direct opposite (more explicit in sarcasm)	I love working here	I hate working here

• This is not an exhaustive list of tropes!
• How extensive the list of tropes (any non-literal or figurative use of signs) is depends on how specific you want to be.
  • Here's a link to a more extensive list of rhetorical tropes
  • Or, if you prefer, here are a couple of alternative sites: list #1, list #2 .
    • Tropes apply to various levels of the semiotic text
    • Word
    • Phrase (= bundle of words)
    • Text
• The end of Chapter 5 in the Chandler textbook is devoted to the related concepts of connotation, denotation, and myth.
  • I won't go into that here today, and there are no questions relating to this material in this week's bundles. In Week 15 we will look into this material.