FACTORS BEHIND SOCIOPRAGMATIC CHANGE IN

19TH-CENTURY BRITISH NEWSPAPER

ADVERTISEMENTS

MINNA PALANDER-COLLIN

IPRA, ANTWERP JULY 2015

THEMES• 19TH-CENTURY CHANGE IN ADVERTISEMENTS:

DECREASING PERSON-MENTION• ADVERTISEMENTS IN SOCIO-CULTURAL

CONTEXT: DOMAIN THEORY• ADVERTISEMENTS AND 19TH-CENTURY

DEVELOPMENTS IN POLITENESS

ADVERTISEMENTS 1785-1880

3

The Times Aug 1805

The Times Jan 1880

ADVERTISEMENTS 1785-1880

4

The Times, Aug 1805

The Times, Jan 1880

AdvertiserOther peopleAudience

DECREASING PERSON-MENTION IN ADS

5

AUDIENCE-MENTION

1785 1805 1815 1835 1855 18800

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

Average audience-mention per ad

Audience Times Audience Morning Post

6

ADVERTISER

1785 1805 1815 1835 1855 18800%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

Proportion of ads with advertiser only

AD Times AD Morning Post

7

ADVERTISER + AUDIENCE

1785 1805 1815 1835 1855 18800%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

Proportion of ads with advertiser and audience mention

AD+ AU Times AD+ AU Morning Post

8

• The advertiser’s deferential politeness towards the audience especially in the opening phrases of the advertisement but also later in the body text, intentions to inform, serve, thank customers for their support, make them promises of good service in the future • the advertiser most respectfully informs, begs leave to inform or

acquaint the audience• the advertiser has an informative purpose in the communication and

needs to ask permission to approach the audience• a narrative structure with verbs in the past to describe actions performed

in the acquisition or making of the commodity being sold • -> quarantee of quality

INTERPERSONAL WORK IN ADS WITH PERSON-MENTION

9

• “Advertising depends on the social acceptance of its products by various stakeholder groups, such as consumers, business partners and critics in media and civil society. The acceptance of an entire industry and its social consequences is greatly facilitated if the main proponents of the industry in question are seen to come from respected social backgrounds and are socially connected to other individuals with ‘trusted biographies’. These inter-personal connections are a form of social capital accumulated through a process whereby social assets such as respect, confidence and loyalty are imparted through institutions including family, schooling and official organisations.” (Schwarzkopf 2008: 182)

SOCIAL RELATIONS AS SOCIAL CAPITAL IN ADS

10

SOCIOCULTURAL CONTEXT OF ADS

Advertisement

Contextual resources

dominant values, distribution of

wealth, education

Settings Practices of

advertising and newspaper business

Situated activity Advertiser-

Audience;Genre styles and

models; local circumstances and practices

Psychobiography Purpose of advertiser

Based on Layder’s (1997: 78) social domains

Social relations – power – practices

11

SOCIOCULTURAL CONTEXT OF ADS

AdvertisementContextual resources

Population growth, industrialization,

urbanization, democratization,

individualism, increasing literacy,

widening readership, changing commercial

market and commodity culture

Settings

Increase in newspaper

production; financial importance of ads; Mid-19th century

abolition of taxes on newspapers and advertisements

Situated activity Needs and attitudes

of discourse communities; textual

models available; regulation vs innovation

Psychobiography

(1) Attract attention, (2) arouse interest, (3) stimulate desire, (4) create conviction,

(5) get action

Social relations – power – practices

12

• 18th-century politeness as compliment culture (Jucker 2012) • non-imposition negative politeness in English developed in the 19th

century in the framework of broader ideological and societal developments (Culpeper & Demmen 2012)• Emergence of indirect directives can you, could you…

• Do the 19th-century developments in advertising styles tell the same story of developing non-imposition negative politeness?

• Advertising discourses:

19TH-CENTURY ENGLISH POLITENESS

Relation between the advertiser and the consumer (in third person)

No (overt) personal relation

(YOU)

13

• idea of self; individual vs. society• power of middle classes; emergence of working classes• population growth and urbanization • social and geographical mobility • These developments favoured the emergence of non-imposition

negative politeness strategies • As well as the absence of (networks of) persons in advertisements• (e.g. Baumeister 1987, Cannadine 1998, Culpeper & Demmen 2012,

Jucker 2012, Woods 1995)

19TH-CENTURY SOCIO-CULTURAL-PRAGMATIC DEVELOPMENTS

LOOSE-KNIT NETWORKS

14

THANK YOU!

FACEWORK IN INTERACTION

Social (verbal) interaction

Interaction order

Politeness (in excess)

(Politic) facework

Impoliteness (below bar)(Bax & Kádár 2012: 16)