Chapter 7: Style in Popular Texts

 

Chapter 7: Style in Popular Texts

•   The literariness of language is exploited in many mundane contexts, from the headlines in your daily paper to an advertisement for shampoo, and the patterns that we have been exploring within the domain of ‘literature’  can be found pervasively (thoroughly) in all manner of popular writing. 

•   In addition to identifying what we term the ‘literary potential’ of language in popular texts, there are other stylistic features which tend to be more specific to the domains of media discourse—from a magazine and advertising copy to the language of radio DJs and television presenters. In this chapter, we will focus on some of these popular texts, and look at the language of newspapers, advertising and magazines to show how these media draw on the literary properties of language to produce certain effects.

•   Media texts are not produced in a vacuum, for anyone who might be around to read them but frequently targets different groups of readers or audiences. Advertisements are produced with a ‘typical’ consumer in mind; magazines target particular groups of readers with different needs, from teenage girls to computer enthusiasts. The way that radio and television presenters talk to their listeners and viewers usually gives us an indication of who their typical audience is.

1.      EXPLOITING PATTERNS IN SOUND AND MEANING: HEADLINE TEXTS

•    A brief glance along the shelves of any newsagent will provide a rich source of examples of the kind of patterning we tend to associate with poetic language. The use of sound patterns in the form of alliteration, consonance and assonance is a prominent feature of headline texts in newspapers and magazines. Here are some examples:

Will you be fat at 40?
Steal from the stars
High street fashion special: an insider guide 
Bruising for a cruising 
Ice Surrender

•    In these headlines, the sound patterns created by alliteration are fairly common, as in ‘Fat at 40’ (which works without the presence of the letter f itself) and steal from the stars, with the initial consonant cluster /st/. Insider guide contains examples of assonance created through repetition of the diphthong /a / as well as consonance, the presence of a final /d/, which combine to produce a strong rhyming link between these two words. 

•    A similar strong rhyming pattern can be seen in the headline ‘bruising for a cruising’, wherein the two rhyming words only the first phoneme differs. The article focuses on the tough physical challenge of sailing while reversing the more usual word order of this colloquial expression ‘cruising for a bruising’!

•    Another example of this tendency to exploit the semantic level of language in headline texts can be seen in the newspaper headline below: 

Cash Lesson for Schools: Clarke delivers a stern lecture on teachers’ pay rises

•    Here, the text relies heavily on the semantic field related to education (lesson, schools, deliver a lecture) for its message. There is also an alliterative relationship between the /k/ of cash and Clarke. A contrasting headline on the same story from a different tabloid newspaper which did use an alliterative pattern, combined with an alternative word for ‘teacher’, is the following:

Sir’s pay plea turned down. 

•    It is worth noting that in the search for short, striking headline text, the way groups of people get represented in the press can often be inaccurate or distorted.

•    The manipulation of the rich potential of the sounds and levels of meaning in language is not limited to the tabloid press or glossy magazines. A recent headline in a broadsheet newspaper featured the following text:

Cereal killer shops prison.  

•    The phrase might suggest that a serial killer is buying or selling something in a prison. This could be a reference to the black market that often exists in prisons, where inmates trade goods and services outside of the official channels. Alternatively, it could be a reference to a fictional scenario in which a serial killer is able to operate from within a prison, either by continuing to commit murders or by manipulating others into doing so.

•    If the phrase is "Cereal killer shops prison", it might be a pun on "serial killer" that plays off the similarity between the words "serial" and "cereal". In this interpretation, a "cereal killer" could be someone who is particularly enthusiastic about eating breakfast cereal. The phrase "shops prison" could suggest that the cereal killer is buying cereal in a prison setting, perhaps as part of a humorous or satirical commentary on the food served in prisons. 

2.      LEXICAL CREATIVITY

•    Seeing language as a source of material that can be played with, taken apart and put back together in different shapes, is not just a property of literary texts. One area in which this playfulness is evident is in the creation of new words, and as always media texts are fruitful areas for this kind of linguistic playfulness. However, this creativity cannot happen randomly, and the way new words are formed conforms to the morphological rules of the language. 

3.      TARGETING THE READER

•    Most texts are written with a specific reader, or set of readers, in mind. 

•    If you write a shopping list for yourself, you will include only minimal information about what you have to buy. If you write one for someone else to do it for you, you will probably include more information about the kinds of things you need, such as ‘milk—semi-skimmed’ or ‘potatoes—red not white’. If you leave a note for the milkman saying ‘three pints today please’—he/she will know that you mean three pints of milk (not beer) and that today refers to the day he/she reads the note. 

•    So writers design texts, more or less successfully, for the people they intend to read them. Those people can be a specific, single reader (as in the case of the milkman or the person doing your shopping) or larger groups of readers. All the passengers waiting on a station platform would be the target group of readers for a notice saying ‘Danger: do not cross the line’.

•    Texts draw on various linguistic structures in order to address their readers. In the examples we have looked at above, ‘three pints today please’ has no direct imperative form of the verb, nor a direct addressee. The verb is left out and the addressee is inferred from the content and context of the note. Nobody except the milkman would consider themselves to be addressed by it. ‘Do not cross the line’ however includes a direct imperative, and although there is no specified addressee, anyone who sees that notice while waiting for a train cannot escape being addressed by it. 

•    On the other hand, in public transport buses in London, there is a notice above some seats which reads: ‘Please give up this seat to elderly passengers or those with young children.’ If you are not sitting in that seat, you are not the target reader of the notice. However, should you happen to sit down there, you would then become the addressee of that particular request. So, not all texts address all readers all the time, and readers, although they engage in a reading process, may not consider themselves to be addressed by all the texts they read. We move in and out of the position of ‘targeted reader’ depending on who we are, where we are, and what we might be doing at the time. 

a)      Direct address in media texts

•    Advertising in particular relies on targeting specific groups of readers, and one of the most frequent ways in which advertising language addresses a set of readers is by using the direct address term ‘you’. The French political theorist Louis Althusser (1977) has described the way in which most people will tend to identify themselves as the addressee when they hear the call ‘Hey, you!’, even though they may not be the person it is addressed to. He calls this phenomenon interpellation, or ‘hailing’, as it is sometimes referred to, and it has been a useful way of accounting for the powerful device of direct address which ‘positions’ hearers in many forms of ideological discourse, including advertisements.

•    In advertising, this use of the interpersonal dimension of language through direct address is one of the most prominent devices for targeting readers. Many advertising texts use some form of direct address in order to ‘hail’ or ‘interpellate’ the reader, to use Althusser’s term. This can be in the form of a statement containing the second person pronoun ‘you’, such as in the Scottish Widows pensions advertisement below:

24 hours a day...7 days a week... Now you can pick up the phone and get pensions information or advice and even set up a plan.

•    The use of questions in advertising discourse is also a powerful way of addressing readers since questions do not usually occur without a potential answerer. In other words, the occurrence of a question usually presupposes that (a) someone is being addressed by that question and that (b) an answer will be forthcoming. In advertising text, questions tend to place the reader in the position of the answerer, as in the following examples:

It’s 100%. Are you? (Advert for multivitamin tablets)

Which Waterman are you? (Advert for Waterman pens)

•    If you answer ‘no’ to the first one, then you need to take the vitamins, while the second one presupposes that you are already a ‘Waterman’, and all you have to do is choose which one fits you best! 

•    The scope, or range of possible addressees, of the ‘you’ in these two adverts, is arguably slightly different, as the ‘you’ in the vitamin advert is very general and could address any reader, while the use of the term ‘Waterman’ could restrict the scope of the ‘you’ to a category of people who are likely to buy and use this kind of pen. 

•    The function of an advertisement is not necessarily to sell a product to everyone but to target the most likely groups of consumers for their products.

•    One example is the text below advertising Midland Bank pension services (the pronoun ‘she’ in this advertisement refers to a baby pictured on the facing page): 

Before you know it she’ll be grown up with dependants of her own. Don’t be one of them.

•    You will have noticed the last sentence in the text above is the imperative don’t be one of them. The use of this kind of utterance, which is called directives, is another way in which advertisements draw on the interpersonal dimension of language. Directives are a category of speech acts which involve the speaker requesting, instructing or ordering a designated hearer or group of hearers to do something. In advertising discourse, directives again create that interpersonal link between the text and the reader, for example in the following:

Just do it (Nike sports shoes)

Show your true autumn colours (for men’s brogue shoes)

Get wise, get Which? (for Which? magazine)

Phone for your copy (Next Dictionary)

•    In English culture, we are taught to mitigate directives with politeness markers such as ‘please’ or by using question directives, like ‘could you lend me your lecture notes?’ unless the directive is going to benefit the hearer in some way, as in ‘have a drink’. The lack of these politeness markers in advertising discourse is not to make the directives more direct, or forceful, but to make the actions they refer to appear beneficial to the consumer, not to the advertiser. 

b)     Addressing the listener

•    Radio and television presenters are constantly targeting specific groups of listeners, rather than addressing their listening audience as a single, unstructuredmass. Martin Montgomery, in his research on DJ talk, found that radio hosts draw on a variety of devices to target listeners, ranging from the use of individual names to regional identification (anyone listening in Edinburgh), occupation (anyone who’s a typist in a hospital), star sign (Hello Scorpio) or other identifying categories such as age (if you’re over ten years old). In this way, DJs continually engage in shifting the forms of address that they use to target different segments of the audience. 

c)      Presupposition in advertising

•    Another way that texts address certain groups of readers is through the kind of background knowledge or assumptions that can be identified in them. 

•    Norman Fairclough shows how a letter to a problem page headed ‘Embarrassed by Boys’ sets up a particular set of assumptions about what it is like to be a teenage girl and, more importantly, what constitutes a problem for teenage girls in general. The letter reads: 

Please help me. I’m 13 and whenever there’s a boy on TV, and my Mum’s in the room I get really embarrassed. I’ve never been out with anyone even though Mum says I’m quite pretty. How can I get over this problem?

•    Fairclough claims that there are several ‘common sense’ background assumptions that underlie this text: first, that problems can be solved by ‘talking’ to someone about them (and that this can be achieved in print); second, that pretty 13-year-old girls ‘normally’ go out with boys, and third, that being embarrassed by boys is actually recognised as a problem in the first place! In order to make sense of the text as a coherent whole, readers have to have particular forms of background knowledge available to them that are culturally specific. 

•    Another illustration of how texts draw on readers’ common-sense background assumptions can be found in the following advertisement for an electric oven by Cookelectric, which is headed:

‘I’ve got a job and it isn’t cleaning the oven.’

•    In order to make sense of this sentence, we have to draw on our knowledge of women’s traditional role as suppliers of domestic labour—in other words, we have to identify the ‘I’ of the text, the textual voice, with someone whose job it might ‘normally’ be to clean the oven. 

4.      REFERENCE AND DEIXIS

•   The way we interpret the meaning of texts also depends on two crucial properties of language: reference and deixis.

•   Textual meaning is created on one level through our recognition of words in the text and through our ability to relate them to objects or ideas in the world as speakers and readers of English. If we don’t know what they mean, we can try to find out by using a dictionary. 

•   The other level of textual meaning is available to us through the context in which we encounter that text. Speakers and writers use deictic expressions to situate their words or their text within a particular context, and, unlike referring words, the meaning of these expressions cannot be fully recovered from the text itself, but from contextual elements outside the text. This is deixis, the linguistic property which forges the link between a sentence or utterance, and its context. Problems of interpretation may occur when the context in which a text is read differs from the context that was intended or assumed by its author. 

•   Compare the following three texts, taken from an instruction manual, a local newspaper and the opening page of a novel respectively. Which are the words and phrases that need contextual information in order to be fully interpretable? What kind of information is this, and how would a reader access it? 

I.        The illustration on the facing page shows all the equipment you will need to set up your computer and begin using it. Place your equipment on a sturdy, flat surface near a grounded wall outlet. Before following the setup instructions in this chapter, you may want to read ‘Arranging your Office’ in Appendix A for tips on adjusting your work furniture so that you’re comfortable when using the computer. 

II.       A young Morden family struggling to pay their bills have scooped this week’s Lottery Jackpot, winning nearly £3.3m. Fruit and veg seller SB and his wife C of Halesowen Road were facing spiralling debts and were about to have their gas disconnected when their number came up. Now S has given up work at New Covent Garden market and C has chucked in her cleaning work to enjoy a better life.... S, 26, said: At first I just could not believe it. I didn’t check [the lottery numbers] until Sunday morning. C was doing the washing up when I realised. 

III.     It was to be the consultant physician’s last visit and Dalgliesh suspected that neither of them regretted it, arrogance and patronage on one side and weakness, gratitude and dependence on the other being no foundation for a satisfactory adult relationship however transitory.

•   I and II may consist of the following phrases:

I.        The illustration on the facing page, this chapter, your computer, your equipment  

II.       this week’s lottery money, now, Sunday morning 

•   The phrases in the example <I> situate the reader firmly within the specific time and context of reading the instruction manual—the reference to the illustration on the facing page directs the reader to look at a page of the manual they are reading. Your computer also refers to the computer you have just bought rather than any computer out there in the Mac world! 

•   In extract <II>, the deictic expressions this week and now refer to a specific time when these events took place, as does Sunday morning. These time references are only meaningful if the moment of reading is very close to the moment of writing, and the writer of this story assumes that this will be the case—a fair assumption for a local newspaper. Reading this at a much later moment in time, we would only have access to when this week and now were if we were also able to see the date on the paper. 

•   In extract <III> you probably have nothing written down! There are no deictic expressions in this opening sentence which link it to the context of reading. This is not to say that deictic expressions never occur in fictional texts, but their use is less common than in other types of writing. Some modernist and postmodernist writing may use deixis in order to draw attention to the assumption that fictional stories are context-free, but in general, the use of deixis tends to be a feature of more popular textual genres which adopt a more personal form of address to their readers. 

5.      TRANSFERRING MEANING: METAPHORS IN ADVERTISING

•   Metaphors are often used in advertising to transfer meaning from one context to another. By comparing two seemingly unrelated things, metaphors create a mental picture that connects the product or service being advertised with an idea, emotion, or experience that the audience is familiar with. Here are a few examples:

•   "Life is a journey." This metaphor has been used in countless ads for cars, airlines, and travel agencies. By associating the product or service with the idea of a journey, advertisers can suggest that it will help the consumer reach their destination (whether that's a physical location or a goal in life) faster, more comfortably, or more stylishly.

•   "Diamonds are forever." This famous slogan from De Beers suggests that a diamond is not just a piece of jewellery, but a symbol of everlasting love and commitment. By using the metaphor of eternity, the ad creates an emotional connection between the product and the values that consumers hold dear.

•   "The ultimate driving machine." BMW's slogan implies that their cars are not just vehicles, but the pinnacle of engineering and design. By using the metaphor of "ultimate," the ad appeals to consumers who want the best of the best.

•   "Red Bull gives you wings." This metaphor suggests that drinking Red Bull will not only give you energy but the power to achieve your dreams and soar to new heights. The ad plays on the idea of flight, which is a common symbol of freedom and adventure.

•   Metaphors in advertising can be a powerful tool for creating an emotional connection between the product and the consumer. By tapping into shared experiences and values, advertisers can make their message more memorable, relatable, and persuasive.

•   The advertising of cars through their association with a certain lifestyle and social status has often relied on images of women to sustain it. One example of this is an advert for a Metro Rio which uses a picture of a seductive Asian woman with a car tattooed on her shoulder to draw attention to the ‘exotic’ colour range and ‘eye-catching’ features of this car. With the technical developments in sophisticated braking systems and air cushions, there has been a shift in the way cars are marketed, particularly the larger family saloon cars, which are now promoted for their safety features as well as for their engine power and physical appearance. The use of women’s bodies to achieve this has however persisted. Let’s look at how the meanings are constructed in the following advertisement for a Mitsubishi Space Wagon.

•   The picture of the pregnant woman next to the car immediately creates a link between the two—the way the text is presented visually invites us as readers to relate the two images. We could possibly make this association by thinking of the woman needing a car that was large enough for her growing family, but the relationship between the car and the woman’s pregnant body is made explicit by the text:

Nature isn’t the only that can carry a family in comfort

•   The metaphor created here is that the car is like the woman, both can ‘carry’ children safely inside them. The first sentence of the accompanying copy text however rather undermines this initial meaning by creating a second metaphor:

a welcome new arrival to any family

•   Now the car is being compared not to the pregnant woman, but to the expected child! The rest of the advertising text slips between these two metaphorical representations. On the one hand, the car is the mother, emphasising the high protection it offers to the family it carries, and on the other, the car is the child, the ‘new arrival’, reinforced by the sentence:

You won’t have to wait nine months for delivery

•   The metaphorical relationship between the car and the unborn child is accomplished by the use of a pun on the word delivery, the moment when you actually possess the car, and the moment at the end of labour when the child is born. So by drawing on these two metaphorical representations of the mother and the child, the message that this advertisement seems to be constructing for its readers is that on the one hand, the car will carry their family safely, and on the other, it will also be a member of their family. 

6.      ANALYSIS OF POPULAR TEXTS: CHECKLIST

•   You should now be able to say something about the following aspects of popular text

•   how newspaper headlines draw on sound patterning and semantic relations in headline texts 

•   how writers play with the morphological possibilities in the language to create new words 

•   how does any text address, or target, a particular group of readers

•   how texts are situated in relation to time, space and context through the deictic function of language

•   the use of metaphors in advertisements 

END OF THE PART