Fairclough's advertisement theories

This advert was designed to persuade readers to join the navy. The discourse mode of this text is narrative as there is only one partaking in the advert. There is no structure to the discourse apart from the effect the graphological effect gives to the reader. “Be cool”, “And join”, “The Navy”. These phrases are on separate lines and affect the approach it gives on the reader because even though there is no punctuation used, the words are still read abruptly.

The pragmatic effect this advert gives is that if you don’t do what it asks of you, to join the Navy, you aren’t cool. I can immediately tell that the target audience for this advertisement are young adults because the word ‘cool’ relates to that specific age group due to social conformity. The graphological aspects also affect the pragmatic meaning because visually you can see four divers with guns, scouting the area in the sea surrounding a large submarine. This lifestyle seems adventurous and exciting and so without joining the Navy this advert states your life will be without excitement.

The use of grammar in this advert is very limited because the wording is. The sentence type is an imperative as there is a very demanding choice of wording. From my personal opinion I believe the register of the grammar to be low only because they chose to use the word ‘cool’ which is in its most basic form. The sentence is very dominant due to its length because it is short and to the point, the fragment of text doesn’t avoid the subject and just imperatively explains to the reader that they should join the army.

Semantically this advert implies that you should join the Navy. Contextually I know that to join the Navy you are helping your country and so it is a respectable job. This gives the advert a sense of influential power because it gives the reader a sense of morality if they agree to the statement. The most noticeable utterance type is command however underlying the surface of the words I can depict elements of humour as well because of the word ‘cool’. This word is childish which doesn’t represent the brutality of the Navy at all, this gives a sense of joke because the advert offers a false sense of security to the reader.

The lexis used is Germanic and monosyllabic. There is no occupational lexis or jargon present as the statement is very simple. The introductory word for the advert, “Be”, is a primary auxiliary. This is significant because an effect primary auxiliaries can give is a sense of inclusiveness and so even by reading the first word this advert can give you something to aspire to do. The main lexical styles of this format is adjectives and verbs. These are used in their simplest form to allow the reader to get straight to the point of the subject. This effectively makes the register low although this is effective because stereotypically the people who join the Navy are less so academic and more so physically able.