Social Semiotic Analysis Of Advertising

THE STUDY OF SOCIO-SEMIOTIC IN PRINT ADVERTISMENTS

Keywords: Print advertising, Social Semiotic Analysis, Ideology, Critical Approach

Introduction
Advertisement, in the present age is omnipresent. The message of advertisers is everywhere - they are on billboards, on radio, on television, on newspapers, on magazines and other places. To say that advertising has become a universal form of mass communication in today’s “Global Culture” is an understatement. Using both verbal and nonverbal techniques to make its messages as persuasive as possible, advertising has become an integral component of modern-day social dissertation designed to influence attitudes and lifestyle behaviors by secretly suggesting how we can best satisfy our innermost

We are fortified to see ourselves, the products or services which are advertised, and parts of our social worlds, as far as the mythic implications which advertisements draw on and help to promote.

The term semiotics traces its roots from the Greek word semeion, which means sign. Signs were thought to be the central element of semiotics, however in social semiotics, the term resource is more vital as a sign is influenced by its utilization and not just what it remains for (van Leeuwen 2005:3). The semiotic asset is influenced by the social setting in which it exists. Semiotic resource evolves from Halliday, who contends “that the grammar of a language is not a code, not a set of rules for producing correct sentences, but a ‘resource for making meanings’” (van Leeuwen 2005:3).

Today, semiotic resources deal with not only the language mode, but at the same time, with an extensive variety of modes. To be more exact, semiotic resources need to do with all that we do or make, whether it is the thing that we speak, write or signal and so forth in our diverse cultural and social setting. Each one of the activities that we make has meaning potentials, and how these potentials are conveyed is the fundamental activity in social

In terms of this scheme, semiotic analysis occupies an important place within a common framework of critical discourse analysis of advertising. Here, the attention is on signs as a carrier of ideological meanings. What is required is a form of close semiotic description that is at the same time a precise account of the transactions that constitute social meanings. This research is only a step along the way. There is one further, last point. Image, word and color, seen in this way as the product of social practices, are just three of the many semiotic modes through which social meanings of ads are coded. Semiotic reference occupies a fundamental point in the relationship between advertising discourse and ideology. Semiotic analyses like those examined in this research are perhaps basic building block in constructing