This course investigates the intricate relationship between language and advertising through the lenses of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), Social Semiotics, and Multimodal Discourse Analysis. Students will explore how language and visual imagery are used in advertising to persuade, inform, and influence audiences. The course covers key theories and methods for analysing the linguistic and visual elements of advertisements, revealing how these elements work together to create compelling and ideologically charged messages. By engaging with these frameworks, students will develop critical skills to analyse effective advertisements, enhancing their understanding of the role texts and images play in the advertising industry. 

While these theories share foundational principles, each offers distinct perspectives: SFL provides a linguistic lens; Social Semiotics extends analysis to cultural and social contexts; and Multimodal Discourse Analysis examines how text, image, layout and other modes interact to convey or challenge ideological meanings and power structures. Students will engage with advertising texts as data to critically analyse how messages are constructed, interpreted, and circulated. By applying these frameworks, they will gain a holistic understanding of language and communication in advertising, and develop critical skills to assess the interplay between language, visuals, and ideology. The course highlights applications across linguistics, communication, media, and cultural studies, enhancing its interdisciplinary relevance. 

Importantly, while grounded in theory, the course emphasises practical application. Students will develop analytical skills that can be used across academic and professional contexts, enabling them to critically interpret advertising materials and effectively navigate the persuasive mechanisms of contemporary media. 
 

• Explore the representation of narrative and conceptual relations between people, places, and things depicted in advertising texts and images; 
• Analyse the dynamic interaction between producers and viewers of visual content in advertisements; 
• Examine the use and significance of modality in both linguistic and visual communication; 
• Investigate how information value, salience, and framing are realised through textual and visual elements in advertising contexts; 
• Study the theoretical framework of multimodality within a social-semiotic perspective; 
• Understand semiotic modes, meaning potential, and materiality in the creation of signs; 
• Apply multimodal discourse analysis to uncover hidden assumptions and power relations influencing how advertising communicates and is interpreted. 

1. Communicate clear insights about linguistic and visual structures in advertising texts, the interaction between image producers and viewers, and how producers’ messages and attitudes are conveyed through multimodal compositions during individual oral presentations based on a collaboratively developed digital storyboard; 

2. Explore, interpret, and critically analyse language and visual communication in advertising texts (e.g. advertisements, magazine layouts, and websites for promotional materials and advertising campaigns), identifying how images convey contrasting ideological meanings, and presenting a coherent and succinct analysis through a research poster and a digital storyboard; 

3. Collaborate on a visual essay using an online digital whiteboard and produce a group video focussed on advertising texts, applying semiotic and multimodal concepts to assess their manifestation in textual and visual structures, and examining how social and communicative functions are mediated through linguistic and visual semiotic resources; 

4. Evaluate peer-delivered video presentations and provide constructive written feedback through online peer reviews. 

Lectures will introduce key concepts and frameworks for analysing print and digital media advertisements, as well as related texts. Students will gain insight into research methodologies pertinent to this field and critically examine issues surrounding culture, power and ideology in advertising. Interactive class activities will include polls, ungraded quizzes and case study analysis, alongside opportunities for students to reflect and participate in discussions. 

Assessment is by 100% coursework, consisting of:

• Class participation and discussion (20%) 
• Research poster (40%) 
• Digital storyboard (group) (40%) 

A list of required and recommended readings will be provided.