UNIWERSYTET WARMISKO-MAZURSKI W OLSZTYNIE WYDZIA HUMANISTYCZNY INSTYTUT NEOFILOLOGII

Joanna Szafraska
Nr albumu: 59684

FICTIVE INTERACTION VS. FACTIVE MANIPULATION

CONCEPTUAL BLENDING IN ADVERTISING DISCOURSE

KONCEPTUALNA INTERAKCJA VS. REALNA MANIPULACJA

STAPIANIE POJ W DYSKURSIE REKLAMY

Praca magisterska napisana pod kierunkiem dr Iwony Gralczyk

Olsztyn 2011

Prac przyjmuj i akceptuj ..............................................

Data i podpis opiekuna pracy

Potwierdzam zoenie pracy dyplomowej ..................................................................

Data i podpis pracownika dziekanatu

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................... I. INDISPENSABLE TOOLS OF COGNITIVE CRAFT USED FOR PRAGMATIC ANALYSES ............................................................................... I.1 ON THE WAY TO THE STRUCTURED WORLD ..................................... I.1.1 The applehood of all apples - Aristotelian universals as the driving force of categorization ..................................................................... I.1.2 Pioneering thoughts and experiments as a challenge to the classical model of categorization ................................................................... I.1.3 Similarity comparison process vs. spontaneity in categorization .. I.1.4 Short and long-lived packages of knowledge .................................. I.2 IN THE WORLD OF BLENDS ..................................................................... I.2.1 From many to one - the blend and its emergent content .................. I.2.2 Constraints in limitlessness .............................................................. II. IN THE PURSUIT OF A PROPER DEFINITION ........................................... II.1 ADS AD NAUSEAM - REAL EFFECTIVENESS VS. CONSUMERS FALSE IMPRESSIONS ............................................................................... II.2 COGNITIVE MISERS AND HOW TO MAKE PROFIT AT THEIR EXPENSE ...................................................................................................... II.3 FROM SHOUTING TO ENCHANTING - A FEW COMMENTS ABOUT THE DIACHRONY OF THE TERM ADVERTISING ........................... . II.4 REASSESSMENT OF THE PRAGMATIC APPROACH TO ADVERTISING............................................................................................. II.4.1 Advertising as the consumption of ideas - pragmatic definition in cognitive terms.................................................................................. II.4.2 Active response of the masses - where the real dialog begins ..........

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II.5 ADVERTISE - TO INFORM, PERSUADE, OR DEVIOUSLY MANIPULATE? ........................................................................................... II.5.1 Primum informare ........................................................................... II.5.2 Advertising as a persuasive macroact with a parasitic nature ......... II.5.3 Behind the conscious mind ............................................................. II.6 CAN THE MANIPULATED TURN INTO MANIPULATORS? ............... II.7 ULTIMATE DEFINITION OF ADVERTISING ......................................... III. COGNITIVELY SPEAKING - WHAT BLENDS TELL US ABOUT ADVERTISING DISCOURSE ......................................................................... III.1 FROM MACROCATEGORY TO ITS SPECIFIC AD HOC INSTANTIATIONS - CONCEPTUAL NATURE OF ADVERTISING DISCOURSE ................................................................................................ III.1.1 Endless examples - one definition. On the quest for adverts common grounds .............................................................................. III.1.2. Advertisements as attention grabbers - when the sign becomes an ad ...................................................................................................... III.2 ADVERTISING DISCOURSE - FACTIVE, FICTIVE, OR MAYBE FICTITIOUS? ............................................................................................... III.3 CONCEPTUAL BLENDING AT THE SERVICE OF MANIPULATION 1. Ambiguity ................................................................................................ 2. Non-verifiable facts ................................................................................. 3. Valuation ................................................................................................. 4. Counterfactuality ..................................................................................... 5. Simplifications ......................................................................................... III.4 ON THE BRIGHTER SIDE OF THE LIFE - CONCEPTUAL INTEGRATION NETWORKS IN THE ABSOLUT ADS ......................... III.4.1 A few words of introduction ............................................................ III.4.2 Simple message - multilayered blend ............................................... 3 82 83 84 70 73 75 76 77 78 79 65 60 59 57 43 44 48 50 52 55

III.4.3 Absolut messages in the Advertising Hall of Fame ...................... III.5 HOW SUBJECTIVE PROJECTIONS MAY SAVE US FROM SUBMISSIVENESS. THE EMERGENCE OF CRITICAL INTERPRETATIONS .................................................................................. III.5.1 Absolut Impotence subvert ............................................................... III.5.2 Absolut End subvert ......................................................................... CONCLUSIONS ........................................................................................................ BIBLIOGRAPHY ...................................................................................................... APPENDIX 1 .............................................................................................................. SUMMARY IN POLISH ........................................................................................... STATEMENT ............................................................................................................

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INTRODUCTION
And so we see, the Ad defines our world, creating both the focus on "image" and the culture of consumption that ultimately attract and inspire all individuals desirous of communicating to their fellow man in a profound fashion. It is clear that He who controls the Ad speaks with the voice of our Age (BLF Manifesto1).

The present paper is an attempt at some new insights into the theory of mass communication with regard to advertising by the implementation of the cognitive linguistic framework into its analysis. The need for a reassessment of the traditional linguistic definition of this global, omnipresent and constantly evolving phenomenon grows from the visible inconsistencies between the generally accepted approach and the status quo of todays advertising (and subvertising) practices. There are two major incentives, which have lead us to regard the existent linguistic deliberations on the subject open to discussion. Firstly, in most cases they have been restricted to the analysis of the pragmatic component of language as utilized by advertisers, which undermines the important role of interpretation in this kind of discourse and hinders the investigation of advertising effects in the form of the recipients critically generated response. And secondly, the proliferation of proposed definitions, deprived of a single rigorous line of reasoning, requires clarification of the terms recurring in the field of advertising, so that the analytical part of the paper could be grounded on the proper theoretical assumptions. As far as our primary observations are concerned, we would like to confront the idea of one-way communication as a common reference to advertising with evidence that recipients may, and in fact do, take an active part in the process, responding to the
1

http://www.billboardliberation.com/manifesto.html/. Retrieved on 6 May, 2010.

message that has been conveyed via an open channel of mass media. Hence, our first major concern is to provide a valid justification for the hypothesis that advertising should be accounted for as a discursive interaction, in which both parties of the communicative chain (i.e. the institutional sender as well as the mass heterogeneous audience) are involved in the final outcome of the discourse that in fact any member of the social community is free to join. Consequently, what will basically distinguish our linguistic examinations from most of already undertaken in the field is the special emphasis placed on the role of an active recipient, who, in our opinion, has regretfully been neglected. Next, on the premise that commercial messages are genuinely constructed to prompt very specific actions on the part of their recipients, our second objective is to determine what sort of intention most loudly resounds in their verbo-visual representations. That is, we are eager to resolve whether the strategies utilized by the speakers boil down to informative, persuasive or maybe manipulative status of advertising. Indeed we shall claim that advertising is a highly manipulative discourse, as most of its instantiations restrict the consumers knowledge by promoting the idealistic, thus strongly limited, vision of reality with the product in the middle of attention. Correspondingly, we shall examine how the intentions of those recipients who explicitly respond to the message, modifying its content to the primary senders disadvantage, differ from his/her major goals, and what the implications of such a responsive behaviour are for the final character of the whole interactive process. Since the paradigm of pragmatic linguistics does not provide necessary tools for identifying social, psychological and axiological underpinnings of the aforementioned aspects, we will base our investigations in this regard on the interdisciplinary perspective with a stronger emphasis put on the cognitively salient issues.

As it can be inferred from the abovementioned postulates, our study is supposed to provide a significant shift in the linguistic description of advertising by placing the focal beam of attention at the conceptual motivation underlying all its stages, from idea creation, through message elaboration, up to recipients subjective interpretation, thereby enhancing comprehension of its complex structure and reducing ambiguity of its functionality. For such an endeavor we have decided to use the methodology grounded on the main tenets of Cognitive Linguistics with the introductory reference to the traditional model of communication stemming from Austins Speech Act Theo ry. However, the major principles of that theory will not be taken for granted in the provision of the final definition as in most of the previous accounts, but reassessed according to their validity and accommodated to the current needs. As for the cognitive paradigm, the analysis will draw on indispensable tools provided by the theory of categorization and conceptual blending. Specifically, the latter will be utilized for an indepth examination of meaning construction in both the senders message and the recipients response. This, in turn, is supposed to justify our final assumption that the selective, and thus manipulative, vision of the world communicated between various social groups, especially in view of their divergent objectives, leads to the axiological dichotomy in approaching globally shared issues, which may impose serious limitations on the collective understanding of reality. For the purposes of the analysis proper, the empirical material has been carefully selected from a wide range of advertisements belonging to the ABSOLUT VODKA marketing campaign. Our choice of the brand has been primarily driven by the ambivalent attitude of the audience toward its commercial messages. While on the one hand Absolut ads have been highly appreciated and won many awards, on the other they met with a strong criticism, bearing on the appearance of the plethora of

subvertisements aimed at criticizing the brand for its outright promotion of an addictive alcoholic beverage. It was also not without significance that Absolut advertising discourse, comprising both ads and subverts, was outstanding for its internal coherence, high productivity and the resounding impact on the company, the field of advertising and the mass consumer. It was in fact one of only a few campaigns, which remained fresh and innovative throughout their whole vivid existence and until the present day have the manipulative potential to exert an influence on the mass viewer, whereas their contemporaries sank into oblivion or lost their validity long time ago. This could also be the reason why Absolut ads have been so eagerly fished out by social activists, who continued the discourse by modifying ads contents and turning the focus of attention on the products negative qualities, including its disastrous effects on health. All things considered, let us begin our discussion with a brief theoretical introduction that will shed light on the methodological grounds of the present paper.

I. INDISPENSABLE TOOLS OF COGNITIVE CRAFT USED FOR PRAGMATIC ANALYSES

Language, being at once both the creation of human cognition and an instrument in its service, is thus more likely than not to reflect, in its structure and functioning, more general cognitive abilities (Taylor 1995: ix).

Unassailable is the fact that advertising discourse sprouts from the actual language use in a specific social context. Hence, it may seem obvious that within the field of linguistics, pragmatic theories serve as a golden means to the proper study of this notion. However, such a common assumption gives birth to serious

oversimplifications, as far as the role of advertising is considered. Advertising must not be approached up to sending its so-called final product, that is an advertisement, to a recipient. After the message is delivered the process proceeds further, in that the message becomes interpreted and judged according to its consistency with a viewers knowledge and experiences. Moreover, an ad may reappear in the conversation with other viewers, while its composition or the product it promotes is appreciated. Even in cases when it is consciously disregarded, an ad gets imprinted on the viewers memory and may come back in many different contexts, such as the one we have just mentioned. Above all, the ads ultimate role is not to be sent, but successfully decoded. Otherwise the communication fails. So it appears that the most important stages of advertising discourse involve human mental, rather than physical, abilities. That is why we generally believe that the linguistically grounded investigations of communication would be incomplete, were they based exclusively on the vocalized component of language. Such a minimalist reproduction of human means of expression does not allow to grasp hidden complexities that accompany the actual interaction with 9

others. After all, human language is not just a verbal response to a given stimulus (as claimed by behaviorists), nor a self-contained autonomous system of signs existing irrespectively of its users (which bears on structuralism), at least not for advocates of mentalist approaches. And even in view of those, we are far from supporting the claim that language is restricted to a single module in our brain, which has been naturally there since our birth together with the knowledge of universal rules that govern the way we speak. Thereby generativism also seems flawed in our opinion. Humans think, experience, acquire knowledge, perform sophisticated activities and most importantly interact with other humans in various social contexts, all of which may influence their linguistic capabilities and contribute to multimodality of language faculty 2. All things considered, our linguistic research concerning human interaction requires paradigm developed on dynamic, usage-based model, which would situate language among other capacities of human mind, such as perception, categorization, acquisition, information processing, critical judgments, etc. A model which would not draw distinctions between competence and performance, synchrony and diachrony, denotation and connotation, or syntax and meaning, but merge them together providing revolutionary, non-reductionist view on language as an integral facet of cognition, anchored in embodied, holistic, imaginative and emergent thought (Langacker 2007: 422, Lakoff and Johnson 1999: 4). Hereto, what we need is Cognitive Linguistics, which can be characterized by all the abovementioned tenets and thus provide indispensable tools in relation to context- and user-dependent categories, filling the gaps of pragmatic analyses. Hence, in the course of the following pages we will focus on the most useful assumptions that have shaped the approach and will be exploited in the paper, beginning with the notion of categorization.

on the basis of Robinson (1998) and Kalisz (2008).

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I.1. ON THE WAY TO THE STRUCTURED WORLD One of the fundamental principles constituting the paradigm of Cognitive Linguistics is that language develops as a derivate of human embodied thought, i.e. results from perception and conceptualization of worldly phenomena as experienced by an individual language user (Kalisz 2006: 234). What follows is that language does not reflect an objective reality, but the speakers personal experience of a physical, cultural and social kind. Experiences that fit together are grouped into meaningful and relevant thought units, thereby forming conceptual categories, which in turn can, but do not have to, be verbalized as lexical or grammatical categories (Radden and Dirven 2007: 3). Such a subjective, highly individualized organization of thought and language, as a defining feature of experiential realism, contradicts the classical approach to categorization, which took roots in pre-scientific deliberations on language of an ancient philosopher - Aristotle, and which used to flourish as an evergreen theory in the field of linguistics until the revolutionary research of Rosch and her colleagues planted new seeds of what is today regarded as a purely cognitive linguistic science. To grasp the essence of novelty that the psychologist brought to our understanding of categories, let us firstly summarize Aristotelian line of reasoning. I.1.1 The applehood of all apples - Aristotelian universals as the driving force of categorization As a founding father of Western philosophy, Aristotle became an important figure in the history of science. His achievements have been an inherent part of many minor fields, including linguistics. Introducing new nomenclature into its methodology, he differentiated between essential (definitional) and accidental (encyclopedic) knowledge of things, the former constituting the main properties that define a particular thing, the latter only complementing them with contingent information (Lakoff 1987:

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161). At the same time, Aristotle claimed that the essence of phenomena is attached to particular, existing entities. Such instantiation of universals, together with implementation of logic into philosophical investigations, brought the shift of the object of study from ideal, higher world to natural one - the world, which in Aristotles view was composed of entities, their fixed properties and logical relations among them, forming a coherent, correct and complete structure that exists, independent of any human understanding (Lakoff 1987: 159). Stemming from these tenets, the philosopher formulated the classical theory of categories, according to which every entity possesses either a single property or a collection of properties that makes it a member of a particular category. On the basis of binary oppositions specifying each entity (whether it does or does not have a given property), Aristotelian categories can thus be defined as: objective (based on essential properties which are shared by all members existing objectively in the world, regardless of human understanding); clear-cut (consisting of entities assigned to them solely by means of necessary and sufficient features determined by nature); homogenous (with each member being equally important) (Lakoff 1987:161). Since language, as dictated by conventionalist approach, is the representation of human experiences, hence arbitrarily construed by human beings, while the external world consists of fully objective entities, which on the basis of shared, naturally emergent properties form objectively existing categories, irrespectively of human perception and understanding to boot, one more issue which should be evaluated on here is the link between those entities, their mental representations and words that describe them, that is between reality, cognition and language. Lakoffs (1987: 162 168) explanation of such a correspondence can be summarized as shown in Figure I.1.1: 12

MIND
conceptual categories
direct, systematic

SYSTEM OF SYMBOLS

OBJECTIVE REALITY
objective categories (things + logical relations between them)

conventional correspondences

LANGUAGE
linguistic signs
accurate reasoning

true knowledge of the external world

Figure I.1.1 Objectivist relation between reality, cognition and language The important point to note is that the mind is said to mirror nature if and only if there exist direct conventional correspondences between symbols and entities of the external world. Otherwise, that is if symbols fail to refer accurately to things, they cannot be perceived as meaningful (being either true or false). What follows is that the mind is not capable of gaining real knowledge of the world. To put it in other words, meaning of symbols used in thought and language is to be based on truth, that is on the capacity to correspond to the objective world (Lakoff 1987: 167). Finally, in objectivist view initiated by Aristotle, meaningful concepts go beyond human cognitive capacities and are not restrained by them, hence become transcendental. Stemming from those tenets, it would appear that categories exist independently of the speakers experiences, i.e. are inherently rooted in nature and can only be accessed by a human mind on the basis of accurate reasoning. Consequently, in the classical approach a category such as apple is not definable by the way the speaker perceives and conceptualizes it, but by the universal, primitive and abstract features which condition its structured whole. Can we thus claim that, for instance, the word 13

game is meaningless, while the category it refers to cannot be accessed by humans, just because its members do not share a set of such common properties? Definitely not. The categorys heterogeneous structure only proves that in reality governed by cultural, social and experiential divergence there is a place for well-organized networks of entities, characterized and juxtaposed by their mutual resemblance, rather than binary like features, which brings us to Wittgensteins remarks on categorization. I.1.2 Pioneering thoughts and experiments as a challenge to the classical model of categorization Wittgensteins philosophical discussion on different k inds of games as members of a single category allowed him to question the classical approach to categorization as an all-or-nothing affair, i.e. driven by a precise set of necessary and sufficient conditions met by all the category members (Evans 2006: 168). For if you look at them [games] you will not see something that is common to all, but similarities, relationships, and a whole series of them in that (Wittgenstein 1958: 66). The notion of family resemblances, as he called such interrelations, provided a reliable alternative to otherwise problematic and rigorous view on the well-delineated, definitional structure of categories. Moreover, his judgments pointed to the fact that categories are not bounded in any natural way, but the degree of their constituency varies depending on how we see and learn them. If so, we may differentiate between better and worse examples of a given category, i.e. more or less prototypical in relation to its concept. What Wittgenstein considered theoretically, Labov (1973) confirmed in hard experiments regarding linguistic categorization of household receptacles such as cups, mugs, bowls and vases. The basic procedure underlying a series of studies was based on showing the drawings of the aforementioned objects to the subjects, who were in turn 14

asked to name them. Contrary to what could be expected in view of the classical theory, there was no one common way of defining the objects among the participants. Moreover, their final decision as for an appropriate name for a given object was influenced by the purpose that had been assigned to it. For instance, when the object was supposed to be filled with coffee, it was categorized as a cup. However, were its contents defined as mash potatoes, it suddenly turned into a bowl in the eyes of the subjects (Taylor 1995: 40). Generally speaking, the outcomes of Labovs research revealed that the process of categorizing a particular object is strongly dependent on this objects attributes, which can be characterized as follows: 1) attributes are not based on binary oppositions (e.g. width or depth are continuous variables); 2) can be readily accessed by competent language users as the defining properties of real-world entities learned by experience; 3) might be functional (refer to the use of an object) or interactional (point to how it is handled); 4) do not stand for semantic primitives, which designate inherent properties of an object, but depend on its role within a given culture; 5) none of them is sufficient enough or essential for defining a given category (Taylor 1995: 40-41). In consequence hereto, Labovs experiments seemed to empirically confirm Wittgensteins philosophical deliberations, providing evidence with regard to fuzziness as well as cultural and contextual dependence of categories. The next point was to explain the issue of typicality, i.e. why some members are perceived as being the best

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exemplars of a given category and thus serve as reference points for the categorization of its less typical instances (Taylor 1995: 42). We owe the answer to the experimental pursuits of Eleanor Rosch, whose work within the field of cognitive psychology provided steady grounds for experiential realism, and in consequence, for cognitive linguistic approach. The studies conducted by Rosch et al. (1975, 1976) concerning focal colors and, later on, natural categories (e.g. fruit, bird) and nominal kind terms (furniture, toy, etc.) were generally based on the hypothesis that the degree of membership in a particular category is a psychologically real notion (Taylor 1995: 42). That is, the way categories are structured is not the result of naturally or arbitrarily imposed boundaries, but is governed by generalizations from prototypical exemplars as perceived by humans. The subjects judgments regarding the extent to which particular entities could be regarded as good examples of a given category exposed high levels of agreement, especially in those cases, where the item was closer to the idea of a given category, thus providing empirical evidence for the abovementioned claims (ibid. 43). On the premise that conceptual categories are governed by prototype effects, Rosch managed to prove that the degree of membership bears on other aspects of human behaviour. Broadly speaking, experiments showed that the central members of categories require less verification time, are more frequently and easily recollected, more rapidly recognized and first to be learned by children (ibid. 45-46). Accordingly, the primacy reflected by the prototype of a given category can also concern a particular level comprising a number of different categories. That is to say, in the same way as jabko (an apple) has a privileged status among other members of the category polski owoc (polish fruit), its belonging to a basic-level set of categories (as opposed to owoc fruit which stands for a superordinate-level category, or papierwka an early

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apple denoting a subordinate-level set) makes it acquire special properties, such as high frequency of occurrence, quick recollection, simple form of expression, etc. (Radden and Dirven 2007: 9) As argued by Rosch, the reason why basic-level categories are so cognitively salient is that they most fully exploit the real -world correlation of attributes, which means that we do not need a lot of processing effort in order to define their common properties, as they in fact do not share so many of them as the categories falling into a lower or higher level of taxonomy (Taylor 1995: 50-51). Summing up, categories as described within the cognitive paradigm have the following defining features: are born in human mind, which allows humans to organize unstructured world into coherent sets of similar experiences that can find reflection in language and grammar; are heavily based on culture; some of them have clear boundaries (bird), but exhibit prototype effects, i.e. among their members there are better and worse examples of the category; some are graded (tall, game) in that they have fuzzy boundaries and a radial structure; are grounded in gestalt perception (although formed from many parts, are conceived of as unified wholes, thus due to their very schematic structure, basiclevel categories are most cognitively salient), and grow out of bodily, social and cultural experience; are included in two sorts of hierarchies: taxonomy (based on kind-of relations, e.g. apple is a member of a higher category fruit and has its own members, such as early apple) and partonomy (based on part-of relations, e.g. pips are parts of the category apple); 17

belong to wider areas of conceptualization, such as frames, domains or ICMs (Radden and Dirven 2007: 8).

I.1.3 Similarity comparison process vs. spontaneity in categorization Until now we have been dealing with the so-called common categories, whose one of defining features is the gradable similarity of their members to the category concept based on correlation of commonly shared attributes. However, as pointed out by Barsalou (1983: 225), such model of comparison between various category members is not always valid. On the contrary, the author claims that there exist categories, which exhibit no family resemblances whatsoever, in that their members violate correlational structure, bearing no common physical properties (ibid.). Hence, the only wa y to determine typicality gradient among the members of such category is to judge the relevance of their properties with regard to the goal for which the category has been spontaneously created. In that sense, the category concept is not an average of the common properties of the members, most of which become in fact disregarded, but accounts exclusively for those that are most relevant for the purposes of the current needs. Sets of entities which entail such extraordinary characteristics are what Barsalou refers to as ad hoc categories (ibid. 211). Although novel and emerged in specialized contexts (e.g. things to take on a summer camp), ad hoc categories are usually constructed from familiar, readily understood notions (backpack, tent, sleeping bag, waterproof clothes, etc.). Nevertheless, it does not change the fact that those categories do not enter long-term memory as easily as common ones, unless frequently used. That is why they require more processing time as far as the specification of their members and those members properties is concerned (ibid. 213-214).

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Another distinguishing feature of ad hoc categories is that due to their spontaneity and rare recollection they are not evident until a context is made explicit (Barsalou 1983: 213). To prove that, suppose we were asked to categorize the word apple. Probably the first thing that comes to our mind is its higher level category fruit. However, suppose the question appears in the following contexts: we are on a strict diet, which does not allow us to eat anything apart from lowcalorie food; we are discussing the first human sin during religious instruction classes; we are practicing shooting with a bow.

In all those specific cases, the answer fruit is no longer so obvious. What may instead be created for the current purposes are ad hoc categories such as: breakfast, the object of temptation, or target respectively. Such an example demonstrates that categorization depends not only on the most readily available solutions, well-established in our long-term memory, but also on the goals driven by a momentary situation. Notwithstanding the aforementioned differences, it has to be acknowledged that ad hoc categorizes may well undergo the same processes as common ones. More specifically, as already noted they can reflect typicality gradient, i.e. have graded structure, can be generated on both conceptual and linguistic level, giving birth to novel concepts and their verbal representations, once created constitute coherent wholes and may become entrenched, and finally open larger areas of conceptualization such as frames and domains (Barsalou 2010). I.1.4 Short and long-lived packages of knowledge Fillmore (1982) noted that whenever we speak, we do not use words as a reference to separate concepts held in our memory and recollected as single entities for the sake of a given discourse. On the contrary, every word we utter or hear 19

automatically activates a schematic and coherent package of knowledge, i.e. a frame, associated with its conceptual representation in our mind. Otherwise we would not be able to understand a given act of communication, nor to easily communicate ourselves (Radden and Dirven 2007: 11). For example, when our interlocutor says that Boruc is a brilliant goalkeeper, what makes us comprehend the meaning of the phrase, is the background football frame, within which a goalkeeper fits. Consequently, despite the fact that only one element of this abstract structure is made explicit, all the remaining ones are also present, but within our mind. As for linguistic expressions, we may differentiate between framing words, that is those which basically open only one very specific frame (goalkeeper - football frame), as well as vague words, i.e. ones that are so general that are not tightly associated with any particular frame (just think of the adjective nice) and may introduce ambiguity into a discourse. What complements Fillmores frames are conceptual domains introduced by Langacker (1987: 147), which he describes as necessarily cognitive entities: mental experiences, representational spaces, concepts, or conceptual complexities. In this way, domains can be understood as the broader fields of knowledge, encapsulating categories, frames associated with them as well as complex experiences, all of which are evoked as the basis for the specific meaning of a given expression. Hence, domains serve as conjunctions of schematic, otherwise unconnected bits of knowledge. For instance the car and house frames may become linked to one another by the common domain of combustion, since both categories they refer to produce exhaust fumes (Radden and Dirven 2007: 11). At this point it is crucial to note that for the purposes of local understanding and action, in line with the activation of particular schematic frames and their more elaborate conjunctions in the form of domains, our mind construes momentary, short-

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lived and relatively small conceptual packets called mental spaces (Fauconnier and Turner 2002: 40). Drawing on stable knowledge etched in our long-term memory, such dynamic containers for information can be freely multiplied and modified on-line as the process of communication develops. Contrary to fully furnished, fixed frames, mental spaces are partial, interconnected and operate in working memory in order to establish mappings, which can go in any direction whatsoever, producing various scenarios that are unavailable in reality at the moment of speaking (ibid.). The complex networks of those scenarios do not appear out of the blue, but emerge from creative integration processes - conceptual blending - invisible though ubiquitous in our thought and language. I.2 IN THE WORLD OF BLENDS Blending is childs play for us human beings, but we are children whose games run deep (Fauconnier and Turner 2002:50).

Our knowledge of the way we think and construe new, imaginative meaning would be scarce, were it not for the framework of Conceptual Blending Theory, proposed by Fauconnier and Turner (1996, 1998, 2002). After all, as argued by the authors, blends are everywhere. Whether we consider language, artistic and scientific endeavors, religious symbols and rituals, or cultural heritage in general, vast manifestations of conceptual integration processes can be discovered in any of them. Although basic, general and routine, blending processes reveal one of the most sophisticated and valuable capacity of human mind, that is the imaginative creation of novel conceptual structures on the basis of combining entities, whose natural correspondence is next to none. The present section aims at revealing the hidden

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complexities of the cognitive operation that allows for emergence of such mental achievements. I.2.1. From many to one - the blend and its emergent content In order to better grasp the idea of what the conceptual blending is, let us firstly concentrate on the basic, yet essential, aspects that constitute this complex process.

Figure I.2.1 The basic conceptual integration network (Fauconnier and Turner 2002: 46)

Figure I.2.1 illustrates the schematic representation of naturally much more complex and dynamic interrelations holding between mental spaces of a given conceptual integration network. Approaching its compositional structure with a greater detail, we may differentiate: at least two input spaces, constituting information selected from distinct conceptual domains; a cross-space mapping, established by partial matching of counter-parts in the inputs and based on vital relations, such as part-whole (metonymic relation), role-value, identity, time, space, representation, etc.; 22

generic space, which captures abstractions common to the inputs and maps onto each of them, facilitating the identification of counter-parts;

blended space, which by means of selective projections inherits the basic structure of the generic space, the specific structure of the inputs as well as acquires its own emergent structure, not present in the inputs but generated through: o composition - juxtaposition of counter-parts projected from the inputs, either fused into a single element, or included in the blend as separate entities; emergence of new connections o completion - recruitment of additional, familiar structure to the blend, determined by basic pattern completion, or the activation of a given frame evoked from background knowledge and long-term memories; blend becomes integrated - emergence of a new meaning; o elaboration - extended completion governed by mental simulation; imaginative and dynamic running of the blend, which modifies the blend and can continue ad infinitum as well as along different paths; backward projections to the inputs, yielding a flash of comprehension provided that the counterpart links are maintained (Fauconnier and Turner 2002: 44-49, Grady et al. 1999). Apart from those basic elements and interconnections, integration networks

exhibit other commonly shared features, including easily modifiable spaces, which may undergo changes as the process of communication unfolds and new values are introduced into the input structures by means of backward projections; recruitment of well-entrenched mappings and frames, which complete otherwise underspecified

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scenarios and thus allow for the unlimited and creative emergence of a new content; event integration, as the source of a single, coherent scenario that entails novelty of form, but at the same time the easiness of comprehension achieved by compression and selective projections; a wide scope of applications, including transfer of emotions, counterfactual reasoning, creativity within artistic and scientific fields, and, most importantly for us, deliberate actions in persuasive and manipulative discourse aimed at bringing expected results (Fauconnier and Turner 2002: 49, Coulson and Oakley 2006). I.2.2 Constraints in limitlessness Despite the fact that the possibilities, directions and applications of blending processes may seem restricted only by human imagination and world knowledge, they cannot proceed freely and indefinitely to work in an effective way. On the contrary, the composition, projection and elaboration of blends require the imposition of certain constraints, so that the final structure could properly emerge. Among such optimality principles governing the process of blending, Fauconnier and Turner (2002: 327-333) differentiate: the integration principle - the structure of the blended space should be a wellintegrated event; the web principle - the mappings between the blend and the inputs should be preserved; the unpacking principle - it should not pose any considerable difficulties to reconstruct the inputs and the network of mappings, knowing the blended space the topology principle - elements in the blend have to exhibit the same sort of relations as their counter-parts located in the inputs; the good reason principle - all the elements projected to the blend should be meaningful; 24

 the metonymic tightening principle - elements from the same input should be saliently associated with each other also within the blend (Grady et al. 1999). Here, we would like to point out that in the case of advertising discourse, the analysis of the blending processes against those constraints may be of great value, considering that the integration networks responsible for the new meaning construction do not emerge naturally within this specific discourse, but are prompted by specific, not necessarily honest intentions. Hence, the optimality principles could demonstrate the inconsistency of ads and subverts messages as far as our perception of the world is concerned, and thus point to the imposition of preferable ways of thinking. On this premise let us move to the analytical part of our paper, which begins with an attempt aimed at establishing a proper definition of the commercial practices.

25

II. IN THE PURSUIT OF A PROPER DEFINITION

Advertising often becomes the way to influence the recipient by all possible means in order to make them buy a particular product. Hence, it appeals to mental stereotypes, feelings and even affects subconsciousness with the sole purpose of persuading people to purchase the good. Such kind of advertisements has all the features of manipulation (Booz 1998: 3, translation mine 3).

Despite the plethora of definitions, which have been proposed with regard to advertising, no general consensus has been reached on the extent of its persuasive power. What follows is a rather vague categorisation of the concept, which fluctuates between information and manipulation. Moreover, there are visible inconsistencies in the general approach to advertising as an act of mass communication, which calls for reassessment of its motivation. As for typically linguistic examinations, they mostly focus on the usage (i.e. on the pragmatic component) of language, devoting relatively less attention to the cognitive underpinnings of ads creation, evaluation and recognition. Since, as we believe, approaching the subject from the perspective of cognitive linguistics may provide satisfactory solutions to questions yet unanswered, in the following chapter we would like to substantiate the existing accounts of advertising to one, definite stance, which could also allow for further, cognitively grounded research. Consequently, before proceeding to the analysis proper of specific advertisements (as well as their opponents in the struggle for our attention, i.e. subverts), which constitutes the focal concern of the paper, some introductory points will be made and taken for granted in all that follows.
3

The original reads as follows: Reklama staje si czsto sposobem oddziaywania na odbiorc wszelkimi sposobami, aby skoni go do kupna okrelonego towaru. Dlatego odwouje si ona do stereotypw mylowych, do uczu, oddziauje na podwiadomo jedynie w tym celu, aby namwi jej odbiorc do nabycia wskazanego dobra. Tego rodzaju reklama ma wszystkie cechy manipulacji.

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II.1 ADS AD NAUSEAM - REAL EFFECTIVENESS VS. CONSUMERS FALSE IMPRESSIONS Advertising is an extremely powerful tool, ubiquitous and inescapable in todays consumer culture. Whether we accept it or not, it has become deeply ingrained in our environment. Neither turning off a computer or radio, nor closing a magazine or newspaper liberates us from being exposed to ads. In line with the expansion of public communication via mass media, as well as the growth of competition on the market, advertisers have started to utilize every possible channel to pass their message to consumers. As a result, we may notice conspicuous forms of advertisements, like TV commercials, full-page magazine ads, unsolicited junk mail, Internet banners and popups. But there is also abundance of those meticulously implemented into the plot of movies, or TV shows by means of product placement. Hence, although invisible for the consumers conscious mind, such ads provide very vivid results, working on the periphery of our attention (Cook 2001: 222). The crux of the matter here is that due to the omnipresence of ads, we have become much more vulnerable to their influential power, as we no longer show any particular interest in messages of this kind, whether they shout at us from large, multicoloured billboards, or are hidden inside our shirts and get noticed only while rubbing our neck. Consequently, although there exists convincingly demonstrated acknowledgement of advertisements as attention-seeking tools, whose predominant purpose is keeping a consumers eye on a particular product to enhance its popularity and then sales, it is inextricably linked with the wrong assumption that advertisements take no active part in the decision-making process. Searching for justification for these claims, we may ask why it so happens that consumers prefer beef which contains 75 per cent of lean meat instead of one that is 25 per cent fat (Sutherland and Sylvester 2000:

27

26), why men are more likely to smoke Marlboro, while women are inclined to choose Vogue Slims, or why Bayer Aspirin is widely acclaimed as the best of all available on the market if, regardless of the producers name, it is always one and the same drug (Doliski 2003: 80). The failure to perceive the aforementioned preferences as resulting from the influence exerted on us by advertisers stems from our tendency to take our purchasing decisions for granted. We seem to forget the obvious correlation that the greater the popularity and recognition of a brand, the higher the possibility we will choose it as the well-tested. Instead of such conjectures, we should become aware of the fact that no matter what amount of cognitive energy we tend to put into elaboration4 of information concerning a particular product, its persuasive/manipulative potential remains undeniable. Otherwise, what would be the reason for spending astronomical sums of money on advertising campaigns? To strive after artistic merits, to give people pleasure, to educate or simply inform them? Although all these arguments seem justifiable, the ultimate purpose always stays the same, i.e. to sell what is being promoted. Therefore, rather than questioning the effectiveness of advertising, consumers should (just as advertisers do) pay greater attention to the means it utilizes in order to achieve the aforementioned goal. In fact, recent studies in the field of neuromarketing 5, in which fMRI is tapped to determine the best methods of affecting consumers behaviour by checking their brain response to various advertising messages, prove that advertising is no longer grounded in folk theories and pure intuition, but has strong foundations in hard, sophisticated science. This should be a sufficient reason for consumers to approach advertisements as seriously and consciously as advertisers and scholars do.
4

the term introduced by Petty and Cacioppo with reference to their model of persuasive communication called Elaboration Likelihood Model, found and explained in Lewiski (1999: 48) as an extent to which the recipient analyses the relevance of arguments used in a message that conditions its persuasive character. 5 e.g. Renvoise and Morin (2007), Lindstrom (2009), Pradeep (2010), etc.

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Now, the question appears whether the way we tend to process information really governs the extent to which we succumb to advertisers influence. So it seems. II.2 COGNITIVE MISERS AND HOW TO MAKE PROFIT AT THEIR EXPENSE Accounting for possible ways in which human behaviour may be affected by discourse, Petty and Cacioppo proposed two major routes leading to persuasion in the communication process, which Zimny refers to as the routes of cognitive processing (2008: 78; translation mine). Depending on the recipients effort put into the analysis of a particular message, the route could be either central or peripheral. The former stands for the recipients logical, in-depth interpretation of the received data, accompanied by careful reasoning, critical judgements and polemical commentaries, thus making the communication acquire the form of a two-directional debate. By contrast, the latter, characterized by the lack of focused attention or effort on the recipients side, results in taking the reliability of a message on trust (Lewiski 1999: 48; Zimny 2008: 78; Pratkanis 2008: 36). Of particular interest in this connection is Pratkaniss remark that people are cognitive misers, in that they strive not to spare a lot of their cognitive energy on processing information, for which reason they tend to adopt the peripheral route in decoding most kinds of messages. Consequently, special emphasis is placed on such properties of contemporary communicative acts as immediacy, brevity and triviality, which, according to Pratkanis, brings us to the overt propaganda (Pratkanis 2008: 38-39). Substantiating those considerations to the analysis of advertisements, Lewiski aptly concludes that most of them take advantage of our tendency to choose the peripheral route, for which he provides an example of a computer ad. Although many theorists would claim that such kind of a product demands sophisticated technical data

29

to be provided, since it is what most consumers search for while comparing the offers, Lewiski argues that due to the complexity of computer jargon, they might not understand half of it. That is why advertisers include in commercial messages a lot of irrelevant information and pseudo-scientific facts, such as positive opinions of unknown experts, endless improvements introduced in comparison to older versions of a product, or special attributes constituting the modern and outstanding look of a device (Lewiski 1999: 50). It stays in accordance with Dyers remark that with the plethora of similar products available on the market, no longer can advertisers rely on rational argument to sell their goods in sufficient quantity (Dyer 1982: 8). But does it mean that advertisements, produced in consideration of peripheral processing, are inherently irrational or mendacious? Obviously not. As Doliski explains, it is rather a matter of ambiguity. He states that some ads consist of two layers, i.e.: (1) the layer of general decoding (powszechnego odbioru/rozumienia), and (2) the layer of logic, also referred to as the layer of close reading (logiczna, uwanego odczytania) (2003: 80). For instance, when we hear that Domestos kills all known germs, we are wrongly convinced that it kills every single living one. While there may, in fact, exist thousands of unknown germs, which, despite cleaning, stay alive. In consequence, the message, although being true in its logical sense, becomes deceitful in general deciphering, which stems from the fact that we tend to overlook the difference between what is logically stated and what is only presupposed, so between the two co-occurring layers (2003: 81). The bone of contention remains whether the abovementioned practices, which extend to other kinds of advertising as well, account for generally accepted persuasion, or are the first sign of covert manipulation. Since further analysis requires a definite stand on this issue, we shall firstly examine on what sort of assumptions the unresolved

30

dispute rests and whether the cognitive approach may give any of the two sides a more privileged status. Therefore, in this chapter we will bring together the arguments proposed by a selected number of scholars, mostly those that provide linguistically salient evidence. Before that, however, let us try to obtain a clearer picture of what the term advertising itself implies and how it is commonly defined, which may shed light on the whole phenomenon and help us find a well-grounded solution. II.3 FROM SHOUTING TO ENCHANTING - A FEW COMMENTS ABOUT THE DIACHRONY OF THE TERM ADVERTISING Despite the multitude of forms that have sprouted in the field of advertising throughout its history, making the concept hardly definable, there are some golden rules that have never been disregarded. One of the logical constants crucial for any kind of influence, which is supposed to be exerted on consumers by advertising, consists in arresting their attention in the first place. Existing solely in the form of dry facts, which would be deprived of any persuasive tools, such as emotionally loaded arguments, attention-grabbing slogans, witty ambiguities, positive connotations, symbolism, etc., advertisements would not simply sell out due to the lack of recipie nts notice. Consequently, struggle for his/her interest might have been a decisive factor in the introduction of an appropriate terminology of the notion in various languages. For instance, according to The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, the verb advertise probably has its roots in Latin advertere, meaning turn toward, and has evolved from the sixteenth century form advertis, firstly defined as direct th e attention of, give notice of. It is worthy of note that this property underlies almost all currently proposed definitions, providing internal basis for highly diverse ideas. Even more interesting is the etymology of its Polish equivalent reklamowa. According to Wielki sownik etymologiczno-historyczny jzyka polskiego, it originated from the Latin 31

word reclamare, consisting of the prefix re- again, for the second time and the stem clamare shout, announce. Motivation behind such a nomenclature could stem from the institution of a street announcer, which dates back to ancient Greece and Rome. The role of such a person was based on walking down the city streets and calling upon passers-by to purchase specific products (Skowronek 1993: 8). However, adopted by Polish in the nineteenth century with reference to merchants practice, the word reklama had been used exclusively with a negative tinge, which the authors of the abovementioned dictionary illustrate by the following examples: (1) Chcesz, aby dziennik prosperowa? Nie auj reklam, szarlatastwa. (Do you want your daily paper to prosper? Spare no advertisements, charlatanism) Jako dziennikarz, jest reklamiarzem i oszczerc. (As a journalist, he is an advertiser and slanderer) (Dugosz-Kurczabowa 2008: 651)

(2)

Only years later, the invention of new tools leading to the creation of purely artistic works has pushed meanings of the word reklama to other, more neutral (and now even positive) contexts. Yet, the existing dispute on advertisements, being either neutrally persuasive or highly manipulative, and hence negatively marked, may be reminiscent of the primary usage of the term. In view of this hypothesis, let us proceed to the definitions grounded in the paradigm of contemporary studies on language and see how they relate to their antecedents. II.4 REASSESSMENT OF THE PRAGMATIC APPROACH TO ADVERTISING In the two subsections that immediately follow, we address advertising from the perspective of pragmatics. Thus, we begin with providing a general definition of the notion motivated by the traditional theory of communicative acts. Then, we consider its probable cognitive underpinnings with the use of conduit metaphor in its slightly 32

accommodated form. In the second sub-section we focus on the main characteristics of advertising with respect to its membership to the category of mass communication and re-examine their relevance with a view to the crucial role an active recipient plays in the process. II.4.1 Advertising as the consumption of ideas - pragmatic definition in cognitive terms Since most linguistic analyses of advertisements deal with various aspects of language use, and thus are grounded on its pragmatic component, a commonly reappearing definition of advertising is one formulated against the classical theory of communicative acts. Therefore, following Weigts introductory remarks on the concept, advertising can be broadly described as the process of communication, which occurs between a producer and a market during the presentation and recommendation of goods, services and ideas ( Weight 2001: 24; translation mine). As such, it involves at least two interlocutors (in this case an advertiser, acting on behalf of the producer, and a consumer), first of which is sending an encoded message (an information about a product conveyed by means of verbo-visual code). This message goes via a certain channel (e.g. television, radio, newspaper, etc.) and reaches a recipient in a specific context (Lewiski 1999: 24-25). What is more, all of the above-mentioned elements add to the effectiveness of the whole process, i.e. the recipients successful decoding of a message6. The point that immediately follows is that advertising does not correspond to a (proto)typical speech act, but, to use Langackers (1987) terminology, can be understood as speech acts metaphorical extension, in the sense that in our perception

by successful decoding of a message conveyed in an advertisement we understand such an interpretation of its content that would link a particular product with recipients needs and desires, thereby leading to it s purchase.

33

it resembles communication and not actually stands for one. Hence, having in hand useful tools provided by the cognitive model of language, we may reason that the aforementioned description does not apply exclusively to the surface, or verbal layer of the term, but operates at the level of conception as well. Such a presumption is based on Cognitive Commitment, which assumes that whatever is found in language (and other areas of human activity) comes from mind and its cognitive capabilities (Evans 2006: 401, 408). Therefore, the schema proposed in the field of pragmatics may be elaborated on by means of the conceptually salient notion of conduit metaphor. Introduced by Michael Reddy (1979), who on the basis of large empirical data inferred that people not only speak but also think about communication in a metaphorical fashion, the conduit metaphor reveals a default conceptual framework for the understanding of speech acts (Reddy 1979: 287). More specifically, Reddy observed that we tend to conceptualize ideas (i.e. meanings or senses) as objects, which we put into containers represented by words and send them via a conduit to recipients, who unpack those words, taking sense out of them (Lakoff and Johnson 1980: 10)7. It seems that such folk model of communication is consistent with our conception of advertising. Let us consider the following: Due to the growing competition on the market advertisers were fast to notice that a mere, even if reliable, account of products qualities (reg ardless of how outstanding they could have been) did not sell out. That is why they have decided to sell ideas instead of products. Henceforth, they have inserted meticulously selected values into their messages, packed them into an aesthetic box of verbo-visual means and longed for a successful (i.e. intended) interpretation on the side of consumers.

linguistic evidence for our use of the conduit metaphor in relation to communication is found in such expressions as: How can I put it?, You gave me an interesting idea, Her fleeting emotions could not be captured in simple words, His speech carries no meaning, I cant get anything out of it, He sent his message to the world.

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However, there is also a serious drawback in the conceptualisation of advertising (and communication in general) in terms of the conduit metaphor, such that its entailments highlight the independence of meaning from the participants and context, placing ideas right there in the words (Lakoff and Johnson 1980: 10-12). As Reddy himself describes the problem, the conduit metaphor objectifies meaning in a misleading and dehumanizing fashion. (...) [it] lets human ideas slip out of human brains, so that, once you have recording technologies, you do not need humans any more (1979: 308-310). Since both the participants and context are the driving force in meaning creation, let us propose a more refined version of the conceptual metaphor, simultaneously accommodating it to the communicative situation met in advertisements: context
idea of an ad

encoding

decoding

deciphered meaning

advertiser

verbo-visual realization channel sending

consumer

Figure II.1 Accommodation of the conduit metaphor in relation to advertising Following Figure II.1, we can see how an idea, born in the advertisers mind, is inserted into a box of linguistic and metalinguistic means, by which it acquires its bounded shape. Because of the fact that advertisements rely just as much on the visual code as on verbal one, at this point we come to the important extension of the conduit metaphor, that is the introduction of non-linguistic means of expression serving as containers for

35

ideas8. Next, such a bounded message is passed via mass media (yet another accommodation, which emphasizes the communicative distance between interlocutors) to a consumer, who, according to his/her experiences and background knowledge, interprets an ad, fishing the pragmatic meaning out of it. What the presented schematic image does not portray (which will be justified later on) is an unequal status of participants, standing on two ends of the communicative chain. Interestingly, this feature partially corresponds to the profound effect of the conduit metaphor on human interaction, as referred to by Reddy. Essentially, the linguist noted that our conceptualizations of communication, while driven by the conduit metaphor, may obliterate its cooperative aspect, dangerously downgrading the importance of information exchange. He states: To the extent that the conduit metaphor does see communication as requiring some slight expenditure of energy, it localizes this expenditure almost totally in the speaker or writer. The function of the reader or listener is trivialized (Reddy 1979: 308). Accordingly, what the linguistic evidence seems to highlight about our perception of communicative acts is the recipients passivity in the trivial process of unpacking the message, hence all the blame for its unsuccessful outcome is put on the sender of this message (ibid. 289). As we analyse the pragmatic description of advertising, the notable omission of the recipients active part in the communicative process seems reminiscent of Reddys findings, which forces us to reassess the generally accepted definition of advertising. II.4.2 Active response of the masses - where the real dialog begins Reddys account of human perceptive neglect towards the recipients role in communication is closely related to yet another postulated feature of advertising, i.e.
8

such an extension seems equally relevant to other communicative acts; after all, the conduit metaphor is conceptual by nature, thus its realizations does not have to be constrained only to language; for further discussion see Grady (1998).

36

unidirectionality of the process. This, in turn, brings us to the notion of mass communication, which prompts the implications for other attributes ascribed to advertising by various scholars, such as: a) communicative distance between an institutional addresser and an anonymous, heterogeneous audience; b) c) d) e) f) indirect contact between the two; diverse competence/views/experiences of the addressees (internal context); importance of socio-cultural (i.e. external) context; conventionalized code aimed at clarification and fluidity of a message; little possibility of responding to/introducing alterations into a message (oneway communication) 9, which is particularly hindered by advertisers thoroughly considered measures (Skowronek 1993: 9, Lewiski 1999: 24, Bussmann 2006: 726). Although all those interrelated aspects of mass communication to some extent account for its unidirectional character, strict adherence to such a conclusion in the case of advertising wrongly devaluates the recipie nts important part in the whole process. So, if most scholars define advertisements as persuasive/manipulative acts of communication, which are supposed to bring the consumers expected response, how can they simultaneously disregard the recipients active part in this sort of interaction? After all, ads are not created to fall on deaf ears (nor even to reach a randomly selected audience, which illustrates how important the target recipients are, at least for advertisers). Furthermore, if effectiveness of advertisements is to be measured against setting consumers preferences toward a particular brand or product,

According to Benedikt (2005: 33) there is no such a possibility whatsoever, but as we would argue, his assumption could be taken for granted only in most extreme cases of advertisements, i.e. those that present pseudo-facts hard (or even impossible) to be negated.

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finally leading to its purchase, then, by definition, pragmatists should emphasize the recipients responsive activity, rather than leave it unaccounted for by the notion of unidirectionality. Above all, consumers identification with a brand, the image of which is ingrained in his/her mind by means of advertising, is the outcome of a successfully decoded message sent by a producer. Hence, it appears that consuming a particular brand is the most vivid form of answer the recipient of an ad may provide and the best reason for avoiding generalizations on the directionality of advertising. However, we also know that were it not for the recipients cognitive effort made to interpret a message, no such behavioural response could occur. Here comes another oversimplification visible in the pragmatic approach to the subject - theorists tend to overlook in their descriptions the potentiality for a communicative response in the form of recipients subjective interpretations, not always corresponding to the advertisers most favourable one. To put it differently, real activists in advertising discourse, unaccounted by pragmatists, are those, who do not succumb to ads charm, submissively accepting its message, but follow the central route of cognitive processing. It means that such recipients carefully analyze advertisements against their background knowledge as well as individual worldview. If the message is inconsistent with what they know, expect, or believe in, they make a clear commentary, modifying ads content by the very same communicative means as advertisers use. Moreover, we believe that it is exactly mass communication that facilitates a real exchange of ideas between a producer and a market, in which both interlocutors have an opportunity to express their own opinions. Commenting on Bralczyks (2000: 193, 198) point that advertising messages appear, function and are deciphered in the social context, hence contribute to medial and cultural universe, we would like to draw theorists attention to the fact that in this universe all forms of expression should be

38

taken into account, whether these are obtrusive commercial messages sent to masses or those masses response in the form of ads negative reproductions, such as subvertisements. In our cognitively grounded view, the classical pragmatic definition, which rests on oversimplifications directed toward the recipients partic ipation in the communicative process, does not provide an adequate basis for further studies. Since our accommodation of the conduit metaphor comes to be deficient as well, let us seek a solution in the process of reversal.

response

recontextualization

idea transposition

idea of an ad

encoding

critical decoding

CONFLICT

channel
verbo-visual representation

advertiser

consumer

sending Figure II.2 Completion of the conduit-metaphor view of advertising Figure II.2 illustrates how an advertising process may proceed after the critical decoding of the message by the recipient. Accordingly, following the central route of interpretation, the consumer extracts the message from its luring form, depriving it of

39

the arguments inconsistent with his/her knowledge of the advertised brand as well as its questionable perfection. After such disintegration, the bare concept of the brand is merged with a mocking, critical commentary, so that the commercial representation gets reframed with the consumers subjective vision. In line with the change of external context, senses that have been craftily backgrounded by the advertiser become exposed, and the altered ad goes back by the same channel to other recipients. Correspondingly, revising the qualities attributed to advertising as a process of mass communication, we come to the conclusion that by the recipients active response: a) the unequal status of interlocutors, at least with regard to their participation in the process, is counterbalanced - a producer and a consumer become partners in discussion; b) the contact between interlocutors is facilitated and more direct - once the advertisers message is sent , the channel remains open; c) diverse world knowledge constitutes recipients potential for critical judgements and use of counter-arguments; d) socio-cultural multi-contextuality comes into being - alleged perfection may be overwritten by wicked criticism; e) f) conventional code dwelling on ambiguities becomes a tool against the sender; advertising acquires the evident hallmarks of a dialog.

The point that emerges from the presented considerations is that advertising, which, on the one hand, provokes a scientific debate over its most representative characteristics, on the other hand, can be perceived as a debate itself. The assumption seems valid, especially in view of the fact that advertisements appear in a global, socio-cultural environment, in which every member of the speech community with his/her own ideas,

40

worldviews and goals can articulate his/her subjective interpretation of the communicated message. On the contrary, such a conception of advertising may look inapt, and thus be abandoned by most theorists, as it is at variance with the major purpose of this special kind of communication, that is promotion of goods and services for the sake of influencing consumers buying decisions. Consequently, the bipolarity of recipients behaviour, i.e. submissive acceptance of the advocated message or its full disregard while the communication fails, tends to be automatically attributed to the advertising discourse in the pragmatic definition. However, evidence provided by the existence of subvertisements shows there is yet another defensible option, which we have just broadly described. Last but not least, it is worth examining what , in relation to the advertisers meticulously prepared message intended for successful decoding, allows for the consumers critical response. In our opinion, the answer is partially provided in the main tenet of the interactional model of communication, which states that whenever we find ourselves in an interactive situation, i.e. when our behaviour may be noticed by someone else, we communicate some information, regardless of our intentions . Hence, communication takes place not only in result of intentional passing of information by the sender, but also against his/her will, which means that the person who communicates may convey more than he/she intends to (Jopek 2001: 84, translation mine10). This assumption allows for claiming that meaning is not ingrained in the message, but depends on factors specific for a given communicative situation, including recipients variable in interpreting the message, which is reminiscent of the
10

the original reads as follows: zawsze, gdy znajdujemy si w sytuacji interakcyjnej, tj. gdy nasze zachowanie moe by przez kogo dostrzeone, komunikujemy informacj, niezalenie od naszych intencji. () komunikacja zachodzi nie tylko wskutek celowego przekazania informacji przez nadawc, ale rwnie wbrew jego woli. Tak wic strona komunikujca moe potencjalnie przekaza wicej ni chce.

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cognitivists recognition of context - and user-dependent meaning (ibid. 85). How does it correspond to advertising? Every brand can connotate in two ways: either positively, as intended by the producer, or negatively, as based on consumers varied experiences, critical judgements and knowledge. The same goes with advertisements. Although advertisers strive to depict a brand in its superlatives or distract the consumers attention by vivid images and playing on emotions, such practices may well be used against them. And this is, nota bene, the essence of culture jamming, i.e. the production of counter-culture aimed at exposing the hidden senses of a commercial message. All things considered, we suppose that such dynamic, interactive view on

communication, drawing on discourse community that is responsible for the coproduction of meaning, rather than on two interlocutors of highly unequal status, seems more adequate to describe advertising discourse (Jopek 2001: 96). Having established the outline of advertising as an act of social interaction (involving both the producers message and the consumers response), we shall examine how the recognition of recipients active participation bears on the ultimate character of this multi-faceted process and its prevailing function. Ultimately, on the basis of arguments proposed by various scholars, we hope to determine whether the notion of advertising should be categorized as: (1) a neutral dialog focused on the exchange of reliable information, (2) a persuasive dispute, in which two sides struggle to defend their viewpoints by means of constructive argumentation that finally leads them to consensus, or (3) a manipulation that brings together two contradictory depictions of socio-cultural phenomena and, by the use of cognitively directed strategies, forces other members of discursive community to accept one of them. To keep the paper within manageable proportion, our discussion will be restricted to the selected number of aspects, which in our view provide most relevant information.

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II.5 ADVERTISE - TO INFORM, PERSUADE, OR DEVIOUSLY MANIPULATE? As it has already been mentioned, an advertisement has to be encoded in such a way that would lead a consumer directly to the shop. This seemingly easy task consists in tremendous refining of details on every level of an ad and points to various objectives that must be met on the way to successful reception. At this point, we will concentrate on the basic three, described according to their importance by Lewiski (1999: 25-27) in the following way: 1. perlocutionary aim, which is met when a recipient performs the intended action (resulting from the favourable perception of a message, it is the basic measure of ads effectiveness); 2. persuasive aim, understood as prompting a recipient to change his/her attitudes by means of persuasion; 3. informative aim, based on providing the information about a desired situation, that is the adequate presentation of a product, service or idea 11. Commenting on the established arrangement, Lewiski states that the perlocutionary aim is the ultimate objective of advertising, which is achieved when a recipient starts to act in an intended way (Lewiski 1999:25, translation mine). However, as partially dependent on accidental factors involved in a decision-making process, thereby going beyond the functional structure of a message, it is of little use in the linguistic analysis of advertisements as communicative acts. For that reason, linguists quite often narrow their in-depth investigations to the two remaining aims, i.e. persuasive and informative. Nevertheless, the contribution of those aims to the
11

nomenclature used by Lewiski clearly corresponds to Austins theory of speech acts, according to whom every speech act consists of the following aspects: locutionary act - act of saying something (so the production of a meaningful message), illocutionary act - act in saying something (pointing to the deliberate action undertaken by the sender) and perlocutionary act - act by saying something (Lewiski 1999: 8; Skowronek 1993: 10).

43

recipients change of behaviour is not left unnoticed, which shows that the final goal always stays in view, regardless of the methodological presuppositions underlying a proposed definition. What varies is the degree to which theorists emphasize persuasive power of ads over their informative value. In the course of the following pages, we will illustrate this fact by a number of examples. II.5.1 Primum informare Firstly, we shall deal with an interesting, yet not very common among the analysed definitions, hypothesis proposed by Sutherland and Sylvester (2000). They claim that persuasion is very rarely used in advertising and its special status as a major determinant of the ads effectiveness is highly overrated. Furthermore, they maintain that the major purpose of advertisements is either to familiarize consumers with new products, or to sustain an interest into ones already recognizable. Therefore, in the former case advertisements ought to be (1) as informative as possible, and (2) supported by a large-scale promotional plan. Whereas in the latter, they can be restricted to reinforcing consumers awareness of the positive attributes ascribed to a particular product (Sutherland and Sylvester 2000: 131-134). It is important to note that the authors do not perceive this so-called reinforcement as a hallmark of persuasion (manipulation is not even mentioned here). What is more, they consider those two to be contradictory by claiming that directing consumers attention to the products best features is not so much persuasion as a shifting of the mental spotlight, so in terms of attention only (ibid. 8). Consequently, Sutherland and Sylvester conclude that even if an ad enhances clients desire to possess a particular product, it is just a side effect rather than a focal point of sending a message. In that way, the role of persuasion becomes visibly downgraded by the authors, for whom the notion seems equal to overt pressure exerted on people against their will and attitudes (ibid. 129, 134-135). In the present 44

paper we confront this view with the hypothesis that persuasion (or even manipulation) does not have to be fully exposed, nor even effective, in order to appear in advertisements. Actually, being cunningly concealed between the lines, it often may, and does, occur as rather sublime and hardly noticeable. In the very same source we can find arguments that speak in favour of this claim. According to Sutherland and Sylvester, advertisers deliberately highlight selected attributes of a product, mainly those that stay in accordance with clients expectations and general beliefs, since such a strategy leads consumers to conviction that they made a good choice while buying the product (ibid. 134-135). The authors discuss such inferences against a psychological principle known as positioning for cognitive consistency. Explaining the notion in view of the cognitive theory of categorization, we may say that positioning is grounded on human urge to seek relative uniformity of prototypical features ascribed to things, by means of which they belong to one and the same category (ibid. 126). Further on, the scientists reason that, if it were not for the consistency of the products attributes with our background knowledge used for categorization, there would be little chance of this product being generally accepted and bought (ibid. 126). Here, we could argue that such a selectiveness of positively charged features, even if subtle, serves as a hidden inducement to the purchase and points to the manipulative character of a message. Moreover, positioning, as noticed by the authors themselves, indicates to people the degree of importance that the issue should have in their thinking, thereby influencing the order in which they evoke or notice the alternatives they consider (ibid. 24, 50). Going back to the nomenclature provided by cognitivists, advertising seems to govern the content of human

categories and modify prototypical effects by placing a high value on the selected attributes of a particular category, and most importantly does it just for the sake of

45

bringing profit. It also has to be emphasized that such a strategy may work at every level of categories taxonomy, i.e. refer not only to the attributes of a subordinate category, so features of one particular product, such as Coca Cola, but to a basic or superordinate category, which constitutes a set of similar products, e.g. a soft drink, as well (ibid. 26-28). Still, taking into consideration the necessity of cognitive consistency between the features of an advertised good and consumers expectations, we would argue that such cognitive consistency may be no longer valid in relation to the majority of todays advertising messages. By the analysis of advertisements, which provide high level of flexibility for alterations, we will demonstrate that very often ads highlight the products least expected features, or even do not focus on them at all by fusing the concept of a brand with a completely unrelated notion. As consequence hereto, contemporary advertising seems to be more about salience, so the visibility of a brand (especially at the moment of making a purchasing decision), than about its consistency with our general beliefs and opinions (ibid. 16). More to the point, because the added notion is typically restricted to the domain of positive values, so is our knowledge of a brand (and pseudo-reality, by which it is surrounded). Hence, advertising consists in providing likeable, simplified and abstract scenarios, rather than concrete facts. Besides, as the recent study from the University of Bath (2010) reveals, when the ads message is grounded on emotions and creativity, the information of a product per se loses importance, because consumers stop paying attention to the content, choosing peripheral route of processing 12. Nota bene, it

12

with the use of an eye-tracking device, the research team measured the real-time attention that the subjects paid to a number of ads with the variable levels of emotional content; the final results revealed that, even if disliked, informative adverts received more viewer attention than those likeable, creative ones, which overturned the long-held assumption that emotional ads owe their higher effectiveness to the greater viewer interest. On the contrary, they become so effective because viewers do not watch them close enough to be able to counter-argue their messages, leaving themselves more prone to being affected.

46

may bring an ambivalent effect: either enhance ads effectiveness by making the consumer more vulnerable to the message (which yet again proves the advantage of persuasion/manipulation over information)13, or spoil the whole thing as he/she loses sight of what is being promoted, which clarifies why the general likeability of some ads does not always equals their effectiveness. More importantly, such findings require reconsideration of the prototypical definition of advertising as a transfer of information regarding the promoted good or service, since nowadays it becomes a common practice to promote ideals, hedonistic lifestyles and skilfully modified visions of the world, placing a brand in the background as one of its elements or even fully omitting it. So basically, it appears that the more advertisers strive to interest recipients with the message, the less information about the product it communicates, becoming the commodity to be sold in itself 14. To sum up, although we can agree with Sutherland and Sylvester that advertisements do not tell us what to think, but rather what to think about, it does not serve as an evidence that persuasion/manipulation is non-existent in this kind of communication (ibid. 15). As a matter of fact, it proves just the opposite - such an influence with regard to the order of alternatives that constitute our mental agenda, which has been referred to as agenda-setting effect (ibid. 15), is far closer to a persuasive/manipulative aim than to information-giving one. Consequently, no matter how subtle and indirect means are used in advertisements, their ultimate purpose cannot be perceived as a reliable account of the products outstanding features, supposed to

13

for Bralczyk, such a prevalence of emotions over rational argumentation is the first sign of manipulation, as their unexplainable character by rational means allows for a multitude of interpretations, especially those intended ones (2000:26). 14 here, it is worthy of note that the currently proposed ecological model of communication depicts the classic sender-recipient relationship in terms of consumption. In this way, senders become creators of messages, which are consumed (interpreted) within the context of media by self-selecting recipients, specifically referred to as consumers (Foulger 2004).

47

facilitate the consumers final choice, but as vicious imposition of this choice (cf. Pratkanis 2008: 30). Simultaneously, it is crucial not to oversimplify the nature of advertising, because it is not a pure urging: Go buy it!, but a sophisticated communicative process, whose transparency and simplicity is only superficial, thus its outcome is so hard to be predicted. Sutherland and Sylvester remind us that appearances can be deceptive and in this case indeed they are. Little do we realize how complex the final product becomes, even if made of very simple elements. Advertising is a multi-faceted phenomenon and should be approached as such. Therefore, what the authors propose for better understanding of ads is breaking them down into their simpler components and functions and looking at them at a micro level before moving up to the macro perspective, because understanding how advertising works on a macro level comes from understanding how all these micro-bits fit and function together (2000: 288). This very apt remark is reminiscent of the definition proposed a few years earlier by the Polish scholar - Katarzyna Skowronek (1993). In the light of Austins theory of speech acts (see footnote 11), the linguist provides us with the semanto-pragmatic account of advertising, which opens the next part of our discussion. II.5.2 Advertising as a persuasive macroact with a parasitic nature Although informativeness is an intrinsic property of every communicative act (as whenever we communicate, we convey some message), the arguments presented in the previous subsection brought us to the conclusion that it is not the principal aim of advertising discourse. This point is totally in line with the pragmatic perspective adopted by Skowronek (1993). On the premise that advertising is a complex speech macroact, understood as the hierarchical structure composed of a variable number of smaller, independent units distinguished by illocutionary force (that is, expressing 48

a particular intention of the sender), the scholar emphasizes the fact that among all those microacts, persuasive is the only obligatory one. Hence, it has a leading pragmatic function in the advertising process with all the remaining acts (including: encouraging, urging, stating, praising, offering, advising, guaranteeing and promising) serving as its subordinates and conditioning its effectiveness (1993: 83). Furthermore, Skowronek stresses the indirect character of the whole macroact by pointing to the discrepancy between the hidden major intention, located in its deep structure and recognized only in the context of a specific communicative situation, and minor intentions explicitly stated on its surface by conventional means of expression (ibid. 19-20). It explains why advertisements are parasitic, i.e. draw on conventions from other genres, pretending to be a piece of art, a literary work, a scientific lecture, even a dialog. In fact, as Bralczyk argues, everything that is a sign could be an advert (2000: 200). All in all, on the grounds of Skowroneks pragmatic analysis it can be acknowledged that among two aspects of advertising as a speech act, the illocutionary one, aimed at changing the recipients behaviour by means of persuasion, exceeds in importance the locutionary (informative) one, and thus functions as the essence of advertising. There are two major conclusions that can be drawn from Skowroneks deliberations on advertising discourse: (1) it is a complex macrostructure, whose prime intention is hidden and can be exposed exclusively with a view to the specific communicative situation, and (2) although not dominant, persuasion has the overriding function in advertising, under which all the inferior goals are organized. At this point we might consider how these facts could be accommodated within the cognitive description of advertising that at the outset alters consumers perception, and only then his/her behaviour. Therefore, we need to judge whether the notion of persuasion is sufficient for portraying the cause of those changes. Accordingly, since our intention is

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to examine the influential root of advertising, but in view of cognition rather than representation, it should not be reduced only to pragmatic assumptions, which leave such issues as interpretation and valuation unaccounted. Then, what Skowroneks analysis lacks for further investigations is a psycho- and sociolinguistic aspect of discursive influence, which we have roughly touched upon in the previous subsection. Those two aspects, as opposed to neutrally marked persuasion, introduce the problem of ethics associated with the human communicative behaviour and direct us toward the concept of manipulation as the indicator of thoroughly planned, strategic practices on the verge of truth and morality. II.5.3 Behind the conscious mind While conferring with other scholars on the status of persuasion in human communication, Pisarek alludes to a classical opinion that language, as the most basic rhetorical device used for affecting behaviour of the audience, is intrinsically persuasive, and concludes that in this way the language of persuasion could be all language (2003: 9). Moreover, he adds that, owing to the intentionality inbuilt in our communicative behaviours, every - even non-linguistic - act becomes automatically persuasive (2003: 9-11). Can we notice the same interrelation with reference to manipulation? Bralczyk argues that we can. According to the linguist, manipulation takes place when the sender possesses a greater knowledge about what is being communicated, and in this way takes the clear advantage over his/her interlocutor, for whom some elements of the message are inaccessible. Therefore, some sort of manipulation is ingrained in each and every communicative act, and thus it should not be regarded as inherently reprehensible, but rather as a gradable notion, which is stronger when we try to win the recipient over, while does not appear at all when he/she starts to act under coercion (2009: 36-37, translation mine). Then why most theorists 50

define manipulation as marked by negative valuation and even question the possibility of its usage as a scientific term?15 The crux of the matter lies in the relationship between the interlocutors. It is generally established that manipulation, as opposed to persuasion, refers to such practices, in which senders make unethical use of their communicative advantage over recipients, whom they treat exclusively as a tool for gaining notable material profits. Moreover, those profits are against the best interests of the latter, and for that reason become viciously hidden (Grzegorczykowa 1991: 23, Bralczyk 1999: 218, Pisarek 2003: 16, Kamiska-Szmaj 2003: 25). It is then very often taken for granted in literature on the subject that the senders cunningly concealed intention (and, in result, his/her acting on the recipients subconsciousness) is a sine qua non of manipulation (ydek-Bednarczuk 2004: 29, Kamiska-Szmaj 2003: 77). However, as noted by Bralczyk, it does not have to be so, the best proof of which are advertisements. Emphasizing gradability of the notion, Bralczyk claims that advertising reveals the possibility of an outright manipulation, which explicitly shows its intentions (1999: 128). Kamiska-Szmaj rejects such a hypothesis by stating that if recipients are forewarned by the context about an attempt being made to influence them, just as it happens in the case of commercial messages, manipulation loses its raison dtre and the only valid term that can be used in this relation is persuasion (2003: 77). In our opinion, she goes into extremes when she adds that in advertising discourse producers treat recipients of their messages as partners in communication, whom they nicely entice into buying a product, using legitimate persuasive strategies. Accordingly, when the purchase is made, it is solely the outcome of a consumers conscious decision, who agreed on being persuaded that the product is of value for him/her (ibid.). It is enough to mention the advertisers use of peripheral processing, reinforcement, lack of rational

15

for a more detailed discussion see: Bralczyk (2000), Nowak and Krzyanowski (2004), Luba (2006).

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argumentation, appeal to emotions or even blatant masking of persuasive element behind some other pragmatic functions, to reach the conclusion that the linguists stance is purely idealistic. It is like stating that the problem, despite its having an obvious negative impact on all of us, does not exist, just because it is generally known. Besides, do not the aforementioned practices (which are only a small dose of advertising manipulative possibilities) aim at dulling our vigilance, making us vulnerable and partially unconscious of being controlled? What is more, can we say that creating artificial needs and setting our mental agenda is the result of simply persuading us, or rather manipulating our beliefs and worldviews? And finally, do consumers really feel like partners in communication, or as victims of social power abuse, which violates their rights and reproduces inequality in a consumerist society16, so that they have to resort to subvertising17 to make their voice heard? All things considered, we follow the opinion of those scholars who claim that the consumer s awareness of being manipulated does not preclude manipulation, since the means it utilizes still remain behind the consumers conscious mind (Bralczyk 1999: 128, Mosioek-Kosiska 2003: 90-101). That is exactly why we tend to succumb to advertisements charm in the first place. Hence, there is every reason to assume that ads have in their core an illegitimate manipulation of consumers perception, which is exerted by thoroughly planned strategies (unnoticed by an average recipient), for the clear purpose of bringing profit to a producer at the expense of a buyer. II.6 CAN THE MANIPULATED TURN INTO MANIPULATORS? In view of the presented hypothesis, let us now examine how it corresponds with the intentions of recipients, whose response is an optional, yet existent, constituent
16

the latter stand for the features of manipulation referring to social relations as described by Van Dijk (2006). 17 subvertising - a portmanteau (a word combining the meaning and sound of two other words) of subvert (to try to destroy the power and influence of a government or the established system) and advertising (LDOCE, emphasis mine).

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of the whole advertising process. Here, it has to be emphasized that, since no determined action is aimless, especially in human communication, specifying the motivation of consumers critical response seems as significant as in the case of primary message. Therefore, we would like to propose four possibilities of how the consumers counter-message could be perceived and then try to judge which of them seems most probable. Hence, can we claim that the recipients response may serve as: 1. stamping an imprint on a random ad by harmless mockery of the brands image (with no lasting effect ; I-oriented); 2. a thought-provoking, still objective, account of global problems present in todays consumption societies (informative effect; community-oriented); 3. a dispute with corporations over social inequality and overconsumption, aimed at finding solutions to change the situation (persuasive effect ; primary speakeroriented); 4. a far-reaching appeal for a full rejection of the simplified worldview that corporations strive to impose on consumers (manipulative effect; communityoriented)? By simple reasoning we may eliminate the third option, as neither of the two sides has in view entering into an on-going dispute while producing their message. It is rather one-point (message - counter-message) argumentation, directed toward the mass recipient, not only the sender. Apart from that, in the communicative situation specific for advertising certain conditions, which would allow for endless prolonging of information exchange, simply cannot be met, because: (1) the messages refer to divergent spheres of human experience, which results in changing external context and precluding shared, constructive discussion, (2) the medium they appear in imposes clear limits, and (3) the channel becomes closed as the primary sender does not defend his/her

53

stance. Moreover, interlocutors intentions visibly contradict each other (generally speaking, advertisers prey on consumers weaknesses and unawareness while trying to win them over, whereas culture jammers harden anti-consumerist attitudes, raising social awareness) and do not presuppose negotiations leading to agreement. Last but not least, activists critical commentary lacks objectivity and draws on emotional, radical and often offensive argumentation to highlight exclusively negative aspects of the corporate and advertisers practices, consequently sustaining axiological extremism of ads. Can such a response be a radical mockery produced just for fun? Although in some cases the answer is valid, activists belonging to major anti-globalist movements, whose works we will focus on in our analysis, explicitly state that their message is not so much for their self-expression, but for every members of global community: we will continue to do all in our power to encourage the masses to use any means possible to commandeer the existing media and to alter it to their own design18. All in all, we would hazard the conjecture that such an encouragement can be also viewed as manipulation, because, although not acting against our best interests, social activists use means that seem to manipulate our views on brands and sociocultural issues in general. More to the point, they get us to fully reverse our perception and behaviour, so firstly appeal to our cognition, and only then to actions. Hence, as the outcome of the whole process of communication, we receive two extreme depictions of worldly phenomena, according to which things are either purely white or inky black. And, as pointed out by Lewicki and Nowak, the use of such a simplified dichotomy in valence has long been at service of clearly manipulative practices (2000: 35).

18

http://www.billboardliberation.com/manifesto.html. Retrieved on 6 April 2010.

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II.7 ULTIMATE DEFINITION OF ADVERTISING The major aim of this chapter was to find an appropriate definition of advertising as a special form of communication that, on the one hand, begins with a clear intention of prompting consumers to the desired behaviour by limiting their freedom of interpretation, while on the other hand, carries the possibility of their direct critical response by an open channel of mass media. Most of linguistic definitions of advertising, which are based on the pragmatic paradigm, appear to be insufficient for our purposes, as none of them accounts for the active participation of recipients. Hence, by a pragma-cognitive reanalysis of the main elements constituting the communicative situation of advertising we come to the conclusion that, methodologically, the interactional model of communication is more adequate for further research. On this premise, we moved to the next daunting problem of specifying the essence of the whole advertising process. For that purpose, we broadly discussed the most prominent features distinguishing advertising as a form of discursive influence, juxtaposing pragmatic, psychological and social perspective. Such an interdisciplinary approach allowed us to pinpoint an outright appeal to human perception and emotions as well as axiological extremism on both sides of the communicative chain, and reason that this special kind of discursive interaction, ultimately directed toward mass audience in order to change its mental representations (either in favour or against consumption), is guided by manipulation rather than neutrally marked persuasion. All things considered, let us propose our definition of advertising, on which further, purely cognitive analysis will be grounded: Advertising - strategic and interactional process of communication between a company and a market, taking place within the socio-cultural environment governed by mass media, and aimed at modification of socially shared modes of behaviour by 55

means of manipulation, which begins with the message concerning particular product or service in order to enhance its sales, but may be followed by a negative recipients response, demonstrated by the reproduction of the communicated act to the primary senders disadvantage.

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III. COGNITIVELY SPEAKING - WHAT BLENDS TELL US ABOUT ADVERTISING DISCOURSE

Ads have no voice of their own, they are a fluctuating and unstable mixture of the voices around them, constantly transmuting and recombining, invading new media and technologies (Cook 2001: 222).

Having provided the general view on advertising by substantiating selected approaches to one, fairly delineated definition, let us now narrow the analysis down to the cognitive criteria that underlie the whole phenomenon and see if they can lead us from conjectures to a systematic and well grounded study. Here, it is important to note that every definition flourishes from our understanding of its underlying concept, which grows in our mind on the basis of individual experiences and knowledge used for categorization until it gets exposed to the daylight by means of language. Since our mental representations of a particular phenomenon differ, so do meanings we ascribe to it. Obviously, the more basic a concept, the less varied its interpretation and the more established definition. A real problem appears in the case of complex, dynamic categories and advertising is definitely one of them. Consequently, although an interdisciplinary look has helped in its sound depiction by clarifying its controversial and indecisive aspects, the core of the issue still remains a little blurred. We somehow know that it is not the actual conversation that a producer undertakes with a potential buyer, nor can we, in all conscience, define it as a pure, conventional dialog. Can we thus accept the provided explanations as sufficient for an adequate categorization of the process of advertising? After all, what make us perceive it as discursive interaction, while most theorists highlight its unidirectionality? On top of that, do we deal with real or maybe implied, or 57

fictive, interaction? Were it not for cognitive linguistic paradigm, such questions would remain unanswered, whereas the study incomplete. By this tenet, we agree with Langacker, who states: For a full and explicit description of interaction and discourse, a cognitive perspective is necessary (though not sufficient). A detailed characterization of the conceptual structures being built and manipulated is as fundamental and indispensable to discourse study as it is to grammatical investigation (2001: 185).

An unquestionable bond that merges discourse analysis with cognitive linguistics is the context-dependent linguistic structure19. By this notion the two approaches complement each other in that the former concentrates on the language interactive use in a specific situation (or a usage event - as called by cognitivists), while the latter consists in the examination of its comprehensive conceptualization, comprising an expression's full contextual understanding, paired with an elaborate vocalization (Langacker 2001: 144). As a result, we are faced with a socio-cognitive account of language (Kalisz 2006: 236), which may not only facilitate the present investigations, but also contribute to better understanding of other phenomena so deeply dependent on social cognition, as advertising is. A significant implication for the usefulness of the abovementioned juxtaposition, which may serve as a starting point for our discussion, can be found in Kalisz (2006: 234-250). When touching upon the issue of prototype effects exhibited by speech act categories, he notes that their most prototypical members are simultaneously the rarest in occurrence. Thus, they can be perceived as unique exemplars ( paragons) rather than most commonly met representations (ibid. 238). On such a premise, we may argue that the established definition of advertising is based on depicting its traditional paragon, and not the status quo of todays practices. Taking into consideration the
19

with reference to advertising, it may be understood as verbo-visual representation.

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possibilities offered by the state-of-the-art digital technologies, which to an unprecedented scale extend the boundaries of the category20, we can observe a significant discrepancy between what was and what could be categorized as most representative examples of advertising. We believe that this step into the future of advertising should be a catalyst for linguists to thoroughly re-investigate the notions (proto)typical elements and on these grounds establish its new definition. Owing to the lack of space, our general comments related to the point above will be necessarily modest, nevertheless they will be followed by a more elaborate analysis of the selected examples. All in all, for the purposes specified hereunder we would like to focus on two major tools provided by Cognitive Linguistics: 1. categorization - to verify the conceptual nature of the process of advertising and touch upon the typicality gradient among its instantiations; 2. conceptual integration of mental spaces - to describe how the process proceeds on the cognitive level and indicate the core of its manipulative effects. III.1 FROM MACROCATEGORY TO ITS SPECIFIC AD HOC INSTANTIATIONS - CONCEPTUAL NATURE OF ADVERTISING DISCOURSE In the following section we will search for the factors central to forming the category advertising, whic h, as we hope, will shed more light on its nature. Whereas in the previous chapter we have been dealing mainly with the pragmatic description of its prevailing functions, now we will concentrate on its internal conceptual structure, checking if any systematic divisions can be made and on what grounds they seem most useful. For that purpose we will refer to advertising as a macrocategory, composed of

20

it is enough to mention Augumented Reality, viral advertising, smart phone applications, user generated contents, and - highly acclaimed by the global community - social media, to reason that advertisers give the creation of final products in the hands of consumers, hence discursive interaction is not only the outcome of consumers critical response but of deliberate marketing actions as well.

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smaller subcategories (ads and subverts), which will be further divided into parts (image, logo, slogan, etc.). Prototypical instances, if existent, will be investigated on each of these levels. III.1.1 Endless examples - one definition. On the quest for adverts common grounds The greatest challenge we are faced with in defining the concept of advertising is that it fails to constitute a clearly delineated category. Depending on the purpose of a particular ad, we may encounter members that can be categorized as informative pieces of writing, in which locutionary microact prevails (e.g. a poster promoting the upcoming concert in a philharmonic hall), or those that reflect a transparent, unashamed manipulation, whose illocutionary force overrides informativeness (just to mention cigarette ads that try to convince us about the advantages of smoking a lethal drug) 21. Still, the problem does not end up on this clearly bipolar distinction, since there is also a whole spectrum of messages that could be categorized in between the two, ranging from ones with the hallmarks of a mild persuasion, craftily hidden behind aesthetic values, to those of an obvious, unrestrained propaganda, as stated by Pratkanis. On top of that, the same variability appears in the case of persuasion vs. manipulation distinction, prototypical instances of which depend on a highly subjective, even potentially controversial, interpretation of the concepts, and on the adopted methodology, which has been emphasized in the previous chapter. That explains why it is so debatable to locate advertising discourse on either of both ends. The ultimate solution that may bring systematization into this unresolved dispute lies in the model proposed by cognitivists, which we will try to prove hereunder.

21

owing to various fields of study dealing with the analysis of advertisements, there are many other purposes that could be enumerated, e.g. educational, subliminal, increasing demand, etc. These, however, do not fall into the topic of the present paper, thus will be excluded from further analysis.

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Most fundamentally, there is no doubt that the concept of advertising cannot be defined without an encyclopedic view of meaning. This is where the first mentalist approach, i.e. Generative Grammar, would fail, because, according to autonomous syntax principle, it completely disregards both the pragmatic and semantic component of language. Determined by language as syntactic arrangement of formal symbols, deprived of contextual motivation, non-linguistic knowledge and individual experiences of a particular language user, such purely denotational definition of advertising (or any other pragmatic category) would be pointless and, what is essential here, would rule out the possibility for the categorization of non-prototypical instantiations of

advertisements. Conversely, clarifying the context-dependent semantic structure of the term is the major step to our understanding of the notion. After all, advertising is an open, constantly evolving category, whose meaning is necessarily rooted in both highly specific and general knowledge of the socio-cultural issues. Moreover, there is no single collection of common properties shared by all its members, and today nor even a single prototype, to which they could relate, which specifically points to the category polycentric, thus hardly definable, structure (Taylor 1995: 99). To put it differently, due to the variety of goods and services, each of which requires a specific advertising strategy, we cannot find a golden means that would make all advertisements equally effective. What follows is the shift of a prototype area among the groups of ads, depending on the role they play and the product or service they promote. For instance, we all know what to expect from ads of pharmaceuticals or toothpastes, which follow the same pattern ad nauseam, hence their family resemblances are more easy to grasp, whereas we remain particularly blind to what can be invented for the promotion of those products, whose explicit advertising has already been banned in the majority of countries (such as cigarettes or alcohol), resulting in the enhanceme nt of advertisers

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originality and consequently in hardly visible co rrespondences among specific brands ads. Consequently, although advertising may be regarded as a universal, standardized phenomenon, going beyond the borders of a particular country with little or no alterations among its instantiations (especially when we think of globally recognized brands and their international campaigns), the problem of grasping its common features as well as divergence of its applications proves that neither the composition of ads constituents nor their reception exhibit universality. Due to the dynamic character of the category, advertising products are becoming more likely to depart from generally accepted rules (also with regard to language, which in the most creative ads is far from being a pure convention22) than to obediently follow them. More to the point, advertisers struggle to attract unceasing attention and exceed expectations of a demanding audience reinforces the growing tendency to transform the ads well-established features into their opposites. Cook calls it a principle of reversal (2001: 224). Its most discernible realizations include shocking and controversial campaigns, which have brought both the expected publicity and a substantial profit to many average brands. As already pointed out, modern technologies additionally facilitate such a strategy. It seems enough to mention the outrageous example of viral video produced for a Spanish TV station23. Using Chatroulette (a globally recognized Internet video chat) as a channel, the motion depicts a young woman, who has her throat slit by a masked man, entering her room unseen during her conversation with a casual chat user, ignorant of taking part in the contrived
22

such a creativity does not have to entail the figurative use of language; it also points to various kinds of linguistic deviation, understood by Cook as the departure from the normal usage of language, i.e. that of the majority of speakers (Cook 2001: 142). Examples include word coinage (provodkative, cookability, popaki nie pac), verbing (I dove you, B&Q it), misspellings, ungrammaticality, etc. (Cook 2001: 142-143) 23 viral advertising is a very convenient marketing technique, produced with substantially low financial outlays, but spread globally like a virus by and among Internet users.

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performance. This fake murder is supposed to show that the aforementioned TV is Intense, Real and has No Limits24. Interestingly, even if elements of an ad deviate from well-established norms, its message remains easily interpretable by a heterogeneous audience, which provides an unassailable argument that if it were not for participants, who decipher the ads meaning on the basis of their experiences, and for the context, which this meaning hinges on, advertisements would not make any sense at all. Let us consider a few most recognized slogans, such as: Just do it, Im loving it, This is it, Unleash it. Would we manage to answer the question of what the word it stands for, if it were deprived of the pragmatic meaning? And secondly, would it mean the same thing when uttered by different people? Probably not. Only a specific usage event and the identity of both the speaker and the recipient make the whole phrase understandable, less ambiguous and, most importantly, highly manipulative when it gets fused with a particular brand, imposing an expected interpretation. Fully aware of this heavy reliance, producers take a special account of who sends their message (the best example of which is celebrity endorsement), as well as who it is directed to. Above all, since every ad is formulated by and for the variety of language users, advertising dynamicity, creativity and novelty are simply a must. The main features of discourse depend on the times we live in, because it has to meet the consumers growing expectations and be in line with their changing lifestyles. However, we should remember that throughout the history of advertising, its messages have not only depicted but also framed the consumers culture. Pratkanis (2008: 67) notes that it was already in the twenties of the previous century that manufacturers discovered how easily they can create global needs and produce products, which would satisfy them.

24

http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/the-300-chat-roulette-killer-viral/. Retrieved on 28 May 2010.

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Since then markets have been flooded with brands, which generated all sorts of artificial expectations into real life (e.g. 7 Up advertised and promoted as the Uncola). To sum up, it appears that advertising is as well the indicator as the creator of changes in a society, which may be illustrated by the following schema:
adjustment to the established patterns

changes in consumer culture

changes in the category advertising

creation of needs/desires/patterns of behaviour

Figure III.1 Interrelationship of changes in the category advertising and culture

Taking the abovementioned facts into consideration, we assume that three factors appear central to forming the category of advertising: - context, which makes a particular instance of the category meaningful, i.e. facilitates partial activation of properties belonging to concepts, chosen and merged in a specific ad; - participants (both the sender and the recipient of the message), on whom the proper interpretation depends, thus whose experiences and background knowledge are of the greatest importance; - specific role, which allows for the creation of a category, merging unrelated concepts into one coherent whole.

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III.1.2. Advertisements as attention grabbers - when the sign becomes an ad The question that follows the last sections deliberations is whether advertising has any limits at all, since const ant alterations of the categorys content open its boundaries to an unpredictable extent, significantly affecting its nature. However, this is not our major problem, because every natural category is context- and user-dependent, which means that, after its creation, it can be freely modified, i.e. acquire or lose members. Moreover, since it grows in the particular users mind (and only then may become represented linguistically), its boundaries are not pre-arranged but become determined by his/her personal experiences, cultural affiliation, nationality, etc. (Radden and Dirven 2007: 4-5). Consequently, the limitless character of the category is not a unique or outstanding feature of advertising. What seems more problematic in its precise description is the fact that its newly established forms may be so unconventional that they hardly exhibit any visible similarity to already existent ones, yet in some way fit the concept of the category. So, by paraphrasing Bralczyks words, we should rather ask what makes a sign be categorized as an ad 25, i.e. why do we put it into one box with seemingly unrelated forms of expression? If the physical resemblance to them cannot serve as a determinant here, the answer remains to be sought among the goals, which would be relevant for a specific discourse situation and the general intention of a producer. Let us move back for a moment to the agenda setting effect, described in the previous chapter. The facility with which advertisers may govern the content of our categories may stem from the fact that in most cases those categories are not well entrenched in our memory, but created spontaneously during the decision making process. For example, consider the situation in which we have to decide on what to buy

25

see section III.5.2.

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for a dinner. Our final choice would depend on the factors imposed by the specialized situation. So, if we were so hungry that we could eat a horse and did not want to spare much time on preparations, we would choose some kind of ready-made food, so probably order it from a fast-food restaurant. Conversely, if we were expecting important guests and wanted to impress them with a sophisticated dish, our ultimate choice would fall on a catering company. In both cases, deciding on a specific place would be governed by this places accordance with our current needs as well as its position on our ad hoc place to order dinner from agenda (partially dependent on an accurate promotion). Finally, the most salient one would be selected from the whole category of places, correlated by what they have to offer and not by how they physically resemble each other. The same reasoning may underlie other buying decisions including ad hoc categories from food (low/high fat, meat/vegetarian, for a picnic/cycling trip/journey, etc.) to a computer (for a child/for work/for fun), or even a house (for a bachelor/ student/big family). There are three major conclusions that follow: 1. the common feature of all ads that let them fall into one category is the primary goal for which they have been created, i.e. grasping peoples attention to make a promoted product or service most salient from the set of possibilities, thereby influencing consumers buying decisions; 2. advertising complex, dynamic nature stems from its promoting products and services that in most cases constitute ad hoc categories, hence the groups of its instantiations may also be perceived as such (e.g. fast -food restaurants ads, family cars ads, whitening toothpastes ads, etc.); 3. despite being composed of various physically unrelated elements, an ad can have a coherent structure thanks to the specific purpose it serves; so an ads

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representation (and consequently its subverts) is a minor ad hoc category in itself26. We would like to emphasize that the above conclusions touch upon various hierarchical levels of categories, driven by their functional character, which can be schematically illustrated in the following way: Advertising discourse

level of taxonomy

car ads sports family cars cars jeeps

restaurant ads fast-food luxury

clothes ads for for for children teens men

etc.

Subway McDonalds

Pizza Hut Big Mac image etc.

subverts

level of partonomy

logo

slogan

the clown

Figure III.2 Schematic conceptual grouping of categories falling into the macro category advertising.

Figure III.2. depicts how categories constituting the whole advertising discourse can be systematically grouped, depending on their functional character. Consequently, we can differentiate categories on various taxonomic levels, which form a hierarchy based on kind of-relations (e.g. fast-food restaurant ads is a member of a higher category restaurant ads and includes members represented by specific brands, such as McDonalds ads, Subway ads, etc.) as well as partonomic levels, driven by part of- relations, illustrating elements comprising an ad as a coherent whole (Radden and Dirven 2007: 8-9). On every level of those two hierarchies, members of a category are created spontaneously for the purposes of a current communicative situation. That is
26

as pointed out by Grochowska (2009: 20), on the basis of Barsalou (1983: 225).

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why they lack strong concept-to-instance associations and activate only a subset of a concepts properties (Barsalou 1983: 213), which points to the difficulty in recollecting definable features of the whole macrocategory advertising as well as its particular instantiations. Correlated mostly by a specific function, categories on subsequent levels may exhibit visible deviations from what we regard as their prototypical area. All these facts point to their ad hoc character, thus support our preliminary reflections. Since the properties of members on the taxonomic levels have already been discussed let us comment briefly on those reflecting partonomic relations (i.e. specific ads and their elements), providing a few examples as a means of explanation. Let us firstly consider Benettons advertisements, which belong to the higher category of clothes ads, however deviate from its perceived norms, juxtaposing the brand with notions belonging to various totally unrelated domains. For instance, one of Benettons ads depicts an image of a passionate kiss between a priest and a nun. Only the introduction of the brands logo makes us aware what kind of product is being promoted. So, although the constituents of the ad (the caption of a kissing couple and the brands logo) do not share any common properties, their ultimate function to manage brands publicity by means of controversy allows the ad to form a coherent entity. Moreover, it becomes easily recognized by consumers as a specific means of promotion, thereby fulfilling the purpose of attracting their attention. Another example includes Gallahers tobacco ads (Figure III.3 and III.4), which belong to the most profitable cigarette advertising campaigns ever launched.

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Figure III.3 Gallahers B&H tobacco advertisement27

Figure III.4 Gallahers Silk Cut tobacco advertisement 28

After the introduction of strict advertising regulations by the British government that in the seventies of the previous century imposed on every tobacco company the necessity to include health warnings on their ads, the creativity of the commercial messages reached the peak. It resulted in the search for such brand promotion that would conform to the new law, but at the same time allow for building strong associations with the product. In the case of B&H cigarettes (Figure III.3), the choice went on gold - the most precious and fashionable metal in Britain at that time, symbol of elegance, affluence,
27 28

http://www.alastairmcintosh.com/images/bensons.htm. Retrieved on 1 September, 2011. http://johnmessum.com/portfolio/silk-cut-cigarettes/. Retrieved on 1 September, 2011.

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prestige and success. The gold packs, in which the cigarettes were sold, became so recognizable that the use of a gold colour in ads was sufficient for the brands proper identification (Heath 2006: 120). Correspondingly, the second Gallahers brand focused on finding symbolic correlations to its name. Hence, the series of its ads has relied on the use of non-linguistic means that could vocalize the compound Silk Cut. Specifically, in Figure III.4 it is implied by the directors cut and his/her silk chair. On the basis of those two presented examples, it is noticeable that yet again the ads elements are coherent enough to constitute a well-delineated whole, although no direct physical correspondences can be found among their parts. Paradoxically, the health warning, which becomes one of the adverts constituents as well, significantly facilitates their proper categorization as members of the category cigarette ads (Cook 2001: 60). In consequence, it appears that what was supposed to cut down on drugs promotion, in fact started to serve as an incentive to increase brands originality, recognition and, finally, sales. III.2 ADVERTISING DISCOURSE - FACTIVE, FICTIVE, OR MAYBE FICTITIOUS? Since it is now possible to envision a basic determinant of advertising internal coherence as well as the most salient patterns underlying the conceptual groupings of its subcategories, at this point we might consider how these facts could be accommodated within the pragmatic description of the phenomenon. The general conclusion is that advertising discourse represents a complex, dynamic and polycentric

macrocategory, composed of smaller communicative acts, which despite lack of physical resemblances become unified thanks to their common goal of grasping consumers attention. Moreover, between these specific acts there are visible taxonomic and partonomic interrelations that allow for their systematic organization. In

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view of that let us investigate how subvertisements become an inherent part of this blended structure. Throughout the paper we have emphasized a number of times the visible limitations of pragmatic theories in any analysis of advertising. Elaborated and useful as such investigations may be, their partial disregard for psychological and socio-cultural aspects of communication constrains insightful commentary, especially with regard to the conceptual grounding of speech and its individual instantiations. As for advertising in particular, they result in an erroneous assertion about unidirectionality of the process. We suppose that it would not be the case, if the motivation for the concepts categorization were properly investigated. After all, the defining features of advertising discourse cannot be taken for granted on the basis of its perceived similarity to other acts of mass communication, which has been proven in the previous chapter with a view to the possibility of a recipients active response. Leaving behind the impact that the conduit metaphor has on our conceptualizations29, we believe that the omission of the cooperative aspect in advertising stems from the fact that the communicative features are mapped onto its concept rather than inherently define it. If so, advertising can be understood and analysed as a fictive communication, or - to use the nomenclature provided within the cognitive linguistic framework - as a fictive interaction blend30 (Pascual 2002). The assumption of advertising being a simplex blend structured by a fusion of the concept and the discursive interaction frame can be supported by the quote from Fauconnier and Turner (2002). The authors state:

29 30

see section II.4.1. as Pascual explains, fictive does not mean fictitious or invented here, but simply conceptual in nature, since such interaction is not actually taking place, i.e. after being construed in our mind, it does not acquire a verbalized form (2008: 79).

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An especially simple kind o f integration network is one in which human cultural and biological history has provided an effective frame that applies to certain kinds of elements as values, and that frame is in one input space and some of those kinds of elements are in the other input space. (ibid. 120) Consequently, we may reason after Pascual that verbal communication provides such an effective frame due to its fundamental character in our everyday life (Pascual 2008: 79). Therefore, in order to achieve more understandable human scale while referring to abstract notions that involve information processing and exchange, we choose communication as the most salient way of their conceptualization (Coulson and Oakley 2006: 54). What facilitates such merging with regard to advertising is the fact that both concepts share the characteristic features of social discourse, driven by the presupposed intention. That is why it seems so easy to find their commonalities, which can be represented in the following way:

Figure III.5 Advertising as a fictive interaction blend 72

Following the Figure III.5, it is noticeable that while conceptualizing advertising in terms of discursive interaction, we, in fact, create a blend, in which some aspects of the interaction frame are mapped onto the corresponding constituents of advertising by means of role-to-value relations. Then, the elements from both inputs are projected and integrated in a blend, which results in the compression of those relations into a unified whole. It is important to note that a subvertisement finds its relevant role in the frame, demonstrated by a recipients response, which emphasizes that, despite its occurrence at different time, it can be compressed into one event with the producers message, then easily projected into the final structure and constitute its coherent part. Moreover, were the general speech frame applied, subverts implementation would not bring any inconsistencies into the blend as well, because the recipients active participation in the process is one of its valid elements. Hence, it is exclusively scholars decision that prompts its omission in the act of forming the ultimate shape of the blended notion. We believe that the presented arguments provide convincing justification for introducing subvertisements as constituents of advertising discourse, pointing in this way to its potential for being a dialog. The next point in our discussion is thus related to the reasons for their actual appearance, which moves us to the lower taxonomic level of advertising, i.e. its specific instantiations. III.3 CONCEPTUAL BLENDING AT THE SERVICE OF MANIPULATION In the previous section we have demonstrated how our conceptualization of advertising is driven by the unconscious process of conceptual integration. We have also explained that the motivation for such a construal results from the human intuitive search for simplification of cognition by making use of readily available, familiar frames so as to grasp what tends to be abstract and elusive (Evans 2006: 419). However, 73

as we will illustrate further on, provision of global insights is not the only function that blending serves. This highly imaginative process works equally well in the production of newly emergent meanings that result from merging two seemingly unrelated notions, which in the actual situation would not be just incompatible but even mutually exclusive. Although the evidence of this operation can be found in many human areas, including novel linguistic expressions, gestures, works of art, religion, jokes and puns, etc., blending with its additive nature has a potential for acquiring negative tinge, especially while engaged in manipulative rhetoric. Within the field of advertising in particular, it facilitates building desirable, and strong, associations with a brand, usually by its juxtaposition with positive values (thus, a tampon may become the girls best friend, a cleansing agent - bring sexual satisfaction, cosmetics - protect from attack, make-up - release natural beauty, pasteurized milk - come right from a cow, etc.). Accordingly, we argue that during the subverts production, the blending operation is reversed in that the brand becomes deprived of its luring form, turning back into a simple sign. Then, in the process of reintegration it is merged anew, but this time with a harsh, critical commentary, which leads to the creation of a novel, highly negative commercial representation (e.g. coke starts to signify a killer, fast food - a deadly poison, a credit card - slavery, while every advert - the vehicle of mass deception). As a consequence hereto, we may observe that the advertising discourse, while stimulated by dynamic conceptual integration performed by both interlocutors, represents the clash between two extreme construals of the world, which, by definition, stands for an outright manipulation31. However, it reveals only the final manipulative effects of

31

see section III.6

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blending operations, which, in fact, are fueled many minor strategies throughout the whole communicative process. Let us just mention a few most common ones32: 1. Ambiguity Unclear or confusing words and images are the driving force of manipulation in advertising, since they invite consumers to take an active part in the reconstruction of their meanings, which they can seemingly introduce to the advertised message at their own will and according to their own experiences. In this way, there is no explicit obligation to follow one way of interpretation nor an outright urge to purchase. Hence, as Cymanow-Sosin (2010: 63) aptly points out, if an ad is rejected, it is rather for the aesthetic reasons than for semantic conflict inside the message. Still, such a freedom of interpretation is kept within controllable proportions, as advertisers know that filling the gaps in their message is usually done by means of stereotypes, easy connotations and common knowledge, especially when the information is processed in a peripheral way (Cook 2001: 179). The best examples in this case are the already mentioned slogans, i.e. Just do it and Im loving it. In an everyday conversation the word it could stand for any activity or thing whatsoever, but when the above expressions appear in a specific advertising context, it imposes limited interpretations, which could be respectively: just go and buy Nike and Im loving the food served at McDonalds. Moreover, long existence and constant repetition of the phrases in the aforementioned context have made them turn into mnemonic devices that bring a particular brands recollection even when uttered in normal, ordinary situations. This in turn points to the entrenchment of the novel blend in our long-term memory (Sutherland and Sylvester 2000: 17). Nevertheless, the potential of ambiguity for opening the whole range of

32

inspired by Cymanow-Sosin (2010), Cook (2001), Lewiski (1999), Bralczyk (2000), Nowak and Krzyanowski (2004), OShaughnessy (2004)

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different, non-stereotypical mental spaces remains, which culture jammers take immediate advantage of. 2. Non-verifiable facts What follows the ambiguity of facts presented in adverts is the lack of possibility to prove they are wrong, which means that they are non-falsifiable. For instance, when the slogan on the box of Wheaties (a brand of General Mills breakfast cereal) reads Breakfast of Champions and ties the brand with sports stars, who also appear on the package, consumers are unable to prove that those figures do not really eat it, thus give the phrase its credence, and, more importantly, elaborate it as a valid reference to the person portrayed on the box. Furthermore, they subconsciously identify with him/her, supposing that eating the same cereal will make them champions as well. Another example could be the ads for those products, whose actual properties are hardly definable, such as perfumes, cosmetics, etc. In such situations, producers search for solutions in blending their brands with metaphorically grounded effects of their use. It is a very witty way of luring consumers into buying, since they will not find out the actual results until they buy the product and check it by themselves. Moreover, even if they do, their impressions will not have to correspond to those described in ads. After all, as the saying goes: de gustibus non est disputandum. Further instances of this technique include counterfactuals (Cat Confidential: The Book Your Cat Would Want You To Read), application of medicine domain (nine of ten dentists recommend) , pseudoscientific opinions, modification of proverbs, use of well-entrenched metaphors, reference to emotions and many others. All those practices boil down to the fact that the vision, which ads (and subverts) present, is not an objective representation of reality, but constitutes someones personal, strongly subjective perspective, hence by its subconscious acceptance, consumers submit to the producers will. 76

3. Valuation As indicated above, this mechanism is very often applied to advertising so as to deprive consumers of the possibility to use critical logic during the interpretation of the message. Moreover, it is supposed to govern the salience of values and emotions with reference both to the advertised product or service as well as to the potential recipient of an ad. In the former case, its role is to build positive connotations with the brand by its merging with the domains of fun, success, pleasure, or any other optimistic value, which exchanges the products actual value. In this way the recipient is made to feel like being in a state of utter bliss, the obvious cause of which is the advertised item or service. In the latter situation, it is the consumer that becomes praised for his/her good decision of choosing the brand, from which he/she can gain only profits. Finally, by presuppositions the use of valence elaborates on meanings ascribed to neutral words. As a result, what is ordinary becomes plain, grey, simply worse than (outstanding) brands portrayed in ads, what is novel, or new, implies high quality and worth, what is natural presupposes the intrinsic links with nature, thus brings equilibrium, energy and freshness, what is eco becomes healthy or safe for environment, etc. (Luba 2006:161). Surprisingly, the blending power allows for the common appearance of such contradictions as natural hairsprays, eco paints or eco heat, fresh cigarettes, 3D tights, etc., which shows that advertisers impudence has no limits at all. Cook (2001: 226) portrays this fact even better when stating: the values advertising eulogizes - unspoilt nature, traditional crafts, social stability, cultural diversity - are the most threatened by the globalised growth-oriented market economy of which ad is so central a part .

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4. Counterfactuality Even very simple constructions in language depend upon complex blending (Fauconnier and Turner 2002: 25). Consider what first comes to your mind when someone says: Dont think about blue? It is exactly the blue color. It illustrates the fact that in many situations our reasoning is based on counterfactuals, which allows advertisers to manipulate the way we think, especially about the world. To be more specific, the idealized construal of reality with the brand in the foreground prompts us to evoke the imaginary world without it, in which everything goes wrong, i.e. we are unsafe, unhappy, unsuccessful, dissatisfied, and so on33. Obviously, we would feel most comfortable while not pondering on such pessimistic scenarios at all, however, as Bralczyk (2000: 87) aptly points out, then we would not be likely to buy products or use services that could change our life for better. That is why advertisements abound in adjectival phrases as those mentioned in the previous point. Among the most utilized is the adjective safe, which tends to be assigned to anything in order to lull consumers into a false sense of security by following the rule that it is better to be safe than sorry. Thus, there can be safe cars protecting from potential hazards of the roads, safe loans saving from bankruptcy, safe toys for infants, safe condoms for adults, safe sun for skin, even cigarettes can be safe. What makes the adjective so productive? According to Fauconnier and Turner (2002: 25-26), the possibility of its usage with reference to so many divergent notions stems from the fact that the word does not assign a fixed property but, rather, prompts us to evoke scenarios of danger appropriate for the noun and for the context. Such an imaginary scenario, in which someone or something is harmed (e.g. our skin is sunburnt), is the emergent structure of the counterfactual blend, achieved by the assignment of roles from the danger frame to the elements of the
33

on the basis of Fauconnier and Turner (2002: 25-27).

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specific situation (the Sun as a doer of harm, skin as a victim). Ultimately, the word safe implies a disanalogy between this counterfactual blend and the situation depicted in the utterance, which means that the elements of the latter that are matched to the roles in the imaginary blend do not in fact perform those roles (ibid. 26). The matching is based on the oppositions, e.g. the specific safe sun from an ad contradicts the imaginary Sun - doer of harm from the counterfactual blend, subconsciously invented by consumers in the process of deciphering the advertisers message, which is exactly what the latter wants to achieve. Still, this manipulative technique, while carried into extremes, can be easily exposed at a closer reading. It is in fact quite funny that we can choose effective stain removers (as opposed to what? Ineffective ones?), or fail-safe computers (we do not want unreliable ones, do we?), which, nota bene, we should soon exchange with their new (so even better?) versions. However, the most paradoxical cases include helping us to Think by IBM products (just as we could not manage to do it without them), becoming ourselves while drinking Pepsi (so who are we while not drinking it?), or choosing 7Up instead, as Theres no cola like The Uncola 34. 5. Simplifications Trivial as the aforementioned taglines may seem, they wield enormous manipulative powers. Their conventionality, universality and simplicity are not only to facilitate global understanding and memorizing, but primarily to enhance the common intellectual and emotional solidarity with the speakers (Luba 2006: 150). Nevertheless, since they would faster act against the consumers best interests than their own, such a commonality is by nature unidirectional, i.e. these are the producers beliefs and values that become shared by the audience and not the other way round. Thus, even if culture jammers transform the message producing negative commentary, it will never be

34

http://www.adslogans.co.uk/site/pages/home/hall-of-fame.php. Retrieved on 23 January, 2011.

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accepted by the primary speakers and only rarely by the rest of the discursive audience. That is why in this kind of social interaction we are faced with the dichotomy of perspectives, which in turn imposes serious limitations on what is commonly regarded as important. In sum, we become exposed to the illusive world, structured by selective projections from the domains of real life and a brand. In its mild version we may turn into the members of a given age group (e.g. Come Alive! Youre in the Pepsi Generation), or be invited to the estate where the flavor is (as in the slogan Come to Marlboro Country). However, there are also cases, in which a given brand actually stands for our life, like the branded town Celebration, Florida, developed and fully privatized by The Walt Disney Company (Klein 2000: 56). All things considered, it appears that conceptual blending which underlies most, if not all, human activities, may in fact function in two contradictory ways. On the one hand, it smoothes the progress of understanding complex relations between entities by means of compression, enhancing in this way our perception of reality, while on the other hand, it helps to limit this perception by prompting selective projections of aspects subjectively regarded as important, consequently distracting our attention from those that could be equally vital. As broadly discussed above, it is the latter function that prevails in manipulative advertising practices, resulting in the promotion of fragmentary and distorted visions of the world, which we submissively accept. Here, we shall ask what, apart from our cognitive miserliness, makes us succumb to all those impulses that lurk behind informativeness of advertising messages. We assume that the crux of the matter is that: (1) our perception of ads or subverts is prompted by gestalts, which means that we automatically arrange their elements into a unified, coherent whole, not dwelling upon their mutual suitability; (2) as far as the construal of reality is consistent with our general knowledge and socially shared

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experiences, i.e. rests on what Coulson and Oakley (2006: 59) refer to as objects of agreement, we tend to take it on trust without batting an eyelid, more so if the advertised product or service promises to fulfill our needs and keep unhappiness and unrest away from us. The easiest means to win our favor is to persuade us that the offered good is what we cannot go without. Obviously, it does not only mean happiness, pleasure, satisfaction, success, because these are relative and complex values, so the roots of their fulfillment may vary among members of the global heterogeneous audience. Producers, on the other hand, want their message to reach the greatest target possible. The safest solution is then to make their brand satisfy human fundamental, both physiological and spiritual needs, so those for food, health, safety, social acceptance and cultural identification, self-realization, etc. (interestingly, all of the abovementioned

manipulative techniques, including excessive simplifications, ambiguities, even the limited vision of reality, indirectly aim at fulfilling one of such needs, that is human strive for the economization of cognition). When we consider all this against the proverb that a necessity is a mother of invention, such a vision of production and consumerism seems flawless, but we know that manufacturers do not content themselves with it. While material profits come into view, the relation in the proverb becomes reversed - now, it is the constant innovation that gives birth to necessities. Imagine that after years of tremendous cycling to work every morning, you finally decide to buy a brand new car (of course for a special price) - you immediately feel safer, self-confident, respected. But what happens next? The car requires you to fuel it, do regular check-ups, buy winter tires, a seat for your child. It limits your active pursuits, so you have to go on a diet, join a gym or buy a bicycle crunch. Your health and immunity deteriorate, so you need supplements, which may ultimately lead you to

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all sorts of addictions. What then comes to your aid? Of course other products and services, ready to give you a hand in exchange for a small sum of money. In fact businesses based on peoples addictions and weaknesses make biggest profits using least moral measures. They know that once you start, it is very hard to turn back, especially when temptations in the luring form of special offers, discounts, free samples, and finally ads are all around. Such reasoning brings us straight to one of the most highly acclaimed and widely recognized campaigns of the twentieth century, i.e. to the world of ABSOLUT VODKA. III.4 ON THE BRIGHTER SIDE OF THE LIFE - CONCEPTUAL INTEGRATION NETWORKS IN THE ABSOLUT ADS
ABSOLUT loves visions. We love them so much

that we turn visions into realities35. Our choice of the ABSOLUT VODKA advertising campaign for the empirical study was governed by the fact that all its constituent ads, despite their perceived simplicity, form a very productive category, characteristic for its internal coherence, uniform iconicity, powerful resonance in the global culture, and significant effectiveness counted in millions of bottles sold after the appearance of the first printed advertisement in 198036. However, our intention here is not to focus on the final results, but on the means that were the driving force of the brands success. To begin with, let us provide some background information regarding the whole phenomenon, which is required for further, cognitively grounded, analysis.

35 36

http://www.absolut.com/iaaw/. Retrieved on 23 September, 2010. http://press.absolut.com/templates/FAQPage____2904.aspx. Retrieved on 23 September, 2010.

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III.4.1 A few words of introduction37 1) Swedish vodka in America Absolut Rent Brnvin (eng. Absolutely Pure Vodka) was the original name of what is today known and sold as ABSOLUT. It emphasized vodkas major merit, that is the highest possible purity achieved through the complex process of continuous distillation, developed at the end of the nineteenth century in Sweden. Hundred years after launching the product on the domestic market, the decision was made to export it to America. Since the commonality of adjectives in the direct translation of the brandname did not allow for its becoming a trademark, the name was shortened to a single word Absolut and the slogan Country of Sweden was added to additionally emphasize both the spirits origin and its long distillation tradition. 2) The bottle So that the newly introduced product could stand out on the shelf among other brands (not only due to its pretty high price), the choice once more fell on highlighting Swedish originality. The source of inspiration was the traditional medicine bottle, which for more than a century had been a cultural icon in Sweden. While keeping in mind that the first spirits had purely medical applications, the vodka in such a bottle could build ready associations with a cure. Another significant feature was the lack of a label on the product, which allowed for the explicit demonstration of its content and could make the bottle an ad in itself by placing corporate information right on it. 3) The family of heroes Just after two years of launching the advertising campaign, ABSOLUT became the leader among all premium vodkas imported to the States. One of the major reasons

37

on the basis of: Ind (2001); http://absolutad.com/absolut_about/history/story/, http://www.absolut.com/. Retrieved on 23 September, 2010.

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for such a success was the departure from the existing conventions regarding the promotion of alcoholic beverages. When most of existing ads depicted alcohol in the close vicinity of half-naked women, distracting the consumers attention from the product, Absolut decided to break this rule, focusing on the uniqueness of the bottle, the quality of its contents and a ready to use brand-name, at the same time avoiding a direct reference to any specific target group or lifestyle (Ind 2001: 18). This is how the concept of an ad was born, followed by thousands of imaginative productions, all with the basic idea of interpreting things from the ABSOLUT VODKA perspective38. The bottle soon acquired its own personality, encapsulating the brands most distinctive features by means of an accurate blend. III.4.2 Simple message - multilayered blend Others may call their product a hero, but we take a step further by living up to the claim in our advertising and communication39.

The original objective of the ABSOLUT VODKA advertising campaign was to merge visual effects with a verbal representation of the brands major values: Clarity, Simplicity and Perfection40. Hence, the first ads depicted (1) an image of the bottle, placed in the spotlight against a black background, and (2) a witty caption in the form of an adjectival phrase, consisting of the brands name and something complementary referring to the product or its producer (Ind 2001: 19).

38

http://www.absolut.com/content/about/pdf/en/ABSOLUT_The_STORY.pdf. Retrieved on 10 May, 2011. 39 http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/aiming-for-an-absolut-victory/articleshow/421314.cms. Retrieved on 10 May, 2011.

40

http://www.absolut.com/content/about/pdf/en/ABSOLUT_The_STORY.pdf. Retrieved on 10 May, 2010.

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Simple though the theme may seem, it is the outcome of construing the sophisticated conceptual integration network, based on three major blends, presented on the following schematic ad and subsequently discussed below.

Figure III.6 Composition of a schematic Absolut ad. 1. Visual representation of the bottle (Integration of Part-Whole Vital Relation)

Figure III.7 Representation of the bottle as a simplex blend 85

Whereas some linguists would stop on claiming that this is an example of metonymy, so the representation of the whole category by means of one of its constituents, Fauconnier and Turner go further, providing a more thorough explanation of the process, the outcome of which is a metonymic blend. It thus constitutes the result of compressing the connection between two counter-parts located in different mental spaces into the vital relation in a single blended space, characterized by the emergence of uniqueness (Fauconnier and Turner 2002: 97). In this particular case, we have a network constructed by mapping the whole Absolut brand onto the capture of its most salient part, i.e. the bottle. In the blend, those two get fused and the bottle acquires the identity of the brand. The outer-space relation between the brand and the bottle becomes compressed into uniqueness in the blended space. Important for the purposes of advertising is that fact that the image of the bottle is enough to bring a whole range of associations with the vodkas producer. 2. First half of the caption (ABSOLUT)

Figure III.8 Integration of the brands values with lexical co ncepts of the word absolut 86

As has already been said, the Swedish word absolut corresponds to English absolutely, absolute, etc. Although bringing foreign touch to the captions phrase, its meaning is not hard to decode. Consequently, choosing such a commonly reappearing lexical item as a trademark allows its concepts to be mapped onto the corresponding features of the brand and constitute the generic space of the integration network of Figure III.8. Accordingly, the product and its selected attributes become established in the first input space, while the lexical item absolut and the range of conventional meanings associated with it in the second one. The two mental spaces are connected by the vital relation, which we would call value-lexical item relation. At this point, it is worthy of note that the established connection differs from the one presented in the previous example in that it is not just a simple metonymic correspondence between the concept of the whole brand and its salient part, i.e. its name, since uniqueness is not the only added value emerging from the blending process. Prompted by backward projections to the input spaces in the phase of elaboration, the recruitment of a new structure concerns both of them, changing not only our understanding of the brand, but also modifying the content of the category associated with the word absolut, which brings us to the first signs of serious manipulation 41. To be more specific, as a result of running the blend we are faced with the increase in the salience of the product (by tying it with the frequently used word), but more importantly - as we believe - with the entrenchment of the new value (that of the brand) in the common category absolut. Last but not least, as far as the impact of the blend on our perception of the brand is concerned, the lexical concepts of the word prompt us to assume that once the brand has been juxtaposed with a particular value in an ad, the connection is

41

see section II.5.3

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indisputably valid in all situations and will remain so forever. Moreover, in the full caption not only the brand but also those added values acquire meanings associated with the word absolut, e.g. in the case of ABSOLUT PERFECTION, the first part of the phrase refers both to the universal, timeless brand and to the absolute character of the feature ascribed to it. 3. Adverts and subverts (the emergence of axiological extremism) The major and most complex integration network that underlies all sorts of representations constituting the Absolut advertising discourse (including both ads and subverts) is ingrained in their structure as a whole. The construal of reality, which is brought into light after those messages have been sent to the audience, differs with respect to the speaker, but in each case turns toward the verge of axiological axis (see Figure III.9 below). It means that the ads produced on behalf of the Absolut Company focus on merging the brand with the domains of positive notions or those which may increase its salience by the reference to the contemporary culture, but always fully hiding the products destructive attributes when overconsumed. Whereas in the case of subverts the vision of the world consists exclusively of pessimistic, depressing and damaging aspects of the consumption domain, boiling down to a strong disapproval of the practices of the former side of a discourse as well as of those who have decided to consume the product (just to mention ABSOLUT: CORRUPTION, STUPIDITY, AA,
LIVER FAILURE, TRAGEDY, DEATH, see Appendix 1).

In either way, the view of reality becomes significantly simplified by (1) the selectiveness of projections from the input representing the brands category and (2) encouraging the audience to complete the emergent message with knowledge from the readily available, easily understood and effectively motivating domains (Coulson and Oakley 2006: 56-57). At this point we just want to make a general comment that such 88

discrepancies do not come out of the blue, but are based on differences in the interpretation of reality that individuals taking part in the social discourse can still explicitly demonstrate. So as to elaborate further on that phenomenon, let us narrow the analysis to the specific instances.

Figure III.9 Axiological discrepancies in the Absolut advertising discourse III.4.3 Absolut messages in the Advertising Hall of Fame 1. ABSOLUT ART The most successful artists are those who can most successfully sell their art (BLF Manifesto, emphasis mine 42). The examination of the Absolut advertising project would be incomplete without mentioning the interpretation of the bottle produced by Andy Warhol - probably the most iconic figure in pop art of the twentieth century. His commission in 1985 opened a new series, which comprised hundreds of ads painted by various artists, including Britto, Arman, Haring, Scharf and many others. The person of Warhol - an advocate of placing commerce in art - played a crucial role in redefining both the

42

http://www.billboardliberation.com/manifesto.html/. Retrieved on 6 May, 2010.

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concept of high art and of an Absolut ad, which partially acquired its artistic qualities. Since then the brand has gone from a popular vodka to pop art , tightly merging with what seemed to be far from marketing, i.e. taste, refinement and cultural avantgarde43. Year after Warhol, another icon of pop and street art was asked to paint an advertisement for Absolut. It was Keith Haring, an artist and social activist, whose major intention was to turn the art toward the common public. Hence, he crossed the barriers between high and low ar t by Figure III.10 Harings symbol - Radiant Baby producing chalk drawings and murals around the whole world as well as selling his works in the form of various gadgets for a very symbolic sum of money44. Additionally, he took part in a number of social events and a few marketing campaigns, which he was particularly fond of, as they brought him desired global recognition, not only among demanding connoisseurs. Haring drawings, characterized by simple outlines, bold lines, active figures and multiple colors, all referred to in his iconic Radiant Baby (see Figure III.10 above), which due to its reappearance in many different works soon became Harings trademark, encapsulating such universal values as vitality, unity, purity and innocence 45. Finally, the simplicity and directness of his message allowed the common viewer appreciate works of art, which had a powerful overtone also in relation to the Absolut brand. Equipped with this background knowledge, let us see how conceptual blending works in the case of Harings painting depicted in Figure III.11.

43 44

http://absolutad.com/absolut_about/history/advertising/. Retrieved on 16 June, 2010. http://www.haring.com/about_haring/bio/index.html. Retrieved on 9 February, 2011. 45 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Haring; http://www.haring.com/. Retrieved on 9 February, 2011.

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Figure III.11 Absolut Haring ad

Figure III.12 The conceptual integration of Absolut Haring ad 91

We believe that the first two input spaces embrace high and public art respectively, before the two have been merged by the work of Keith Haring. Hence, in the first mental space we can recognize such elements as an artist, his specific work produced as a result of some creative stimulus, those who admire it characterized by a good taste, etc. Input 2 consists of their counterparts, i.e. Haring as a painter, unique characteristics of his oeuvre, its given instantiation, its commercial character and common public as an audience, all of which are linked with those of the first input on the common grounds of schematic notions constituting art in general, being thus embedded in the generic space of the preliminary integration network. In Blend 1 the elements of the two inputs are fused into the popularized form of art with a particular work of Haring, its specific style and message, as well as with a common viewer turned into a connoisseur, all of which constitute the emergent structure of the blend. With the introduction of commerce into the network by means of Input 4, represented by the brand of Absolut, the first blend becomes Input 3 in the whole process of meaning creation. The concept of an artful Absolut ad as well as the person of Haring, who created it, invites the readers to regard the vodka as a premium product, a source of inspiration for artists and most importantly as a spirit, whose consumption will make them feel as connoisseurs themselves. However, the outcome of the whole ABSOLUT ART collection, driven by its description as imaginary museum on a theme, commissions from more than four hundred artists, representing all possible fields from photography, through sculpture up to woodwork and design, and even exhibitions organized around the world is not as simple as that depicted by the final blend 46. In view of the whole phenomenon, the Absolut brand claims and can be perceived to be not just an advocate of art, but its co-

46

http://www.absolut.com/content/about/pdf/. Retrieved on 10 May, 2010

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creator, distracting consumers attention from the very plain, bland contents that have no particular taste, no color and are hard to be differentiated from other brands when added to a drink (Ind 2001: 17).

Figure III.13 Absolut Doonan ad

2. ABSOLUT FASHION Another way to win consumers favour and build ready connotations between the brand and connoisseurship, prestige and refinement, was to place the product in the world of fashion. As a result of cooperation with many famous designers (e.g. David Cameron, Tom Ford, Stella McCartney and Jean-Paul Gaultier), the image of Absolut appeared on clothes, accessories, even catwalks. The whole campaign was accompanied by advertisements placed in highly acclaimed fashion magazines. Soon the attributes of models that promoted the product moved to the product itself.

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Figure III.14 Absolut 90-60-90 ad (above) and its conceptual single-scope integration network (below)

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The conceptual integration network of Figure III.14 represents how the concept of Absolut brand could be merged with the concept of a beauty queen by the vital relation of ANALOGY. However, to make the connection possible, the crown from Input 2 has to be conceptualized as a metonymic blend, i.e. be pre-personified via compression of the PART-WHOLE relation. The same goes with measurements of the perfect body (90-60-90) constituting the second part of the caption. Hence, Input 2 includes a simplex blend, in which the notion of beauty contests was mapped onto its salient constituents, i.e. the defining attributes of a beauty queen, including her bustwaist-hip measurements and a crown. This preliminary operation have brought projections from both pre-existent inputs, so that in the present network the notion of beauty competition compressed to the image of the crown and measurements of the model can be evoked in Input 2. Correspondingly to Input 2, the first mental space has a pre-existent metonymic blend attached to it, which denotes the concept of the brand compressed into the image of the bottle, as thoroughly described in section III.4.2. We believe that in the case of this particular ad its creators wanted to highlight brands perfection and the outstanding shape of its most salient constituent - the bottle by putting it on a pedestal among all other spirits, which in turn justifies the introduction of a market competition frame into the Input 1. In this way it comprises not only the bottle and the brand-name, explicitly portrayed on the ad, but the scenario of Absolut taking part in the contest for the best vodka, or even alcohol. Our reasoning is based on the fact that very often the situation on the market is metaphorically perceived as a sort of contest, sometimes even war, in which the winner gains the approval of the majority of consumers and thus stands out among the rest, taking the market over. Accordingly, the loser, unable to keep the pace imposed by the leaders, goes into the shadow, striving not to be driven out of business by market forces. Hence, companies

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entering the contest with the new product have to struggle for survival by using various well- thought-out strategies ranging from the introduction of constant improvements to the product, through endless repetition of commercial messages supposed to keep consumers interest , up to already described manipulation. Still, the companies have to be careful with them so as not to break the rules by unfair practices, which can bring the intervention of authorities, who in turn may impose a penalty on the corporation, depriving it of its high position. Conversely, those companies, which utilize the aforementioned strategies most effectively (and in accordance with the law), stay in the race by their products being selected and consumed. Although a beauty contest differs from the market competition, there are some visible correspondences that can be established between the two by the vital relation of ANALOGY, illustrated in the Figure by means of cross-space mappings. The schematic representation of the counter-parts selected from the two Inputs appears in the generic space, which in our opinion also serves as the source domain for the conventionalized metaphor STRUGGLE FOR CONSUMER IS A RACE, recognized in Input 1. The generic structure from the generic space together with the specific structure of the Inputs are projected to the final Blend, with the prevailing frame of a beauty contest, which in the phase of completion enhances our understanding of the scenario. The emergent structure resulting from elaboration, in which the contest for the beauty queen is won by Absolut, allows the audience to perceive it as the tastiest, purest, simply perfect premium brand best of all competing on the market. Moreover, since being a winner corresponds to gaining a wide acclaim, buying and drinking Absolut Vodka makes the consumer feel like grasping the best of all and in this way rises his/her selfesteem.

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The concept of a perfect body is tightly related to admiring it, which moves us to the next Absolut ad, which appeared as a fold-out in one of Playboy issues.

Figure III.15 Tailor-made Absolut ad (above) and its conceptual integration network (below).

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The above single-scope network consists of two Inputs, elements of which belong to completely distinct domains, i.e. the domain of alcoholic drinks and the domain of mens magazines respectively, yet become easily linked in the blended space by means of ROLE-VALUE compression. This would probably not be the case, had it not been for the appearance of an ad, which shows that the common grounds between the two domains can be creatively established. Specifically, Input 1 contains the Absolut ad with its typically recurring elements, i.e. the bottle (which for the purposes of the present ad is deprived of its lettering), exposed in the middle of a bright spotlight and surrounded by a dark background, as well as the caption, which includes the brands name and points to the specific place of ads appearance - importantly, it is also the middle, this time of a particular magazine. Input 2, on the other hand, is structured by the frame of a mens magazine, thus embraces such elements, as: the photograph of a womans stripped naked body captured in a provocative pose, a male reader who admires the body, his probable sexual arousal, the place in a magazine in which the photograph appears, as well as some background information regarding womans measurements, interests, etc. During the process of blending, which in this case is supposed to provide more human scale necessary for grasping the meaning of otherwise hardly definable product, the elements from Input 2 are mapped onto their imaginatively established counter-parts from Input 1, and projected to the blend, in which the outer-space ROLE-VALUE relation (Playmate - the bottle) is compressed into unique personification of the bottle. It is worthy of note that the blended space is structured exclusively by the frame of Input 2, since it is rather nudity that comes to mind in the phase of elaboration than a given alcohol, which, being deprived of a label, is additionally underspecified. Hence, we argue that it is a single-scope integration network.

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The present ad is the next example of manipulating the audience, since the light, in which the brand is presented, brings not only better comprehension of the product enriching it with human attributes, but at the same time a very specific one. An appeal to sex in this case is so strong that the frame of corporate industry has no chance to come into view. So those, to whom the message goes, are subconsciously driven to some sort of sexual arousal, which usually does not appear by simple looking at the bottle of alcohol.

Due to the fact that the brand has never restricted communication to one and only one target group (in this case a male consumer), in the collection we can find also some ads dedicated especially for women, the example of which is presented on Figure III.16.

Figure III.16 Absolut Chippendales ad

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III.5 HOW SUBJECTIVE PROJECTIONS MAY SAVE US FROM SUBMISSIVENESS. THE EMERGENCE OF CRITICAL INTERPRETATIONS If we all understood everything in the same way, there would be no point in communicating at all (OShaughnessy 2004: 5) Among various reasons of ads ineffectiveness lies the fact that every individual, even though being a cognitive miser, has his/her own interpretation of reality, which may clash with what producers try to communicate in their commercial messages. The discursive community is not made of idealists, who blindly believe in the salutary effects of a product or service, but check the provided information in the process of decoding by activating their knowledge gained from personal experiences. As a consequence, they can either agree with the message, or reject it as being unreliable, inconsistent with their worldview, or simply untrue, which may bring an implicit dissatisfaction or an outright disapproval in the form of an explicit response. There is of course the fourth option, characterized by an unwillingness to give the message any sort of attention, which does not bring any conscious action on the part of the recipient. In view of that I would divide the audience of an advertising discourse into four groups, whose actions after receiving the advertising message correspond to the way they approach it and influence the nature of the whole communicative process. To put it in pragma-cognitive terms, there are recipients who: 1) do not care about the message, thus do not activate any conscious mental processes to decode it; the channel is closed after the message has been sent; the discourse does not lead directly to a purchase of an advertised good or service; 2) care enough to interpret the message, but without activating critical mental processes, which results in the completion and elaboration of the blend

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encapsulated in an ad in accordance with the producers wishes; the discourse ends up in a subconscious submissiveness and possibly a purchase; 3) care more than an average recipient, completing the blend ingrained in the message with a personal background knowledge that point to ads unreliability or inconsistence with what the recipient perceives as true and valid, which moves the elaboration process along a different trajectory, bringing the emergent structure not intended by the producer; the message meets with a critical response, but not explicitly stated; there is no purchase following the discourse; 4) care so much to use the communicative competence in order to take a negative stance on the producers message; the process of interpretation goes as in point 3) with such difference that the recipients response is explicitly expressed by the same means as utilized by the sender; the open channel is used to provide a critical commentary. In view of those four possibilities with respect to the continuation of the advertising discourse, we suggest the following schema as the representation of how the communicative process may be completed. Recipient (1) - no interpretation thus no conscious response Recipient (2) - favourable interpretation, indirect response, ads success Producer message (ad) Recipient (3) - critical interpretation, no explicit response, ads failure Recipient (4) - critical interpretation, explicit response, ads failure

direct response (subvert) other recipients of a discourse community Figure III.17 Possible continuations of an advertising discourse 101

Since the recipients active response belongs to the focal points of the present paper, let us now move to a cognitive analysis of subvertisements as specific instances of a critical commentary. In the first place, we would like to emphasize that such a critical commentary emerges from conceptual integration that itself emerges from different line of reasoning than the one used by the sender. To be more specific, our preliminary hypothesis is that the failure of an ad in luring consumers into the purchase does not depend on the unwillingness to integrate and elaborate the cognitive model in a way that yields the desired emergent structure and affective responses, as argued by Coulson and Oakley (2006: 56, emphasis mine), but rather on the incongruity of interlocutors construals, appearing already in the stage of pattern completion. In our opinion, this is the turning point in interpreting an ad, which may stop the elaboration of the ads scenario according to the producers wishes. Thus, taking into account the same authors reasoning that the potential for emergence of a new content is equally relevant to all stages of meaning construction, after the critical completion of the integrated scenario the process of running the blend (as intended by the producer) loses its raison dtre as being in conflict with the recipients knowledge (Grady, Coulson & Oakley 1999). Accordingly, we assume that the recipients negative response emerges from the following interpretative model: 1) composition of elements from the originally construed input spaces as represented on an ad (e.g. Absolut juxtaposed with a Playmate); 2) completion of the blended elements with the background knowledge based on personal experiences rejection of the blend (the bottle cannot be a naked

woman and arouse desire); 3) disintegration of the blended elements (the brand becomes deprived of its luring form, turns into a sign without an added value);

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4) reintegration involving subjective composition, completion and elaboration of the blend, which consists of selective projections from two major inputs (e.g. Absolut Space and Impotent Drinker Space). Such projections comprise the elements corresponding to negative aspects of a given brand encapsulated in the first major input (yet prohibited from entering the blend in the case of the producers message), and juxtaposed by cross-space mappings with elements from the second input, constituting partial structure of some negatively marked domain emergence of a subvertisement (optional).

Here, it is worthy of note that as a result of the critical interpretation of an ad, almost none of the optimality principles constraining the meaning construction (in the sense of Fauconnier and Turner 2002) becomes satisfied, thus the original blend simply cannot work effectively. In particular: - the original scenario from the blended space is not elaborated into a well-integrated scene (the integration principle fails); - there are no connections between the final blend and the original inputs (the web principle fails); - topology of the original inputs (so the relations between and within them) is not preserved in the final blend (the topology principle fails); - elements in the final blend are irrelevant to what was intended by the original integration (the relevance principle fails) 47. Having provided the theoretical basis for our understanding of conceptual integration exploited in the process of critical interpretation of an ad, let us provide a number of examples that seem supportive for our claims.

47

on the basis of Fauconnier and Turner (2002: 327-333).

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III.5.1 Absolut Impotence subvert 48

Figure III.18 Absolut Impotence subvert (above) and its conceptual integration network (below) In the subvertisement in Figure III.18 we can find many correspondences to the prototypical structure of most Absolut ads. Specifically, it also depicts the bottle of Absolut Vodka placed in the middle of attention against a bright spotlight as well as a caption composed of the bra nds name and an added value. Thus, the introductory multilayered blend that we have described in relation to Absolut ads (see section III.4.2) seems readily applicable in this case as well. Still, in view of the negatively marked notion that complements t he brands name and results in conceptualizing the presented bottle as a bodily organ that droops, it should pose no particular difficulty to ascertain

48

since the above subvertisement corresponds to the billboard campaign aimed at persuading people not to smoke that has been thoroughly discussed in Fauconnier and Turner (2002: 81-82), the authors reconstruction of its conceptual integration network served as an incentive to the present deliberations.

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that the above image is not the creation of an advertiser, but rather of a critical viewer, who tries to downgrade the image of the brand.

Moreover, the quotation placed under the caption, which reads: DRINK PROVOKES THE DESIRE BUT TAKES AWAY THE PERFORMANCE WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE additionally supports the abovementioned line of interpretation, by referring to the cause of such health problems, i.e. the excessive drinking. As far as the blending process necessary for the emergence of the scenario is concerned, we believe that it begins with the introduction of two basic input spaces, i.e. the Drinking Man space and the Impotent Man space. The constituents of the first input include a schematic heavy drinker, who has been overconsuming alcohol for a longer period of time, a bottle filled with the alcohol that can be metonymically perceived as the cause of specific health problems, and a strong desire for having 105

another shot associated with addiction to an alcoholic beverage. During the composition all those elements become merged with their counter-parts from the second input by means of the CAUSE-EFFECT vital relation. It means that an impotent man maps onto a drinker, his health problems correspond to an excessive consumption of an alcoholic beverage, the metonymic effect of which (penis that droops) refers to the indirect cause of impotence, i.e. the bottle, whereas the lack of sexual activity stemming from impotence correlates with the primary reason of reaching out for the product. In the blend that emerges from such mappings (Blend 1), the cause and effect become fused by compression of the outer-space relation into the inner-space one, so that we receive the bottle that droops. Due to the elaboration of the blend, a drinker turns into an impotent. Since the subvertisement points to a specific brand of alcohol, Blend 1 becomes an input space (Input 3) in the next phase of blending, in which it is juxtaposed with the Absolut Vodka mental space, so Input 4. As a result of projecting the bottle and the penis from the Impotent Drinker space together with the Absolut bottle from Input 4 corresponding to the former elements by ROLE-VALUE vital relation, we come to the final blended space, which comprises the image of the Absolut product as depicted on Figure III.18 as well as the idea that drinking it brings effects disastrous for mans health. This is where the recipients critic lies. We could argue that the message is the alternative elaboration of the scenario depicted in the Absolut Centerfold ad, in which the bottle was also perceived as the object of desire, enhancing the value of the brand. Notwithstanding, it did not allow the frame of addiction and health deterioration enter the blend, hence with the backward projections involved in the present integration network, the conflict appears with regard to the Absolut Vodka mental space, which asks for the revision of the promoted implications of the original ads.

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Worthy of note, the present subvertisement does not clarify the picture of the brand, but in a manipulative way moves the salience of the products attributes to the opposite end of axiological axis. There is neither objectivity, nor the provision of important global insights in work here, but rather a strong incentive to fully give up drinking Absolut Vodka, which consumed in small doses is not harmful at all. III.5.2 Absolut End subvert The next negative outcome of drinking Absolut Vodka (just as any other alcoholic beverage) that the culture jammers eagerly depict on their messages is associated with the common practice performed by drivers, i.e. driving under the influence. Although results of such behaviour may range from small scratches to serious injuries, social activists usually omit mild cases moving straight to the extreme scenario which ends up in death. Their
Figure III.19 Absolut Drunk subvert

shocking commentaries abound in the drastic illustrations of fatal accidents, one of which we would like to focus on now.

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Figure III.20 Absolute End subvert (above) and its conceptual integration network (below)

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Although in this subvert there is no direct linguistic reference to the Absolut brand, some visible metalinguistic correspondences to its commercial messages can easily be pointed out. We think that the most salient ones include: (1) the shape of a bottle drawn in the centre and (2) the caption written with the same font type as in the case of an original Absolut ad, which moreover consists of the English equivalent of the brands name and the value it refers to . Since the value metaphorically denotes death, which is supported by the presented image, our doubts regarding its being a response to the Absolut Companys message become fully dispelled. Next, our assurance about alcohol (and even the messages that promote it) taking an active part in the scenario, which results in a fatal road accident as depicted in the image, is complete when the statistics that underlie the caption are read. They go as follows: Nearly 50% of automobile fatalities are linked to alcohol. 10% of North Americans are alcoholics. A teenager sees 100,000 alcohol ads before reaching the legal drinking age (emphasis mine). In view of that we may generally understand the whole message as pointing to the deadly effects of drinking alcohol (more specifically - Absolut Vodka) before sitting behind the wheel. We believe that the proper reconstruction of the conceptual integration network that has led to the creation of the abovementioned scenario should begin with deciphering the meaning of the caption (of course, in view of the remaining constituents of the subvert). In our understanding it is composed of two blends in itself. Due to the fact that the first of them regards value-lexical item compression, which has been thoroughly discussed in point 2 of section III.4.2, we will not give it a lot of our attention here. The only thing to add is that the value deprived of a Swedish touch (absolut became exchanged for absolute) does not lose its correspondence to the brand, which allows for the inner-space compression just as in the case of original ads. 109

This in turn emphasizes that our earlier supposition regarding the entrenchment of connotations between the lexical item and the trademark, even in the context that lacks a direct reference to the product, acquires solid grounds. The second blend lying behind the caption in our view involves the integration of two lexical concepts of the word END, i.e. literal and metaphorically extended one, which brings about the first input spaces constituting the analysed network (Input 1 and 2 of Figure III.20). In particular, taking into account the theme of a car journey undertaken by a drunk driver, which underlies the presented scenario, we may argue that the word END refers to its sudden termination caused by an accident. Such meaning carried by the item together with other elements selected from the domain of drunk driving (such as a driver, a car crash and a chalk outline of a body drawn on the road) form the structure of Input 1. However, while keeping in mind that the notion of a journey may well apply to life as a whole on the basis of a highly conventionalized metaphor LIFE IS A JOURNEY, the immediate retrieval of its mappings allows the word from the caption stand for the end of a drivers life (especially when the lexical concept of its neighboring adjective absolute is considered) . Due to the fact that the metaphor is as readily and automatically evoked as the domain partially activated in Input 1, since it already constitutes stable structures available for exploitation, its emergent inferences can in turn be utilized to structure Input 2 (Grady, Oakley, Coulson 1999). In the process of meaning construction, the constituents of this metaphoric mental space are mapped onto its counter-parts from the first input by figurative crossspace mappings, so that the drinkers life corresponds to a particular car ride, the end of his/her life matches the end of this ride (as resulting from an accident), whereas his/her dead body relates to the chalk outline drawn on the road. It is worthy of note that what prompts such juxtapositions is the explicit linguistic cue provided by the phrase

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automobile fatalities placed under the caption. After the elements from both inputs have been merged, they are projected to the blend together with the schematic structure from generic space, which comprises the source domain of the metaphor (i.e. a journey), and fused into one scenario. Through elaboration the scenario results in the creative extension of the conventional metaphor - the drunk drivers journey ends up in death. Next, the Absolut Vodka space (Input 4) is recruited to the network and brings specification of particular elements from Blend 1. By means of ROLE-VALUE suppression, we learn that the driver has been drinking Absolut before sitting behind the wheel, which can be determined on the basis of the specific shape of its bottle that stands for the outline of a dead drinkers body. Such a drawing, which fuses the dead body (effect) with the Absolut bottle (cause), appears in the final blend as the compression of the CAUSE-EFFECT vital relation and brings the emergent structure, which is a strong criticism of drunk driving in general, as implied by the statistics under the caption, but also of the specific brand, whose drinking may lead to death. When those implications get projected back to the mental space of Absolut Vodka, just as in the case of the previous subvertisement there is a conflict of what is expected from the brand on the grounds of its ads and what are the possible outcomes of its consumption. Finally, partiality of projections to the final scenario, functioning as a portrayal of disastrous effects of the product when consumed in a specific situation, resounds throughout the whole category, modifying its content and in consequence the brands image in the consumers eye.

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CONCLUSIONS
Advertising is an extremely powerful tool, ubiquitous and pervasive in todays consumer culture. In line with the expansion of public communication through mass media, in which advertisers voice seems one of the loudest now, advertising has evolved from the indicator of global culture into its creator. Who we are - as a modern community of consumers - is tied with the verbo-visual image communicated through ads. It is important to realize, however, that the depiction of reality in this kind of discourse, due to its channeling toward a distant and heterogeneous audience, is enormously simplified. The world, as we see it in ads, is meticulously crafted by linguistic and metalinguistic means that allow for its aspectual representation. Thus, we are confronted with messages, in which elements of positively marked domains get exaggeratedly highlighted and then linked with the advertised product to imbue it with desirable qualities, bringing to the advertising discourse the hallmarks of an outright manipulation. What underlies such a fusion of unrelated notions, providing a new emergent value, is a human mental capacity called conceptual blending, which has been discussed in the present paper on the basis of the Absolut advertising campaign. Interestingly, the analysis of subvertisements from the same discourse has demonstrated that such an integration process may also be reversed, i.e. that two tightly merged concepts (in this case represented by the Absolut brand and a positive or culturally salient value) may be split and depicted in a new light (here, by the juxtaposition of the brand with a negative commentary, denoting all the worlds evil). Moreover, as has been proven further, disintegration of the blend can, and do, take place yet on the stage of completion, tied with the introduction of the recipients

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critical judgments during the interpretation of the message. The result is that the integration network construed by the advertisers on behalf of manufacturers does not correspond to one prompted by the careful examination of the reliability of the ad, but is suspended until the new, negatively marked input space is introduced and followed by the reintegration, which brings the opposite emergent structure to the one, represented by the criticized ad. The present investigations also illustrated how, by transforming the message of an advert by implementing critical, harsh and often controversial elements into its structure, the groups of social activists become the active recipients in media communication, changing its unidirectional character into a discursive interaction. By this tenet, due to the significant discrepancies between the interlocutors intentions , both of whom manipulate the worldview of a mass audience by limiting it to the axiological extremes, todays consumers get exposed to the bipolarity within the representation of worldly phenomena, which become either purely white or inky black. What follows is that the blending process, which is said to enhance human understanding of the reality, providing global insights into its complexities, may well capture them within a bubble of ideal perfection merged with deadly poisons, sins and death.

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APPENDIX 1 Absolut subvertisements exemplars

ABSOLUT CONSPIRACY

ABSOLUT CURE

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ABSOLUT AA

ABSOLUT ON ICE

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ABSOLUT END

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STRESZCZENIE
W dobie intensywnego rozwoju mass mediw, reklama staa si potnym narzdziem wpywu, nie tylko odzwierciedlajcym, ale przede wszystkim kreujcym wspczesn kultur masow. Okrelony w niniejszej pracy mianem manipulacyjnego aktu komunikacyjnego, przekaz reklamowy przedstawia niezwykle uproszczony obraz wiata, oparty na dychotomii biae - czarne, z podkreleniem pozytywnej czci skali wartociowania w odniesieniu do produktu. Pomimo, i opisana aspektowo spotyka si z obojtn postaw wikszoci odbiorcw, prowadzc do jednokierunkowoci tego typu komunikacji, nie naley takowego rezultatu wpisywa w definicj omawianego pojcia. Bezporednia ingerencja w przekaz ze strony antyglobalistw, polegajca na przeniesieniu wartoci produktu na przeciwlegy biegun wspomnianej skali, udowadnia bowiem, e interakcja w reklamie ma racj bytu. Celem pracy jest dowiedzenie prawdziwoci powyszej tezy w oparciu o pragma-kognitywn teori amalgamatw retorycznych (rhetorical blends),

wyrastajc z jzykoznawstwa kognitywnego, a rozwijan w oparciu o pragmatyczn analiz dyskursu. Praca koncentruje si zatem na przedstawieniu, z jednej strony, konceptualnej operacji stapiania poj (conceptual integration), lecej u podstaw budowania podanego wizerunku marki. Z drugiej, natomiast, na ukazaniu, i proces stapiania nie koczy si wraz z dostarczeniem wiadomoci do odbiorcy, lecz moe by przerwany na etapie krytycznej analizy, a nastpnie odwrcony na niekorzy produktu, w wyniku wyselekcjonowania innej grupy atrybutw z jego kategorii (uprzednio zakamuflowanych przez reklamodawcw ca gam technik manipulacyjnych), oraz ponownego zespolenia produktu z pojciami wartociujcymi negatywnie.

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